Greater Brussels consists of 19 municipalities. On the first half of our sightseeing bus tour we toured the central portion and the European Quarter of the City of Brussels plus the municipality of Ixelles. For the second half of the tour we headed west and northwest to visit the Laeken neighborhood and the municipalities of Koekelberg, Molenbeek-Saint Jean, Jette and Ganshoren.
From the Central Station we headed west down the hill past the Cathedral and the Royal St Hubert Gallery and toward our hotel on Blvd Anspach . Then we turned north to tour the northwestern suburbs.
Brussels was the largest city we visited on our five-country vacation (though metropolitan Cologne is much larger than metropolitan Brussels). It was also the smoggiest and the most traffic-congested. I guess all of those facts go together. I think the tour was supposed to take about an hour and a half but because of the end-of-the-day commuter traffic it was close to two hours. Somewhere near the Brussels-Charleroi Canal it took us five minutes to get by one busy intersection that had no signals.
Here are some of the photos I took on this portion of the tour.

Passing Rue Getry (Getrystraat), one of the pedestrian streets leading up from Blvd Anspach. That’s Sainte Catherine Church in the background. The Drug Opera is a three-story pub and restaurant in a building that used to be a drug store and is a block away from the Opera House.

Yes, they drink coke in Brussels. This building stands at the “Y” where Blvd Anspach ends at Place du Brouckere and is near our hotel.

Blvd Leopold II leads to the Sacred Heart Basilica. We looped around Laeken, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Jette and Ganshoren and ended up back at Blvd Leopold II on our return to central Brussels.

We passed this building on Blvd Simon Boliver in the business district (near Gare du Nord / Noordstation).

The Church of Our Lady of Lakean (Eglise Notre-Dame de Lakean / Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk vanvLeaken) stands proudly at the end of Avenue de la Reine.

I didn’t get a good shot of the Royal Palace (too many trees) but managed to shoot a lion at the palace gates.

Leopold I Monument, mausoleum opposite the Royal Palace. Members of the Royal Family are buried here.

It took 15 minutes to drive from the Atomium in Lakean through Jette (where the artist Rene Magritte lived for 24 years) to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Koekelberg. The restaurant on the right is in Ganshoren.

The National Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Basilique Nationale du Sacre-Coeur / Nationale Basiliek van het Heilig-Hart) is the largest Art Deco structure in the world and the fifth largest church in the world.

Hogeschool Universteit-Brussel (HUBrussel) is a Flemish Catholic university. Economics and Business classes are held in English and all other courses are in Dutch.

Le Petit Chateau, once an army barracks, is now the Refugee Center for people seeking asylum in Belgium.
- The steps of The Bourse — a favorite spot for people-watching.
This was our last full day in Belgium. The next day we took the train back to Amsterdam and flew home the following morning.
Even with the modern vehicles driving around, the city has that wonderful historic look.
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