The Grand Place is one of the most important sites in Brussels and almost every visitor and tour comes through at some point during the day. I got there at about 9 o’clock in the morning and I almost had the place to myself. But the crowd grew steadily and by 10 o’clock there were a lot of tour groups standing around, getting in the way of my photos.

The square also doesn’t look too different from the 16th century. Sure, there’s a Starbucks in the lower level of one of the old guild buildings, but the overall architecture hasn’t changed. You can see the designs on the walls that would project out the power of the establishments to the traders in the square.

The Duke’s building is now the Museum of the City of Brussels and has interesting exhibitions inside about the history and geography of the city. I don’t think it’s the most exciting place but it does give you the opportunity to see the inside the building and learn some interesting facts about Brussels.

The most important thing to see at the Grand Place is still the Town Hall and it’s impossible to miss it. It’s is almost 100 metres tall and has a cool 5 metre statue at top of Saint Michael killing a demon. You can’t just wander in and have a look yourself unfortunately, but there are guided tours each day in different languages. It’s worth doing – but we warned that they can be popular in the summer tourist months.

This is a very easy WHS to see - it's in the centre of Brussels (about 10 min walk from the Central train station) and not particularly large. It's also free. It's nice that it doesn't disappoint but it's also not overly spectacular, so you probably don't need to allocate more than an hour.