From the old court to the federal parliament
Walk from the buried Coudenberg Palace to Belgium’s federal parliament and see how a royal garden, a revolution and a new monarchy shaped the same stretch of Brussels.
📍
Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
INTRODUCTION
Stand on Place des Palais with the Royal Palace behind you. The broad walk through Brussels Park points towards another building with columns, the Palace of the Nation. One houses the King’s offices and rooms for state receptions. The other houses Belgium’s federal parliament. You can walk from one front to the other in a few minutes.
The view looks as though it was planned for an independent Belgium. In fact, the park and the building at its far end took shape decades before the country existed. Fighting broke out among these paths in 1830, and the buildings on either side acquired new duties.
Start a little farther back at Place Royale, where the remains of an older court are still visible beneath the pavement.
KEY HISTORICAL MOMENT
On 23 September 1830, troops sent by William I entered Brussels under his son Prince Frederik. The park became a position for the Dutch forces as volunteers fought them in the city. The troops withdrew during the night of 26 to 27 September. On 4 October, the Provisional Government declared independence. The park’s damaged gates, trees and statues took years to put right.
ORIGINS
The dukes of Brabant made their castle on the Coudenberg hill into a princely residence. Under the Burgundian dukes, a great hall rose on the site of today’s Place Royale. Charles V used the palace as a centre of government and abdicated in that hall in 1555.
A fire destroyed much of the complex in 1731. The ruins stood for about four decades before redevelopment made way for Place Royale. Some lower rooms survived beneath the new square, where the ground floor of a later building could sit above the cellars of an earlier one.
The former court grounds also changed. From 1775 to 1783 the architect Barnabé Guimard and court gardener Joachim Zinner helped turn uneven ground into a formal park. They laid out straight avenues and pools, with sculpture along the walks. The public could use the park before the work was finished. In 1817 it became city property.
PALACE AND PARLIAMENT
Under William I of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, work in the 1820s linked houses along the south side of the park to create a palace. Across the park stood a building designed by Guimard for the Sovereign Council of Brabant. It had already changed roles by the Dutch period, when it housed the States General.
The revolution gave both addresses a different purpose. In 1831 the National Congress adopted a constitution, and Leopold I took the oath as the first King of the Belgians on 21 July, in front of the Church of Saint-Jacques-sur-Coudenberg on Place Royale. The former council building became the Palace of the Nation, where the new state’s parliament met.
The Royal Palace is still the monarch’s principal workplace. The King meets political representatives and visiting heads of state there, and the palace staff organise official receptions. At the other end, the Palace of the Nation houses the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate.
A single avenue links the two entrances. The two façades face the same public ground, but the buildings serve different institutions. The people walking between them can cross the park without entering the grounds of either institution.
ACROSS CENTURIES
Leopold II asked Alphonse Balat to enlarge and redesign the palace. Balat’s work included the grand staircase, where white marble steps rise between stone columns. The scale of the approach suited a building that received guests formally. The palace kept rooms from earlier periods as well, including the Large Antechamber from William I’s reign.
Leopold II also wanted a more imposing face towards the park. Work on Henri Maquet’s design began in 1904. It gave the palace the front seen from across the street, set back behind a garden. The work also changed the shape of Place des Palais, taking in a strip on the park side.
Work on the palace continued under Albert I after Leopold II’s death. The result is a building with several construction histories behind a front that looks like a single design. The dates of the rooms and the date of the street façade tell different parts of that story.
INTERESTING FACTS
The Empire Room was once the ballroom of the Austrian imperial representative. Small reliefs show dancing angels making music, a fitting decoration for a room built for court entertainment. William I later enlarged it. The Belgian court still uses the room for ceremonies, including the presentation of credentials by ambassadors.
The BELvue Museum occupies a former hotel on Place des Palais. Its first proprietor, Philippe De Proft, planned to use cellars from the old Coudenberg Palace for storing barrels and casks. The address attracted French aristocrats fleeing the Revolution. Today the museum and the archaeological site share an entrance, bringing the two phases of the property together again.
Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar, the architect of the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, designed the park’s twelve-sided cast-iron bandstand in 1841. It originally stood where the large fountain now sits, near the parliament end of the park. Five years later it was moved away from the axis to a spot among the trees, where it still stands.
The Mirror Room dates to a project begun under Leopold II and finished under Albert I. In 2002, artist Jan Fabre gave it a new feature, covering the ceiling and one chandelier with the iridescent wing cases of jewel beetles. The resulting work, Heaven of Delight, is part of a room still used for palace events.
WHAT TO SEE & DO
Begin on Place Royale, where the uniform fronts frame the square above the Coudenberg remains. If you have time to go underground, use the shared BELvue entrance at 7 Place des Palais. Look for Rue Isabelle, a sloping street that once ran in the open beside the palace.
A visit below ground makes the difference between the old hill and the level square easier to picture. On returning to street level, continue along Place des Palais towards the modern palace frontage.
From the pavement on the park side of Place des Palais, look back at the Royal Palace. The central section comes forward, with long wings extending on either side. From that distance you can take in the breadth of Maquet’s design and see how the forecourt and garden set it apart from the street.
If the palace is admitting visitors, a separate interior visit lets you see the difference in scale between a reception room and the ceremonial staircase.
Enter from Place des Palais and follow the straight central avenue. A short detour to the bandstand brings you into the trees. Back on the main route, pause at the large round basin before the Rue de la Loi gates.
From the basin, look back along the avenue towards the palace, then towards the parliament across the road. The alignment is easier to appreciate here than from either building’s doorstep.
Finish at the park gates on Rue de la Loi, also called Wetstraat. From the park side of the street you have a view of the Palace of the Nation’s columned entrance. Its frontage is more compact than the Royal Palace’s, although the two buildings command opposite ends of the same avenue.
Treat the parliament as an exterior stop on this walk. Consult the Chamber’s visitor information separately if you want to arrange a visit inside.
WHY VISIT?
This route is particularly good for travellers who want to understand why Brussels has an upper town as well as a lower one. On the Grand Place, the Town Hall and guild houses grew around a marketplace. Here a planned square and public garden organise the view, while the route underground shows how much ground was reshaped to make that possible.
The two districts are close enough to compare on the same outing. The Brussels history guide helps fit both into a longer visit.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Start at Place Royale, or reverse the walk from Parc metro station on lines 1 and 5. If you are arriving by train, the route from Brussels-Central climbs towards Place Royale. Trône, on metro lines 2 and 6, is another option near the palace end.
On maps, look for Parc de Bruxelles or Warandepark. The Royal Palace is on Place des Palais, also called Paleizenplein.
Allow about 45–60 minutes for the outdoor route, including time to stop and look at the buildings. Set aside another hour if you plan to visit Coudenberg. The park and pavement viewpoints are free. You can do all four outdoor stops without a reservation. Coudenberg and BELvue have their own admission, with a combined ticket available.
Public access to the Royal Palace is seasonal. Check the Belgian Monarchy’s visitor information for announced dates, ticket prices and booking arrangements. For parliament, check the Chamber’s visit page for group bookings and other ways to enter.
The climb from Brussels-Central and the slope of underground Rue Isabelle are separate parts of the outing. You can take the metro to Parc to avoid the station climb. If you are considering Coudenberg, check the site’s accessibility page. Lifts serve the archaeological level, but the paving is uneven and only part of the site is accessible to wheelchair users.
The BELvue access guide lists ramps and lifts for the museum above ground.
Location
Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Site type
Royal quarter and public park
Park laid out
1775–1783
Key event
Fighting in the park, September 1830
Present palace façade
Work began in 1904
Main landmarks
Royal Palace, Brussels Park and Palace of the Nation
Outdoor access
Free
Suggested visit
45–60 minutes outdoors (editorial estimate)
Plan your stay and check which stops you can visit indoors.
EXPLORE MORE
Continue through Brussels with four stops from our city guide.
Compare the royal quarter with the guild houses and medieval Town Hall of the lower town.
See how ironwork and a skylight bring daylight into an Art Nouveau house.
Discover the steel structure that Brussels built for its 1958 World’s Fair.
Continue from the lower town to the Sablon and the flea market on Place du Jeu de Balle.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies allows us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may affect certain features and functions.