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This brasserie-restaurant creates an intimate mood with medieval beams and live piano music.

Overlooking the Groenplaats, right in the middle of Antwerp, is the extraordinary dome-roofed palace built as the Grand Bazar du Bon Marché, a 1920s department store. Part of it has now been converted into a top-class, stylish and well-appointed Hilton hotel. Most of the rooms overlook a quiet inner courtyard.

Facing the Comfort Art Hotel Siru, on the other side of Place Rogier, the Hilton Brussels City is a modern interpretation of Art Deco – all chrome and sensual wooden surfaces, and satisfying geometric surprises.

Display showing the archaeological value of waste.

This should appeal to children of all ages. A vintage tram strains and squeaks its way along the wooded path from the Musée du Tram Bruxellois to the Musée Royale de l’Afrique Centrale (see Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Africa (KMMA)) and back.

You could not get more central than this if you tried: the Crowne Plaza overlooks the Burg at the very heart of Bruges. An efficiently run, modern establishment, it also incorporates some historic remains: the excavated foundations of the medieval church of St Donatian. The hotel has an indoor swimming pool and its own car park.

The artist Albert Ciamberlani (1864–1956) was responsible for the huge mural in the triumphal colonnade of the Cinquantenaire building. He employed Paul Hankar (1859–1901), a key Art Nouveau architect, to build his house and studio in 1897. The façade combines iron, stone and brick to deliver a highly individual decorative effect.

Swathes of Art Nouveau mansions were cleared from Brussels when the style fell from favour. Hôtel Hannon, built in 1902, is a rarity because some of the internal decorations have survived – and also because the public can gain access to the interior.

Art Nouveau tended toward excess, and this accusation might certainly be levelled at this house – all loops and curves, with a circular picture window on the top floor. It was designed for painter Saint-Cyr in 1900.

Brussels’ weirdest Art Nouveau building.