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Belgium’s collection of historic national and international treasures is housed in this palatial building. It includes an impressive array of medieval church treasures (in the Salle aux Trésors), tapestries, Art Nouveau sculpture and jewellery, antique costumes and archaeological finds. One of several museums in the Parc du Cinquantenaire.

Since moving to its new home in a classic Art Nouveau department store, perched on a ridge overlooking the city, “Le MIM” has become one of Brussels’ must-see sights. The multifarious exhibits are enhanced by the pleasure of hearing their sounds through headphones (see Musée des Instruments de Musique).

The full artistic potential of Art Nouveau is apparent in this museum – formerly the house and offices of Victor Horta, the father of Art Nouveau architecture (see Musée Horta, Brussels).

A rare opportunity to see inside one of Brussels’ maisons de maître (mansions). As well as a fine collection of antique furniture, the Hôtel Charlier contains many reminders of its days as a meeting place for the avant-garde set in the early 20th century (see Musée Charlier).

For over 100 years this historic house has served as a museum presenting an ever-growing collection of artifacts from daily life – both lowly and grand – dating from Bruges’ medieval Golden Age to the 19th century. The exhibits have benefited from a recent remodelling of the museum (see Gruuthusemuseum).

See life as it was lived by the ordinary folk of Bruges in the often threadbare 19th and early 20th centuries. Fascinating collections of household items, as well as some complete workshops, bring home the extraordinary changes of the last century and a half (see Museum voor Volkskunde).

Anyone interested in antique furniture and the history of the decorative arts will love this delightful museum, which follows changing styles from the domestic elegance of the 17th century to the jocular irreverence of Milanese Post-Modernism (see Design Museum Gent).

This evocative folk museum, set out in almshouses founded by the Alijn family in the 14th century, has become a major repository for a huge range of artifacts that were part and parcel of the lives of ordinary Flanders people in past centuries (see Het Huis van Alijn).

Within a century of Gutenberg’s breakthrough in European printing by means of movable type, this 16th-century printing house had become a leader of the publishing revolution. Among the presses and engraving plates, it’s still possible to detect the ferment of ideas, and the possibilities of the spread of knowledge, that printing promised (see Museum Plantin-Moretus).

A rich collection of paintings, objets d’art and antiques – the product of the drive and wealth of Fritz Mayer van den Bergh (see Museum Mayer van den Bergh).