What is the Brussels outdoor escape game?
Think of an escape room spread across a capital city: the Brussels outdoor escape game sets one puzzle at each of 10 landmarks, and you solve them on your phone by looking hard at the building in front of you. Reckon on about 2 hours, with 64 minutes of that spent walking a 5.2 km line across the city, and begin on any day you like.
The route uses the contrast Brussels is built on, which gives the puzzles plenty to work with: the Parlamentarium in the European Quarter, the Royal Palace and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts up on the hill, the carillon of the Mont des Arts with its painted figures, then Manneken Pis, the Grand-Place and the glass-roofed Royal Galleries of Saint Hubert below. The puzzles stand alone instead of forming a plot, and up to three hint levels are available at any of them.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 64 min · 5.2 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
What you do on the escape game
Crack it
One puzzle per landmark, solved by observing the place and reasoning your way through. Prior knowledge is never needed.
Scan the facade
Guild-house gables, statues, clock figures and shop-window arcades hold the clues.
Cover ground
This is the longer kind of route: 64 minutes of walking and 5.2 km, with Google Maps between puzzles.
Go at your pace
No countdown applies, so break for chips or waffles and carry on later or on a different day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it suits
Friends
A long route with regular puzzles keeps a group talking, and nobody needs to know Brussels in advance.
Couples
Two of you, one puzzle at a time, walking from the European institutions down to the old guild houses.
Team building
Teams of up to 5 on their own phones, which makes it workable for colleagues based in the city or visiting it.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from the Parlamentarium to the cathedral
10 stops · about 64 min walking · start: Parlamentarium · finish: Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula
The opening puzzle belongs to the Parlamentarium in the European Quarter, with Place du Luxembourg and its neoclassical houses next door. The route then heads west and uphill for the Royal Palace of Brussels and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, pausing at the Carillon of the Mont des Arts. Downhill come Manneken Pis, the Grand-Place with its Gothic Town Hall and Jeanneke Pis in its alley, before the Royal Galleries of Saint Hubert lead you to the last puzzle at the Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula. Daylight is worth planning for, because every clue is outside and Brussels weather can turn. Google Maps navigates, the app reorders the stops, and no entry tickets are needed.
Open the route map ↗
1ParlamentariumStart
The European Parliament's visitor centre in the Espace Léopold opened in 2011 and is described as the largest parliamentary visitor centre in Europe. Its multimedia exhibition explains how the Parliament and the other EU institutions work, in all 24 official languages of the EU.
2Luxembourg Square (Place du Luxembourg)
Place du Luxembourg is a 19th-century square in the Leopold Quarter, lined with neoclassical houses and closed off by the old Brussels-Luxembourg station building, with the European Parliament rising behind it. In the middle stands a statue of John Cockerill, the English-born industrialist who helped build Belgian industry.
3Royal Palace of Brussels
The Royal Palace is where the King of the Belgians works and receives official guests, although the royal family lives at Laeken. Its present front was built after 1904 on the initiative of Leopold II, on ground once occupied by the medieval Coudenberg Palace, and the flag flies on the roof when the king is in the country.
4Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The main museum building, designed by Alphonse Balat, opened in 1880. The Royal Museums group several museums, among them the Old Masters Museum, with the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus long attributed to Bruegel, and the Magritte Museum, opened in 2009.
5Carillon of the Mont des Arts
The clock and carillon at the Mont des Arts were built in 1964 by the architect Jules Ghobert and have 24 bells. Twelve painted figures around the clock, one for each hour, run from a Gaul to Charles V, Rubens and a First World War soldier, and a bronze Brussels gentleman in a top hat strikes the bell.
6Manneken Pis
The bronze figure of a little boy, only about 55 cm tall, was made by Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder around 1619–1620. The statue on the corner today is a replica from 1965, while the original is kept in the Brussels City Museum, and the boy owns around a thousand costumes.
7Grand-Place
The Grand-Place is the main square of Brussels and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998. The Gothic Town Hall was built between 1401 and 1455, its 96-metre tower is topped by a gilded Saint Michael, and most guild houses around the square were rebuilt after the French bombardment of 1695.
8Jeanneke Pis
Jeanneke Pis is a small fountain statue of a squatting girl, made by Denis-Adrien Debouvrie in 1985 and unveiled in 1987 as a female counterpart to Manneken Pis. It stands behind iron bars at the end of the Impasse de la Fidélité, a narrow alley off the Rue des Bouchers.
Read the full story →
9Royal Galleries of Saint Hubert
The Royal Galleries of Saint Hubert, designed by Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar and opened in 1847, are among the first covered shopping arcades in Europe. Under their long glass roof run three sections, the King's Gallery, the Queen's Gallery and the Princes' Gallery, lined with shops, cafés and a theatre.
Read the full story →
10Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint GudulaFinish
This Brabantine Gothic church grew over three centuries, from the choir begun in 1226 to the west front with its two unfinished 64-metre towers, built in 1470–1485. It became a cathedral in 1962, and in 1999 it hosted the wedding of Prince Philippe and Mathilde.
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Marl?ne– France –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Tr?s bonne application qui permet d’apprendre beaucoup de choses et de voir toutes les merveilles qui se cache dans la ville. Tr?s int?ressant / sympa ? faire en famille ou entre amis
France –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Parfait! D?couverte des incontournables de la ville, en apprenant et en s’amusant ! Le SAV de l’application est au top (mon num?ro de r?servation ne fonctionnait pas dans un 1er temps, ils ont ?t? tr?s r?actifs et efficace le pb a ?t? r?gl? en 5 mn par msg whatsapp)