I highly recommend visiting the royal gardens/greenhouses! The garden and grounds of the palace in…read moreLaeken are stunning, it is amazing to see all the different plants, trees, bushes, flowers, etc. that are grown, both exotic and native plants. One of my mother's favorites, geraniums, grow around 1.5 meters in the greenhouse! I have never seen them grow so tall. It is truly breathtaking to see. If you have an afternoon or morning free, whether tourist or native of Belgium/Brussels, I suggest taking a look here! Make sure to go quickly, it is only open 3 weeks out of the year...price is 2,5 eur per person and under 18 is free (family friendly!). I went the second day it was open and the weather was gorgeous, surprisingly, the lines and crowds were not bad in the least.

My husband and I unknowingly booked our trip during the 2 week window that this beautiful place is…read moreopen to the public each year. We were the first people in line and therefore most of our pictures do not have other visitors in them. I suggest getting there early as this place seemed to fill up fairly quickly. All of the flowers were in full bloom and the architecture of the glasshouses is breathtaking. Not only was this place visually stunning, but the aroma of all of the fresh flowers really took the experience over the top. No perfume or cologne could ever match the scents that all of these flowers naturally produce. Exotic and vibrantly colored flowers cover the greenhouses from the floors to their ceilings. I would definitely recommend planning your trip to Brussels around the time of the year when this place is open to the public. It's definitely an experience that I will never forget!

Who doesn't love a park, though I probably shouldn't call this a park because to me a park is an…read morearea of grass that has a bunch of trees scattered about, with maybe a few garden patches here and there, while gardens tend to require you to stick to dedicated paths namely because the areas that don't happen to be pathways tend to contain collections of flowers and what-not. Anyway, I had no idea that this place existed and simply stumbled across it as I was wandering through Antwerp attempting to get from one part of the inner city to another. From where I was standing I noticed quite a lot of greenery so decided to spend some time and have a look around. Unfortunately my brother wasn't too keen on hanging around so we ended up heading off elsewhere soon after.

Magnificent and magical experience - it was a sight for my eyes to behold!!! But I do think park…read moremgmt has to do a better job with parking and also getting more park benches, hence while its 5 stars showing, in reality it's more like 4.5 from me. There's a great park ranger blog you can follow (and best of all its in English) and they post videos + pics and so that's what I have been doing since mid-March, as didn't want to miss the hyacinth flowering like had done last year. Last Friday the blog showed a sea of blue and since they flowers have a short flowering season of 2 weeks, a group of 5 of us left around noon and then got to Hallerbos 40 mins later. Parking was really horrible and we finally got some a long way from the park entrance. We found the blue marker near parking lot #2 and set off down the trail, sorta disappointed not to see that many hyacinths covering the wood floor as had expected. Encountered lots of tree stumps along the trail way that had been converted into stools to sit upon. About the halfway point, there was a long steep hill and when we reached the top and from the corner of my left eye, to paraphrase the poet: When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of blue hyacinths... beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I just stopped and stared in wonder and turned around in a circle because all around me, I was surrounded by blue undergrowth. I felt had wandered into a sacred, special place and luckily it wasn't too crowded, so we all just co-existed, marveling at natures bounty. The hyacinths were numerous in number now and we continued our walk, upto parking lot 8, where all the trails converged and had great ice-cream for an €1 per scoop which was totally worth the wait in the long line. This is when I sorta felt let down because here was this great open space, and only one park bench? C'mon!! Surely park mgmt can do better! However this is a minor gripe, cause if you live in Belgium and don't come and see this beautiful sight that welcomes spring you are totally missing out!

Hard to describe how pretty Hallerbos is. Twice a year, the wood is turned into a blue rug of…read morehyacinths. A lot of pedestrian, horse rider and bicycle ways exist to explore the wood and its surroundings (more extended than expected - my legs are still hurting ! ). Since hyacinths do need sun to grow up, the wood is bright and light. Walking, sun taning AND enjoying the smell of the flowers is the perfect combination for a Sunday afternoon a few minutes away from Brussels. Little tip : you can follow the blossoming of the flowers on the website http://www.hallerbos.be/.