Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries

Europe's oldest surviving shopping arcade, a glass-roofed Belle Époque gem

Three connected glazed arcades — Galerie du Roi, Galerie de la Reine, and the shorter Galerie des Princes — running through the block immediately north of the Grand-Place. Built in 1847, the Galeries Saint-Hubert were the first large-scale covered shopping arcade in Europe, and they still function as one. The tall glass vaults let in generous light, and the shops underneath run to chocolatiers, bookshops, a few decent restaurants, and small luxury boutiques. The Cinéma Arenberg at the far end is Brussels' best art-house cinema.

It is worth coming in the evening, when the cafes spill tables into the arcade and the whole thing feels like a long, beautiful room in someone else's house. The pedestrian entrance is directly opposite Rue du Marché aux Herbes from the Grand-Place, impossible to miss.

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A story
When the Galeries Saint-Hubert opened in 1847, they were the first covered shopping arcade on the continent and one of the earliest in the world. Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas were among the first customers. Karl Marx visited regularly during his Brussels exile in the 1840s, before being expelled from Belgium in 1848.