Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert

The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert is Europe's oldest covered shopping arcade — a 213-metre glass-roofed passage opened in 1847 that runs from Rue du Marché-aux-Herbes to Rue de l'Écuyer through three interconnected galleries (Galerie du Roi, Galerie de la Reine, and Galerie des Princes). The arcade predates Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II by 20 years and established the template for the covered shopping galleries that became a feature of European cities in the 19th century.

The architecture is Italian Renaissance Revival — a glass barrel vault supported by pilasters and arches, with upper floors of apartments and offices above the ground-floor shops. The light that filters through the glass roof creates a quality of illumination that makes the arcade feel like an outdoor street even when it's raining (which, in Brussels, is frequently). The shops include luxury chocolatiers (Neuhaus, which invented the praline in 1912, has a shop here), the Théâtre Royal du Parc, a cinema, bookshops, and the kind of upscale boutiques that justify a covered arcade's existence.

The arcade's real function is as a pedestrian shortcut between the Grand-Place area and the Cathédrale des Saints-Michel-et-Gudule — a route that takes you through one of Europe's most elegant commercial spaces in about two minutes. The chocolate shops alone (Neuhaus, Mary, Pierre Marcolini have presences here or nearby) justify a detour, and buying a box of pralines in the arcade where the praline was invented is a historical-culinary experience that Brussels does better than any other city.