Musée des Instruments de Musique (MIM)

The Musical Instruments Museum occupies the Old England Building — a 1899 Art Nouveau department store by Paul Saintenoy that is one of the most beautiful buildings in Brussels, with a facade of glass and iron that soars five storeys above Mont des Arts in sinuous curves that make steel look organic. The building would be worth visiting if it were empty; the fact that it contains over 8,000 musical instruments from the 15th century to the present makes it one of the most rewarding museum experiences in the city.

The collection spans everything from medieval lutes and Baroque harpsichords to Indonesian gamelans, African drums, and the electronic instruments of the 20th century. Each visitor receives headphones that activate automatically as you approach different instruments, playing recordings that let you hear what a 16th-century viol or a Javanese metallophone actually sounds like. The system transforms the museum from a visual experience into an acoustic one — you walk through rooms hearing the music of five centuries and five continents, which is the only way a musical instrument collection makes sense.

The rooftop café-restaurant, accessed via a glass elevator, provides one of the best views in Brussels — a panorama across the city rooftops from the Grand-Place to the Atomium, with the Mont des Arts garden directly below. The café is accessible without museum admission, making it a destination in its own right and one of the city's best-kept viewpoint secrets.