Sightseeing
© CC-BY-2.0 by Jim Linwood
FOSDEM hires professional guides each year to offer free guided tours of Brussels to the spouses/partners of FOSDEM visitors. If your partner would like to accompany you to Brussels but is not interested in the FOSDEM conference, this will make their stay worthwhile. Brussels has a rich historical past and a cosmopolitan present.
The free tours will take place on both days during the conference. Each tour will give you a view of a different side of the city, and the tours offered this year will be different from those offered in previous years.
The meeting point is in the hallway of the UD building, and the tours end here as well. For both tours, Saturday and Sunday, you have to register in front providing phone number and e-mail. Send an e-mail to tour@fosdem.org providing name, e-mail and phone number and await a confirmation. We need this information for emergencies and won't use it or store it for any other purpose. It will be deleted after FOSDEM ends.
Come to the meeting point ON TIME. If you are to late we sadly can't wait for you! We go to the city centre by public transport kindly offered by FOSDEM.
From there the tour guide will take you on a discovery tour through Brussels.
The Saturday tour starts at 12:30. This will be the popular tour of the beautiful city centre of Brussels. The guide will show you the main sights of Brussels. By foot, we will show you some of the city in just two hours. Potential places to see include: • Grand Place • Town Hall • Maison du Roi • Comic art scene • The Stock Exchange • Galeries Saint Hubert • Manneken Pis • The Monnaie Opera • St Nicolas’ Church • River Senne • The Royal Square • Mont des Arts The tour usually ends close to the Cathedral. At 16:00, we go to Cinematek, the cinema museum, for a silent movie with live piano accompaniment. Afterwards, we will take public transport back to the ULB. We expect to arrive back at ULB around 18:30.
The Sunday tour starts at 12:30. We'll discover the royal quarter and the Coudenbergh palace, possibly interrupted by a short coffee break. We expect to be back at ULB at 16:30 approximately.
| Meeting point | Start | End | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday | Ground floor corridor inside UD building | 12:30 | 18:30 |
| Sunday | Ground floor corridor inside UD building | 12:30 | 16:30 |
© CC-BY-SA-3.0 by Ben2
Children are welcome to join, but bear in mind that these are walking tours of ~2,5 to 3,5 hours, and that it is February. Your children must be old enough to walk around for three hours in winter temperatures and travel on public transport (the responsibility is entirely yours).
Participation is free but places are limited <30, and you must register beforehand. Please send an e-mail to tour@fosdem.org with an e-mail and phonenumber where you are reachable during FOSDEM to register for these tours, and specify if you are willing to join the tour on Saturday, Sunday, or both.
Should you have any questions about the sightseeing tours, please mail tour@fosdem.org.