Brussels hotels collection

Brussels has roofed over its river. Turned into a sewer, the Senne was buried, and the central boulevards were laid out along its former bed. In Saint-Gilles, among brick houses with thresholds of blue stone, Victor Horta brought light down through glass roofs and sent iron climbing the stairwells in plant-like stems. The Sonian Forest pushes its beeches up to the last avenues, grey smooth trunks beneath a canopy the sun barely crosses. In spring, for a few weeks, the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, all iron and glass, open to the public; for the rest of the year, they stay closed within the royal estate.