ABOUT BRUSSELS BY FOOT
It’s a great story…
Would you like to hear a nice story about Brussels By Foot ? After having worked as a guide in Colombia for several years, François Ghislain goes back to Belgium and decides to write alternative tours of Brussels, showing the city as he likes it. He hopes to give visitors a different view of his city.
He reads a lot and ends up writing his first guided tour of Brussels, “1000 Years of Struggles”, which deals with the great social movements in the Marolles district over the centuries.
What we can do for you…
Today, Brussels By Foot offers 7 different themes (soon to be offering 8). It also offers a multitude of options and possibilities for alternative group visits and team buildings. We also specialise in gastronomic walks thanks to an address book that includes all the best artisans and chefs in the city.
The small company now has 7 enthusiastic guides, all of whom are Brussels residents (by origin or adoption). Even though they guide the same routes, each one puts his or her own personal touch, which makes each visit unique. Follow them through the streets and alleys of Brussels, and discover Brussels as you’ve never seen it before!
THE GUIDES
François
Guide (FR – EN – ES)
By day, François criss-crosses the streets of the Galgenberg in search of the best “tête pressée à la Gueuze”. By night, he disguises himself as a barber-surgeon of the 16th century, hoping to resurrect the soul of André Vésale and continue his work.
On top of that, François has a new passion that occupies a lot of his time : the construction of a replica of the Palace of Justice on a scale of 1:20. In his 80 m² apartment, his family starts to find this hobby rather cumbersome.
Eve
Guide (FR – EN)
Zinneke from Brussels and Liege, her heart balances between stoemp and boulet, between lambique and pékèt.
You might one day see her armed with magnifying glasses and a precision scalpel, busy removing a graffiti distorting a work of Bonom.
The purpose of her existence is to be elected Madame Chapeau one day ; she hopes to gain enough notoriety for Tom Frantzen to make a statue in her effigy. This statue, she would see it placed on the roof terrace of the Maison Saint-Cyr.
Clara
Guide (EN – FR – CHI)
Some have seen her in the early morning in a library looking for forbidden secrets. Others have seen her leaping through the streets in search of unrecorded sgraffiti. Found mumbling words in Chinese in front of the royal palace, perhaps she was trying to find the entrance to the bunker? A very strange behaviour that she explains linked to the amount of jazz that would have entered her brain…
Fan of climbing, Clara avoids doors and prefers to leave her house through the window; she says it gives her a better understanding of all the architectural details on the façade of her house.
Thomas
Guide (FR – EN)
Thomas, or “Indiana Tom” to his friends, is a free rider who has been searching for the lost pieces of the House of Horta for the past 10 years, convinced that they hold an occult power.
It is said that he is the one who jealously guarded the plans of the Palace of Justice. He has recently returned them with great remorse.He’s now stuffing himself with tons of Bloempanch to forget that episode.
Félicien
Guide (EN – FR – NL)
Nostalgic for the great struggles against “Bruxellisation”, Félicien says he was close to Father Van der Biest during the Battle of the Marolles in 1969.
Zwanze or reality, during his breaks, you will find him haggling over a Pikassau or a model ship at the Old Market. If he is not there, he will surely be vandalising the Blaton Tower, which has been defiling the landscape ever since it was built on the very spot where Victor Horta’s Maison du Peuple was built.