Brussels is a great place to run – wide streets, beautiful and historic buildings, parks, fountains and lakes and of course great places to stop for a quick nutritional top up (chocolate is not for runners!).

We recently ran a marathon there and we thought it would be worthwhile including a map of our route and some pointers of what you will experience on the way. This is the full 44km but if you don’t want to “do the distance”  you can pick any part of it and you will have a great run guaranteed.

Landmarks

  1. Grand Place – the central square in Brussels and as good as any place to start/finish your run. Surrounded by spectacular gilt covered buildings, the surface is cobbled (exciting in the wet) and does get busy (human dodgems).
  2. Brussels Park – small, lush Royal park with statues, fountains and just as importantly a great surface to run on.
  3. Jubel Park – spectacular, landscaped park with floral gardens and fountains and home to several museums – great running surface and a nice wide area to run in which is popular with runners.
  4. Woluwe St Pierre – a beautiful undulating park with lakes and wide paths  – ideal for running in.
  5. Foret des Soignes  – an enormous wood, well marked with some excellent running routes (they even mark out a 5k, 10k, 15k route for you). Hard to get lost although we managed it!
  6. Espace Leopold – EU parliament buildings – not much happens inside them but worth a look as you run past and marvel at where your hard earned taxes go!

Brussels running routes