Brussels Attractions

Venue: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium    When: Daily; not Mon

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts - the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art - form the country's most important museum complex.

The galleries of the Museum of Ancient Art are ranged in the lavish former court of Charles of Lorraine. They show pictures from the 15th to 18th centuries and parts of the museums' sculpture collection, including a particular fine collection of Baroque work. Most of the artworks are drawn from the Southern Netherlands, but a fine smattering from elsewhere makes up the numbers.

Must-sees include some stunning early Flemish canvases from the wonderful Rogier van der Weyden and Hans Memling, and the sensational triptych The Temptation of St Anthony from the dark, maverick genius Hieronymus Bosch. Moving through the 16th century, you come to a Breughel room, with four canvases by the master. Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and, from the foreign schools, Guercino and Guardi, offer high points in the 17th and 18th-century displays.

Linked to the Museum of Fine Arts via a corridor, the Museum of Modern Art shows the later part of the Royal Museums' collection. It consists of 19th (and late-18th) century art housed in a fine neo-classical building ranging along the side of the Place Royale. The museum's 20th-century art is displayed in a spectacular bit of modern design: a semi-circular underground space, with walls of glass, that juts out and down into the Place itself - stunning in its own right.

The Museum of Modern Art has a particularly fine collection of work by the Belgian Surrealists, notably Magritte, and choice examples of work by Picasso, Chagall and Henry Moore. Visitors can also view the James Ensor room, the last in the above-ground building. The work by this highly intelligent, original and disturbing artist heralds the diversity of the 20th century.