The Mont des Arts, or "Mount of the Arts," sits on the ridge dividing Brussels' upper and lower towns, a sloping public garden flanked by museums, a royal library and a carillon clock that rings out across the city every hour. Fair warning: if you're standing nearby when the 40 bells start up, it gets seriously loud.

King Leopold II began the project in 1882, determined to impress visitors with an entire district devoted to culture. His favourite architect drew up ambitious plans, but first an old quarter had to be demolished. Brussels' mayor tried to stop him. Leopold won. He always did. Work dragged on so long that Leopold died before it was finished, and the gardens below weren't completed until the 1950s.

VoiceMap's tours use the Mont des Arts to trace the city's long habit of grand reinvention, connecting its hilltop gardens to the vanished Coudenberg Palace below and to the relics of a 1958 World's Fair that first announced Brussels as a global capital.