Brussels

Brussels has an image problem, and it knows it. The capital of Europe, critics say – meaning the EU's grey eminence, a city of lobbyists and committee rooms and uninspiring sprouts. Even Belgians speak of their country with a fond, self-deprecating shrug.

But slip away from the EU quarter and something else entirely comes into focus. On the Grand Place – one of the great medieval squares in Europe – gilded guild halls crowd around a Gothic town hall that took a century to finish. In Saint-Gilles, Victorian streets twist past Art Nouveau facades that curve and bloom like exotic plants, the work of Victor Horta, who effectively invented a movement here in the 1890s. And then there's the bande dessinée – the comic strip tradition that gave the world Tintin and covered the city's walls in giant murals.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours move through all of it, from the Sablon's antique dealers and the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert to the Dansaert district's cool cafés. Put your earbuds in. En route, Brussels has plenty to say for itself.