
Ask HN: Moving to Brussels, how's the tech scene? - holografix
Hi HN, I work for a rather large SaaS business and I&#x27;ll be moving to Brussels in February.<p>Anyone from the region able to give me some pro tips?<p>Ie: How&#x27;s the tech scene? What suburb should I live in? Things to do in and around Brussels, etc
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bradknowles
So, when I lived in Brussels, I found that most of the English-speaking expat
community lived in Waterloo, or other towns nearby. But we lived in Ixelles,
which also has some English-speaking expats.

The tech scene was actually pretty good, and I would highly recommend the
FOSDEM conference. You should also check to see if the LinuxBierWanderung
group is still around — they like Linux, drinking beer, and hiking, hence the
name.

When I was there, I worked for Belgacom Skynet, but before they go re-absorbed
into the parent telco. You may not have much options for getting internet
access there, but I would encourage you to at least try anything but Belgacom.

Things to do around Brussels depends on what you’re interested in. If you like
architecture, there is Hotel Horta (which is the Horta museum), and other
houses designed by Victor Horta. He is a famous Belgian Art Nouveau architect.
It is located in Ixelles, not far from where I used to live on Avenue Louis
Lepoutre.

Of course, there’s always the Grande’Place, and Manniken Pis. The worlds
second-largest cupola is found in the Basilica de Sacre Coeur, and there are a
number of truly beautiful churches there. They also have movie houses, the
opera, etc..., but most of the really old and beautiful stuff is outside of
Brussels in Ghent, Liège, Bruges, etc....

Don’t forget Castle Boullion, which dates back to Godfroid of Boullion, who
was the leader of the first Crusade around 1000AD. It is close to Abbaye
d’Orval, where they make the famous Trappiste Orval beer.

That’s my first pass, off the top of my head.

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bradknowles
Belgium also has lots of really nice museums, but we never went to many of the
touristy places unless we had friends in town and wanted to show them around.

Speaking of touristy, there is also the Atomium, and Mini Europe (especially
cool for younger kids).

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Down_n_Out
Brussels is Brussels, there's so much more around, Belgium has many lovely
places to visit and from Brussels they're nearly all reachable by public
transport.

Living areas in and around Brussels are hit and miss sometimes, it can be
quite hard to find decent priced places. A lot of expats I know choose to move
out of Brussels to nearby towns, Leuven or Mechelen are examples, about a 20
to 30 minute train ride to/from Brussels (North station). The public transport
works but always calculate time for delays, they are more common than bread
unfortunately. Finding a decent area to live in Brussels requires a lot of
research, some areas, like Elsene, are great to live in but some parts of that
area are also to be avoided.

As for tech scenes, there's plenty, the Meetup app might be helpful for that.

There's so much I could tell you, as I myself live in Belgium and have been
working in the IT scene for over 17 years, most of that in Brussels, so if you
have questions or want to have a talk once you're here you can reach out to me
via my profile.

Welcome to Belgium!

