Sewer Museum
Musee des Egouts

Yes, you read the title correctly. Dive deeper into Brussels’ history with a guided tour of the city’s sewage system.

Located underground is one of Brussel’s more unique museums for the public to discover. The museum can be found inside two former neoclassical-style granting pavilions. Visitors enter through the first one and exit through the second one. Once inside the museum, you’ll get to learn all about the hardships of being a sewage worker and what this city does to fight flooding.

The museum opened in 1988 and has been through renovations in 2007 and 2014. In the 20th century, the Sewer Department of the City of Brussels was regularly asked to give guided visits to the sewers. They realized that the best thing to do was open a museum to show people what it was like to work in the sewers. Since then, the museum has undergone two renovations and is now part of the Department of Culture in Brussels.

What to see

The museum is filled with a collection of photographs, models, and various items that explain the labour of working in a sewer. During the tour, you are taken 10m below and get the chance to walk through a real sewer: the collector sewer of the Chaussee de Mons. The reason it is called a collector sewer is because it collects water from secondary tributaries. However, the collector sewer can easily get flooded, which means the museum has to close when there is bad weather for the protection of the visitors.