The best places in Belgium to watch Wednesday’s solar eclipse

Belgium's biggest solar eclipse since 1999 happens low in the sky. In Brussels the Moon starts crossing the sun at 19:18, the eclipse peaks around 20:20 with roughly 90% of the sun covered, and it ends at 21:05 — all while the sun sinks toward the west-northwest horizon at just 2° to 12° above it. A tree line, a row of houses or a hill in the wrong place can hide the entire show. Where you watch from matters as much as having certified glasses.

How we picked these spots. To find genuinely open sightlines rather than guess from a map, we cross-checked candidate locations against Sunset Atlas (sunsetatlas.ch), a horizon-visibility tool that scores terrain, buildings and vegetation at 30m resolution across Europe and switches into a dedicated eclipse mode for 12 August. Its heatmap runs from dark blue (blocked) to red (wide open), scored specifically toward the direction and altitude the sun will be at each moment — for Brussels, that's low in the west-northwest. The red patches on that map are places with nothing but open sky between you and the setting, eclipsed sun; everywhere else, something — a building, a slope, a tree canopy — is very likely in the way. We matched those red zones to real, public, reachable spots.

Top 3 viewing spots in Brussels

1. Rue du Bourdon / Saint-Gilles Cemetery (Uccle) — an open landscape with a clear view west. The cemetery itself closes at 16:00, so watch from along Rue du Bourdon. Open in Google Maps →
2. Zavelenberg Nature Reserve (Berchem-Sainte-Agathe) — a wide, open natural space clear of high-rise obstacles. Open in Google Maps →
3. La Tréflerie farm field (Woluwe-Saint-Pierre) — a broad horizon suited to a low, setting sun. Open in Google Maps →

More options around Brussels. Bruynpark (Neder-Over-Heembeek), Anne Frank Park (Haren), Scheutbos Park (Molenbeek) and Laarbeekbos (Jette) all offer secondary open ground. The MIRA Observatory in Grimbergen is hosting a public viewing event outside the city with even clearer conditions — and the same evening happens to be the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, so it's worth staying out after sunset.

Elsewhere in Belgium. Brussels isn't the only place with a wide-open west. The coast — the dyke and beach at Ostend, De Panne or Knokke — has a dead-flat sea horizon with nothing to block the view at all, arguably the easiest unobstructed sightline in the country. Inland, high open ground works the same way: Kemmelberg in Heuvelland (West Flanders) and the Cointe hillside in Liège both look out over open country to the west. If none of these are near you, the same Sunset Atlas map works anywhere in Belgium — check your own area's western horizon before heading out.

Don't forget the glasses. None of this replaces certified ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses — Belgium's eclipse is partial, so there is no moment when it's safe to look unfiltered. See where glasses are still in stock →