Did you know that Belgium has Europe's oldest shopping arcades?

The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert is a complex of three shopping streets covered along their entire length by glazed arcades. They are comprised of the Galerie de la Reine, the Galerie du Roi and the Galerie des Princes. Opened in 1847 by the architect Jean-Pierre de Cluysenaar, these arcades are some of the oldest in Europe along with the Passage du Caire in Paris, opened in 1798 and are older than the Passage in Saint Petersburg (1848) and the Galerie Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan (1878).