New Delhi, Oct. 9 -- Assuming it is the capital of bureaucracy as the HQ of the EU, I had long dismissed Brussels as a place to visit. The only reason I stopped there earlier this year was to break my motorcycle ride from London in the UK to Bastogne in Belgium. To get to Bastogne, I had to ride 184km from London to the ferry terminal in Dover, cross the English Channel to Dunkirk in northern France on a two-hour ferry, then ride 174km to Brussels in Belgium. Bastogne was a further 160km away.

But as I rode into the capital of Belgium after the monotony of the motorway and the flatness of Northern France, Brussels came as a surprise. The Art Nouveau facades of the city's architecture looked like they were drawn with a fountain pen, and a...