While everyone dashes to Paris and Amsterdam in the springtime, Lesley Bellew found that the city of Brussels offered not only the chance of a cut-price deal, but great shopping, arts and a particularly friendly welcome.

It does not take to much working out - Brussels is a major business and congress centre - during the week the hotels are full to bursting. Come the weekend, the white collar workers go home and the hotel rooms are empty.

Even the swankiest establishments, like the five-star Conrad Hotel, in Louizalaan, drop their prices to bargain basement level to fill rooms at the weekend. A deluxe 650 euro room can go for 200 euros for two people, including a breakfast that could take all morning to eat.

While the weekday hotel guests come and go in their chauffeur-driven Maybank limousines, weekend visitors are better off buying a Brussels Card which offers unlimited travel on public transport, free entry to most museums and galleries, plus discount shopping vouchers. Another alternative is to hire a bike - Brussels is a 'cyclocity' so you can hire cycles from 23 'terminals' across the city, 24 hours a day.

For a major city, the atmosphere in Brussels is warmer and friendlier than you could dare expect.

If you lose your bearings just ask someone the way. They will probably not only point the way but walk you to your destination.

So what can you buy?

One-off designer wear can be found in Rue A. Dansaert - where the houses of Chanel, Dior, Versace, Ferragamo are on a smaller, more personal scale than the flagship stores in the Champs-Elysees. High street fashions are in Rue Neve - H&M, Promod, C&A all offer high fashion at low prices.

For the more unusual buys, take the glass public lift down from the law courts to Rue Haute and Rue Blaes, where the shopping is unpretentious, with smaller shops full of original retro furniture, antiques and collectables, plus great cafes and bars (roast pork plat du jour or mussels and chips 8 euros). On a Sunday, make your way to Porte de Hal and lose yourself in the exotic sights and smells of the biggest street market in Europe.

While you are out and about call in to one of the master chocolatiers' tea rooms or shops.

Neuhaus is rated as one of the best - Peter Neuhaus made the first Belgian praline in 1912.

However, Leonadis seemed to be the locals favourite. It is famous for white chocolates filled with strawberry creme, at a surprisingly cheaper price.

Prefer beer? Cantillon brewery, the last place were Gueuze is brewed in the old-fashioned way, is three minutes' walk from Gare du Midi.

If you want to impress by eating out, visit cospaia, on Capitaine Crespel 1. The hip and trendy flock to this stunning restaurant so it is great for people-watching or romantic dining. Dress up and choose from terrace dining among the bamboo, the formal, yet dazzling main restaurant or private dining room decorated in black velvet. You'll be seduced by foie gras with figs, lamb with thyme, or the exquisite chocolate dessert created by chocolatier Pierre Marcolini.

If you need to work off the calories with some walking and there really is something for everyone from the Museum of Plastic, displaying all that is 1960s in an Art Deco house(!), to Erasmus House, the former home of the great philosopher. If you want to be organised there are themed walks taking in the centre for comic strip art (featuring, of course, Herge's Tin Tin) in Rue des Sables or Ixelles' Museum which contains the largest collection of Toulouse-Lautrec posters.

All too good to be true? Don't take my word for it, visit www.brusselsinternational.be, print off some themed walk maps and get yourself booked on the next train to Brussels International.

Factfile

Lesley Bellew travelled on Eurostar from Ebbsfleet International to Brussels in 1 hour 48mins.

www.eurostar.com

Tourist information/Brussels Card

www.brusselsinternational.be

Conrad Hotel

www.conrad.co.be

Bike hire

www.cyclocity.be

Dates for your diary

Les Nuits Botanique

April 29 to May 6

A programme of music from Rock to French lyrics to colour early summer evenings across the city - www.botanique.be

Brussels Rollers - every Friday from June to September. From the Palais de Justice to the race course at Boitsfort, the boulevards of Brussels are

just for you and ends in a fiesta in the centre of the town. www.belgiumrollers.com

The Carpet of Flowers - August 11-15.

Grand Place decorated with 700,000 begonias by the horticulturalists of Ghent