From the street, the Stoclet House on the Avenue de Tervueren looks like a mansion carved out of a block of white marble and trimmed with bronze, with a stepped tower crowned by four male figures and a dome of copper laurel. It was built between 1905 and 1911 for the Belgian banker and art collector Adolphe Stoclet and designed by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffmann, with the artists and craftsmen of the Wiener Werkstätte creating everything from the furniture to the cutlery. Gustav Klimt designed the mosaic frieze in the dining room, one of his most famous works. The house was listed by UNESCO in 2009 as one of the most complete and refined works of the Vienna Secession.
The catch is that you cannot go in. The house is still privately owned and closed to the public, and there is no prospect of seeing Klimt's frieze in person. What you can do is ride or walk past slowly, admire the facade and the garden from the road, and appreciate the rigour of its geometry, which pointed the way toward modernism and Art Deco.
The Avenue de Tervueren itself is worth the ride. Laid out at the end of the nineteenth century by King Leopold II, it runs from the Cinquantenaire park in Brussels out to Tervuren, a broad, tree-lined avenue with fine villas and, in its later stretches, the edge of the Sonian Forest, a vast beech woodland on the south-eastern edge of the city. At the end of the avenue, the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, founded in the colonial era, has been renovated to address the history of Belgian colonialism in the Congo, a difficult and important story.
Riding in Brussels can be stressful, with heavy traffic, cobblestones, tram rails and complex junctions, and the city has a low emission zone with rules for older vehicles, so check whether your bike is affected before riding in. Out in the Sonian Forest and beyond, the roads become quieter and more pleasant, with gentle curves through the woods.
Kraainem, about five kilometres away, and Brussels have fuel, shops and restaurants of every kind. In the city, try moules-frites, mussels with fries, or a waffle from a street stall, and taste one of Belgium's many beers, from the light, sour lambics of the Brussels region to strong abbey ales. And look back at the Stoclet House as you pass, a jewel box of a building that most people only ever see from the street.