Hello fellow travelers!

I arrive at 8 a.m in Brussels and my departure flight is now until 7 p.m. Is this enough time to go to town and look around? Will security and passport control let me out of the airport? My friend recently had a flight connection through Milan, and was not allowed to leave the Milan Airport though he had a 10 hour layover.

As far as leaving or not you should contact your airline.

I arrived in Brussels and caught a train 20 minutes later.

The train station is in the basement of the airport. It doesn't take very long to get to the city.

The train station is a block from Grand Place.

You should have no trouble seeing the central part of the city for several hours.

If you are from a country where you don't need a visa to enter European countries, then you can go sightseeing in Brussels during your layover. You just go through customs and immigration and catch a train into town. It is really easy and with 11 hours, I would definitely do it.

OTOH, if you need a visa to enter European countries and you have applied for one for a specific country or countries that aren't Belgium, then I don't think you can go to Brussels during your lay over without amending your visa.