I am sad to say that I wouldn’t recommend this place. Sad, because it has certainly several positive points. It is very well situated, 20 meters across the street is the Manneken Pis. The staff is friendly, although a bit chaotic, see below. The room I had (N°1) was not very large, but very clean. The bathroom was perfectly OK, with a shower and the water pressure was good. There is satellite TV with many european channels, including BBC News and Euronews.
The biggest drawback is NOISE. The windows are not soundproof and there is a lot of street noise: mostly people passing by, but also an occasional car or motorcycle or ambulance. At 7 am, there were construction works starting on each of the three mornings I stayed. There were also the garbage truck and the street cleaning truck. There is some interior noise too: I could hear other guests climbing the stairs, etc. which in itself was not so bothering given the size of the hotel, but added to the street noise made it all unbearable.
Also, the windows do not have shutters. The curtains could not make the room totally dark.
La Vielle Lanterne doesn’t have a breakfast room, so breakfast is brought to the room. I always asked for a breakfast at 8 o’clock: the first morning it arrived at a quarter past 8, the next morning at 8:25. Then I complained and breakfast was brought on time the last morning.
The staff was attentive, asking me if everything was OK, but of course they couldn’t do anything about the noise.