Charleroi, Belgium, home to Europe's 'most depressing street'

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I woke up feeling fed up again. The reason was self-evident: it was my birthday and I was going to be spending it alone in a foreign city. And not just any foreign city, but Charleroi, one I knew next to nothing about apart from that it was in Belgium. I opened my laptop to find out more.

What is Charleroi all about?

Charleroi, it turned out, was the fourth largest city in Belgium. It was, by most accounts, a dump, long past its heyday, with some of the highest unemployment rates in Belgium. The city was wallowing in its faded industrial past and only had one tourist site of note – a photography museum. In 2010, a Dutch newspaper described Charleroi as the ‘ugliest city in the world’. More recently, a reviewer of the city said that the train station was the best thing to visit because it meant you were leaving. A travel piece in The Guardian offered the starkest advice for anyone visiting: ‘An overnight stay in Charleroi is only recommended for the hardiest of travellers.’ And yet, despite all this, an enterprising local man had set up a tour company. His tour offered an urban safari of Charleroi, which promised to show visitors the ‘most depressing street in Belgium’, the chance to climb ‘a waste coal pile’ and a trip to an ‘abandoned metal factory’ as the grand finale. I was tempted to email him, but by the time he opened the message, I would already be there. I rubbed my temples and closed my laptop. It was going to be a depressing day.

As soon as I entered the terminal, I switched to autopilot until I cleared security. On the other side, I bought a coffee, found a table and rested. If there had been a bed at the gate, I would have been on it, snoring within seconds.

My wife complained about my snoring and I’d tried all sorts of remedies. I’d tried nasal strips, nasal sprays and a peculiar mouth guard (which made my lower jaw jut out like a Neanderthal), but all had failed miserably. But the worst snore remedy was the gimp mask. Its black Velcro strap, sturdy fabric chin guard and disturbing head straps made it look like the apparel of a deviant. I wore the device three nights in a row and then threw it in the wardrobe. The only time I said I’d take it out was when Angela and I went on a camping trip with some friends and I threatened to wear it on the campsite when walking about at night.

Ryanair to Charleroi

An airport announcement pulled me from my stupor. A tinny voice was telling me that the gate for the Ryanair flight to Brussels Charleroi was now open. I finished my coffee and wandered over to have a gander. Once there, I discovered that Bratislava Airport had a novel approach to controlling large masses of people waiting for a flight. There was still the same queue, of course, but instead of it leading to a dim corridor, it fed into to an open air holding pen. The pen had seats, but nowhere near enough to cater for all the passengers. I estimated about eighty people had bagged a seat, with another fifty left standing, all looking thoroughly miserable. I watched them from a small cafe opposite.

Boarding was on time. Instead of a Ryanair plane, it said Air Explore on the side. Gone was the yellow, blue and white design, replaced by an almost white paint job with a globe on the tail. Later, I found out that Air Explore was a small Slovakian charter company who leased their aircraft to boost other airlines’ schedules in busy periods.

In the cabin, a gaunt man with long, tied-back hair was causing a blockage. He was trying to stuff his massive cabin bag into a space designed for something half the size. He pushed, heaved and then turned the thing sideways, stopping everyone behind him from taking their seats. While we waited, he tried again, this time shoving with primeval brute force. It was like shoving a square peg into a circular hole, and I wondered how the gate staff had missed his bag. If ever a piece of luggage deserved to go in the hold, then this was it. Aware, but unconcerned that we were caught in his bottleneck, he turned the bag upside down, hoping that would help. It didn’t; it resolutely refused to fit into the compartment. Finally, a male member of the cabin crew took the bag and put it somewhere else.

When I took my seat, I noticed that all the cabin crew were male. When the engines started, they played the same Ryanair safety announcement I’d heard every day for the past week or so. And when we took off, they served the same choice of food, perfumes and scratchcards. The only difference was more legroom. I settled back in my seat and dozed.

Mr Sausage Roll

The flight was uneventful. I was soon in Belgium, standing at the bus top. Charleroi Airport was only eight kilometres away from Charleroi, and the bus stop had one other person waiting: a bespectacled old man eating a sausage roll. When I first turned up, he was already there, finishing one. This was his second. A minute later, he finished it and pulled out a third (and these were full-length sausage rolls and not the weedy party variety) from his luggage. I began to wonder if the portly gent was some sort of baker or else puff pastry fetishist. Maybe he could use my snore gimp mask.

He noticed me watching, so I turned away to look at a Ryanair aircraft taking off. Within seconds, the cloud layer enveloped it as it climbed to whatever destination awaited. The flight was one of around 1,600 that Ryanair would be operating that day, each one making approximately one thousand euros of profit for the airline. I looked back at the old man, who had stopped eating. He was watching a third man approaching the bus stop. The newcomer looked a soldier type: shaven head and hard features. The three of us waited for the bus to Charleroi.

It came fifteen minutes later. When we climbed aboard, we all sat equally spaced from one another; we were the only passengers aboard. When we set off, I stared outside at the warehouses we were passing. They looked like any other warehouses, except in worse shape. Then we turned onto a motorway where I caught my first sighting of Charleroi between copses of lush green. It looked okay, nothing special, but certainly not depressing. Then the vision was gone, replaced by concrete.

We were in an underpass. After a brief period of dark, Charleroi reappeared and I reassessed my initial perception. It might not be the world’s ugliest city, but it was damned close. The city was stuck in a bleak 1970s time warp of crumbing grey concrete and graffiti. The exceptions were the huge piles of coal by a railway track and sets of ugly redbrick apartment blocks that looked abandoned but probably weren’t. A huge factory loomed. Behind it, industrial chimneys churned out acrid black smoke. L.S. Lowry might have painted the scene I was seeing. When we passed a derelict factory covered in barbed wire and graffiti scrawls, I wished myself a happy birthday and then wished I were somewhere else. Charleroi was the ugliest place I’d been to.

Where did it all go wrong?

Once upon a time, Charleroi thrived with its double industries of coal and steel. People from all over Europe flocked to the city with its promise of work and prosperity. The city’s population soared. To cope with the newfound demand for Charleroi’s high-quality steel, canals were constructed and railways expanded. Many factory owners grew rich from their spoils, and their workers had money in their pockets too. Charleroi, for a brief period in the nineteenth century, was the place to be in Western Europe.

Then it all went wrong.

Suddenly, other countries began manufacturing steel, and at cheaper prices than Charleroi could. Then the First World War started, with heavy fighting in and around the city. Charleroi never recovered, and by the 1950s, most of the factories had closed down, sending unemployment rocketing. In 1984, the last coal mine closed its doors: the final nail in the coffin for the city. An even steeper decline in fortune followed, so much so that, during the latter part of the 1980s and 1990s, Charleroi became renowned across Belgium for its frightening crime statistics, high unemployment and poverty rates. Though things have improved for the city in recent times, these three issues still blight Charleroi.

The bus stopped by a dour bus station. All three of us clattered out with our luggage. The military gent walked towards the station entrance while Mr Sausage Roll headed to a nearby bus stop. I took in my surroundings.

Arrival in Charleroi

Opposite the station didn’t look too bad. A row of tall town houses, one adorned with a large blue and red sign saying La Gazette, which I assumed was the local newspaper, offered respite from the concrete surrounding them. But then I turned to face the station: it was an ugly grey structure of concrete slabs and towers. It had to be one of the most depressing bus stations in Europe. Adding to the sad vista were browbeaten locals standing at the bus stops, balefully eying the sky for rain. A minute later, a nasty wave of drizzle rewarded them.

I crossed a thin pedestrian bridge that passed over La Sambre, a grey strip of water that masqueraded as a river. On the opposite side, crossing towards me, were a trio of gangly youths. Instead of moving over to allow me passage, they swaggered onward, making me move to the very edge of the bridge. They passed with a sneer and flick of cigarette ash.

At the other side, I turned right, walking along the river, finding myself alone on the cobbles. Even the buildings overlooking the river seemed abandoned. The drizzle was making the cobbles slippery, and as I passed another bridge, which offered myriad shaded spaces for assailants to wait and skulk, I began to think that I should’ve caught a taxi to the hotel.

I turned left, heading away from the river. More loitering youths waited at the end of a narrow street that my Sat Nav app suggested I use. They looked like extras from The Wire, so I decided to take an alternative route, passing a tall building with every window missing or broken. A car rumbled past, its occupants gazing at my small suitcase and then at me. Maybe they thought I was a drug dealer. From a doorway, a wiry black man leaned, one knee bent in a pose of relaxation. When I passed, he studied me but said nothing. In the air was the unmistakable aroma of marijuana.

I found my hotel at the end of that street. I wasn’t expecting much and I wasn’t disappointed. When I asked the man behind the desk for a tourist map of Charleroi, he told me he didn’t have one. I took the key and headed to the lift. When the doors closed, I fixed my eyes on the electronic display. It stayed on zero all the way to the top floor, where the lift shook like an earth tremor before opening.

The fifth floor smelled of urine mixed with leaking drains. My room was only slightly better. When I tried the toilet, I had to keep the seat up with my knee. In the main room, I noticed the clock on the wall. The hands were frozen at nine thirty. Half past nine, 1973, I thought miserably. I wandered over to the windows, parting the curtains so I could see outside. The view revealed a set of grey office blocks and a roundabout. I sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. It was perhaps the most miserable birthday I’d experienced in my life on the planet.

The only tourist in town

I was the only tourist in town. Of that, there was no doubt. Why would anyone want to come to Charleroi? At least Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki had a fortress and some nature trails. Moss had a harbour and a good statue. What did Charleroi have? A bloody photography museum (which was closed) and some spoil heaps. With drizzle falling, I walked along a shopping parade full of stores catering for the lower end of the market. Tout A 1€ was the name of one shop, Everything one euro. A hijab-wearing woman with a pushchair went in. When I saw her struggling with the pushchair, I helped her. While she held open the door, I lifted the carriage in. It felt good to do another good deed of the day, and she thanked me profusely. Further along the street were some familiar names – Footlocker and C & A, but then I spied something new – a café-takeaway called Mr Cod, which as well as selling ‘fine fish’, also peddled chicken, chips and hamburgers. It was closed.

I stumbled upon the central square, Place Charles II, which was more of a roundabout. Even so, it was home to the nicest buildings in Charleroi. One was the City Hall, a proud and stately building of arches and limp flags. Towering above it was a tall brown belfry. The other notable building was Saint-Christophe Church. I took a photo of it, though I didn’t know why. It was hardly inspiring. Only the copper-green dome (stained brown in places) offered any respite from the glumness. When a couple of youths passed, they turned to see where I was pointing my camera. They laughed and shook their heads when they saw. I heard a screech of wheels. A police van was tearing around the roundabout, its sirens blazing as it turned off near the church.

I found a fairground, exactly the type of thing found in fading British seaside towns. Because of the rain, punters were thin on the ground, but a harried mother and her two kids were wandering through, the kids haranguing her to go on the bumper cars. From somewhere, tinny music played from crackly speakers. The woman shook her head, and when one of the youngsters said something, she yelled at him, silencing the boy in an instant. I passed them and found a dripping-wet shoot-the-duck stand and then a set of mini waltzers. A middle-aged woman was sitting reading a newspaper in a little booth between them. When she looked up, she eyed me suspiciously. Not surprising really, since I was a single man wandering around a place frequented by children. With the sickly sweet aroma of candyfloss and warm toffee coming from somewhere hidden further in, I decided to leave.

Beyond the fairground was something interesting. It was a monument, cast in bronze, showing three giant and freakishly spindly hands reaching into the air. Designed by Charleroi-based sculptor, Martin Guyaux, it was the most interesting thing I’d seen so far. The hands were close to a concave yellow building that declared itself the Palais des Beaux-Arts. And that was when I spotted Mr Sausage Roll again. He was standing across the street from me with another equally portly man. He had noticed me too. A look of recognition flicked across his face and then he nodded. I nodded back and wandered towards another drab street of Charleroi.

Ladies wigs and bananas

I entered a grocery store. As well as selling an array of fruit and vegetables, it sold ladies’ wigs. They were arranged on mannequin heads on the counter. I ignored them and headed straight for the bananas. The young Turkish man behind the counter watched me.

“Bonjour,” I said. “Can I buy two bananas?” I was the only customer in the shop. I didn’t want to have to buy a whole bunch.

The man nodded. “Of course.”

I snapped a couple off and took them to the counter. The man tapped on his till and told me the price. “Where are you from, monsieur?” he asked as he wrapped my fruit in a clear plastic bag.

“England.”

The man considered this. “You are here for work?”

I told him I was a tourist.

“Tourist? Why did you not go to Brussels? Or even Liege? Tourists do not come to this city; there is nothing here.”

I nodded at his accurate summing up of Charleroi.

He offered me some advice. “Please, monsieur, if you are drinking in the bars tonight, be careful. Many people will want to pick fights. They have no job and no money. They will wait for people who have drunk too much so they can rob them.”

I told him I didn’t intend to drink in any bars that evening. In fact, I’d already decided to hole up in the hotel for the night. But to celebrate my birthday, I would crack open a can of cheap Belgian larger.

I found myself walking along a street full of decrepit, broken-down buildings. Even though the drizzle had stopped, it had left dirty puddles on the pavements and road. Due to my surroundings, I felt slightly uncomfortable and quickened my pace. And then I saw a group of four youths loitering up ahead.

“Bonjour, monsieur,” shouted a twenty-something man sitting in the doorway. I was about fifteen feet away from the group. “Ou vas-tu?” He was asking me where I was going. He stood up, took a drag from a cigarette and watched me. His pals watched me too. I was now only a few feet away.

I ignored him and carried on walking. The man laughed and sat back down. I turned left, and saw another group of teenagers hanging around a small convenience store. In all my travels, in so-called danger zones such as Iraq, Iran and Nairobi in Kenya, I had never felt my hackles on edge as much as they were right now. The perceived danger was no doubt all in my head, but walking along a crumbling street, with only the depressed youth of Charleroi for company, was putting me on high alert. I suddenly disliked Charleroi. I hated the fact it was making me feel this way. I wanted to stroll, not hurry, but the hard stares I was receiving from the teenagers made me rush even more. They didn’t say anything as I hurried past. And then I turned a corner and found the relative safety of the central square again. In the distance, another police siren sounded.

In 1996, there had been plenty more police sirens in Charleroi. The city had made world headlines that year. A man called Mark Dutroux had built himself a few dungeons in the vacant homes he owned. After abducting young girls (sometimes with the help of his wife), Dutroux sexually abused and tortured them, often filming himself while he did so. When he tired of the girls, he murdered them. When he was finally arrested, a media storm erupted around the globe, especially when people discovered that the Belgian police had arrested him the previous year on suspicion of car racketeering. During the arrest, a pair of eight-year-old girls had been alive inside his dungeon. A locksmith, accompanying the arresting police officers, heard their cries for help, but the police thought the sounds had come from children playing outside. No search was made for the girls. Whilst Dutroux was incarcerated, both girls died of starvation.

The most depressing street in Belgium

I decided I had one more thing to see in Charleroi, and that was Rue de Mons. I wanted to see if it really was the most depressing street in Belgium. After a ten-minute walk through town, I arrived at a large concrete underpass. Its underside was stained and pockmarked, supported by graffiti-covered pillars. On the other side was the famed street.

A tall glass and concrete building, topped with an advertisement for a twenty-four hour casino, was the first thing of note. It wasn’t particularly eye-catching, but nor was it particularly ugly. Then I passed a row of town houses, which, had they been cared for a little more, would have looked okay. But up ahead was grim. A trio of tall chimneys took up position on the horizon: abandoned outlets for the blast furnace they had once serviced. Bathed in sunshine, they would have looked bleak, but in the dreary overcast conditions, they were apocalyptic: totems of the industry that eventually choked Charleroi. Across from them were some hills covered in what looked like thorny and overgrown vegetation. But instead of being elements of nature, they were abandoned slag heaps.

My goal was to reach the rusting old blast furnace, but when my feet started aching, and I passed a motorcycle store with its windows shuttered and protected with sturdy steel bars, I decided to turn back. I couldn’t take any more of Charleroi. It was sapping me of my strength. I decided to return to the hotel.

Later that night, I absently gazed out of the window. A police car had stopped a motorist on the roundabout. Flashing blue light was refracting against the raindrops on the window. But my wife was right: tomorrow would be better; it could hardly be any worse. After saying goodbye, I packed my luggage, inspected the broken wheel (it was still hanging on), and decided to brave the mean streets of Charleroi before it got too dark. It was a brief foray, though, with only one stop: a small Carrefour supermarket not far from the hotel. After purchasing the staples of my diet: bread, ham and cheese (plus a can of lager), I returned to my room on the dank fifth floor to celebrate an unhappy birthday. As I chomped into my sandwich and took a swig of my beer, I grimly nodded to myself. Country number eight was almost finished. I was over half way through my silly plan to conquer Europe by low-cost airlines.



If you have enjoyed reading about my visit to Charleroi, then perhaps you'll like the book it came from. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Here-Anywhere-countries-flights-cheapskate-ebook/dp/B01CO39ZJW/ref=la_B00B75IKJA_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1457458787&sr=1-1

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