Grand Place

The Grand-Place (Grote Markt) is the central square of Brussels. It is surrounded by guild houses, the Town Hall and the Bread House. It is generally considered as one of the most beautiful squares of the world (according to Victor Hugo, among others) and was named by the UNESCO as a world heritage site.

In 1523, the first Protestant martyrs were burnt by the Inquisition on the square. In 1695 most of the houses surrounding the square, at the time made of wood, were destroyed during a bombing; they were rebuilt in stone by the different corporations. The house of the brewers’ guild is now the home of the Belgian Brewers Museum.
The Grand-Place is also like a poetry book in open-air. Indeed, numbers of Latin poems adorn the houses: they are elegiac poems or ingenious chronograms, work of a brilliant Latin poet of the 17th century.


Only a few meters from the Grand-Place, you can admire the famous sites of the capital: the Queen’s Gallery, which houses a marvellous exhibit-show; the Etuve Street (Stoofstraat), where stands the Manneken-Pis, the emblem of Brussels; as well as the St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral.

North Station district

The North Station is one of the main stations of Brussels, on the North-South junction.

Before the creation of this junction, the North Station was set alongside the Rogier square. After it was demolished, it was rebuilt a few hundred meters further.

Saint-Louis University
These universities form a large university education institution, located next to the North Station and near the Brussels belt road. They result from a Philosophy school created in Brussels in 1858, in the Marais Street (Broekstraat). This creation came from the wish of the Catholic clergy to have in Brussels a Catholic institution teaching philosophy. Over the years, these universities developed and expanded, a law school was added to the Philosophy and Arts University. In 1965 the Economic, Social and Political Science University was established.

Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Located at the edge of Brussels, between the belt road of the city centre and the North Station, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode is the smallest municipality of Brussels; it also has the most important population density of the Brussels municipalities. Despite its small size, it offers surprising contrasts.

Next to the international hotels of the Rogier Square, the office buildings of the Madou Square or the small Manhattan formed by the “new northern district” spread in districts where the population, Turkish in a great majority, recreated the convivial and lively atmosphere of the eastern cities.
On the site of the former botanical garden are standing neo-classic greenhouses of the Cultural Centre of the French Community. With the presence of a diversity of cultures in its population, Saint-Josse offers a perfect image of urban multifunctionality, combining housing, offices, culture and leisure.