I moved into Brussels’s most-beloved neighbourhood, the Marolles, a few days after the March 2016 twin terrorist bombings at Belgium’s main airport and the Arts-Loi metro station.
I barely saw any tourists in my first years in this tiny area in central Brussels, which is enclosed by a massive Romanesque-Gothic church on one side, and a sprawling flea market open 365 days a year on the other.
They were the best of times; we had the Marolles to ourselves – the folksy, homely cafes and eateries; the quirky, independently owned shops; the stately 1950s public swimming pool; the two public elevators that were out of order more often than not; and of course, the flea market.
Despite being located steps away from the ritzier districts of Sablon and Louise, the Marolles is the most authentic part of the city, and the only remaining historically working-class neighbourhood. Compared with the city average of 7%, 28% of the Marolles housing stock is public housing, a stat that seems to explain why this desirably situated area hasn’t been gentrified and become another Sablon or Louise.
Though densely populated and with hardly any green space, my seven years in the Marolles were the closest you could get to a village-like experience in a city of 1.2 million people. On a typical morning, I would wave hello to Dulia, the owner of the independent bookshop further down my street; stop for a brief chat with my favourite, always good-humoured street sweeper, and pick up my lunch from the three brusque women who ran the best sandwich shop in the city. One time, I was complimented on my braids by a homeless man. I felt like Amélie in the film of the same name.
But as I settled into the neighbourhood, and as the memory of the 2016 attacks faded and the economy picked up after the pandemic, tourists and Belgian visitors returned to the area. When someone learned I lived in the Marolles during this time, I always got the same surprised, breathless response: I love the Marolles! To which I dryly replied: everyone does.
In 2023, my last year there, the streets were crowded with these Marolles lovers at weekends. Running errands became exasperating, like navigating an open-air museum. I found myself pretending I didn’t hear tourists who tried to ask me a question, giving them one-word answers when they persisted.
As both local and international visitors returned, the retail landscape also changed. The idiosyncratic businesses that had always formed the beating heart of the neighbourhood were replaced by cookie-cutter speciality coffee spots and thrift shops.
One business space near my street changed owners three times during the period I lived there, each new iteration a little more polished, a little less “Marolles” than the last.
In January, I returned to my former neighbourhood for the first time since I had left, for a stroll with a visitor from the US. I’d asked friends for recommendations at a dinner party a few days before, and had to suppress an eye roll when everyone suggested I should take her to the Marolles.
Our first stop that day – my friend’s pick, not mine – was a recently opened speciality coffee store. Inside, something about the other customers’ aimless, waiting demeanour convinced me I must have been the only Belgian there. The Marolles I knew seemed to have gone.
As we continued our walk along one of the area’s two central streets, it became clear that the onward march of new businesses had continued in my absence. Cutesy and inoffensive, they struck me as the kinds of shops and bars that dominate the trendier areas of many European capitals – le Marais, Shoreditch, Kreuzberg.
For our final stop, I insisted we go to the local sandwich shop. Behind the counter, I found a perfectly nice woman who didn’t ignore me for a full two minutes or otherwise make me feel like I was an interruption. The three young, curmudgeonly women were nowhere to be seen, and I concluded with a sigh that this shop must have changed owners, too. I ordered the same sandwich I’d always had in the past, but it tasted different.
Linda A Thompson is a Belgian journalist and editor living in Brussels
