Charleroi

My experiences in the south, French-speaking part of Belgium had been limited to lovely little towns in the Ardennes, picturesque locations in the mountains with colorful awnings and gelato places. Until a few weeks ago, most of the cities still remained a mystery.

Ask any Belgian why they would want to visit Charleroi, and you will get an answer in the form of a question. The airport? The photography museum? It's no Paris. If anything, it's known as a former maiden of industry, now littered with factories, functioning and abandoned, and choked by its periphery of abandoned coal mines and slag heaps. To top it off, unemployment there is soaring.

My friend suggested an Urban Safari of Charleroi a couple of months ago, and I was game - it sounded like an interesting way to discover a city I would probably never venture into otherwise. Our first encounter with our rough-and-tumble tour guide was watching him roll cigarettes and throw nervous glances at my friend's pregnant belly. You're pregnant? You can't do this. Are you sure you can do this? She assured him she could. You have to climb over fences. Run from the police, if need be. I was starting to get nervous.

The next four hours were indeed doable, but he assured us they were a bit toned down due to her situation. We went to a grand train station, built in Charleroi's hay day of coal wealth and since abandoned and never used. Entry may not have been quite legal, so we crawled through fences and walked along the tracks to make it inside. We went to a deteriorating coal hub on the outskirts of town and ate lunch on a blanket spread outside of the ruins. We walked along the city's waterways and saw functioning factories and graffiti-ed walls. We climbed a slag heap and looked out over the lackluster suburbs. Our tour guide spoke a broken, practically unintelligible version of English (as much as I don't mind grammar mistakes, there's a certain point where understanding breaks apart), so I'm not sure I learned as much about the town as I could have. But I certainly found the scenery interesting.

There were two film students there as well with a small portable camera, catching the spirit of the trip and asking questions every once in awhile. They pulled me aside when we stopped for a drink and asked me questions about why I had come. Do you think, their last question probed, that this just reinforces stereotypes about the city? I had to reflect for a minute. Yes and no, I said. Is it any different than looking at other relics of a past age? And, all truth be told, without the tour I would probably have never visited the city. I walked around the bar where we had stopped later, a humongous former factory that had been converted to not only serve drinks but show artwork. There were interesting pieces and displays everywhere you turned. I picked up a map that they were giving away with all kinds of interesting haunts flagged over its paths. I wish I could go back now and refine my answer. Because I think the tour isn't just about urban decay, it's also about the creative ways people are converting that decay into something interesting. The graffiti we saw, my friend asked before we headed to the train station, that was a contest? I hadn't caught that on the tour. He nodded, and I thought back. It made sense - it was really too good of a display to be anything but designed and developed.

I still have the map of the city that I picked up in that raftered bar, and it offers really interesting suggestions. Perhaps I'll be back again.