Belgian artist Nicolas Buissart started doubling as a tour guide as a joke after a newspaper in the neighbouring Netherlands named his city the ugliest in the world. "Wallonia used to be prosperous; it's a cradle of capitalism of sorts," he says of the surrounding French-speaking region. Yet that's exactly what the dozen pensioners from the northern French city of Lille he's driving around Charleroi have come to see on a dreary March day. Buissart's "city safari" takes visitors up close to the slag heaps and giant ruins of steel and concrete that shape Charleroi's landscape. "This heritage is what sets us apart and attracts tourists," said Valerie Demanet, director of the Charleroi Tourist Office.

Source: The Standard March 28, 2026 21:48 UTC