Another place in Brussels worth visiting is the Marché du Midi (zuidmarkt) by the Midi train station (midi = south like in France). It’s on Sundays from morning until 1 or 2 pm and takes up both sides of the station; the biggest in Belgium and one of the bigger street markets in Europe. Like a souk, fresh fruits, vegetables and hot foods of all kinds are sold here; there are sections for plants, toiletries, and rows of clothing for as little as 1 euro. Many sellers are neighborhood locals who came from Morocco and the Maghreb, other parts of Africa, and the Middle East. The smells, colors, and tastes here are delicious and give international flavor to Brussels.
I buy some olives, two scarves for 1 euro each, and a long shirt for 5 euros, which I wear with a scarf to castle Beersel, in the photo below. 
Some of my ancestors lived in Saint-Gilles, another district very close to the Midi station, up through the mid 1900s. The demographics of the area may be different now, with some older Belgians associating it with “terrorism” (because a terrorist in the 2015 Paris attack lived here) but I see the neighborhood as part of the new, international work-city of Brussels and would be coming here every week if I lived here.
Arianna, 2 April 2017
arianna's creative travels 