Travel Belgium About Brussels Upper Town Sablon Neighbourhood Palais De Justice And Place Louise
From place du Grand Sablon, follow rue Ernest Allard up the hill to place Poelaert
, named after the architect who designed the immense Palais de Justice , a monstrous Greco-Roman wedding cake of a building, dwarfing the square and everything around it. It's possible to wander into the main hall of the building, a sepulchral affair with tiny audience tables where lawyers huddle with their clients, but really it's the size alone that is impressive - not that it pleased the several thousand townsfolk who were forcibly evicted so that the place could be built. Poelaert became one of the most hated men in the capital, and, when he went insane and died in 1879, it was widely believed a steekes (witch) from the Marolles had been sticking pins into an effigy of him. The square is also the site of two
war memorials : the one on the corner, dating to 1923, pays tribute to the Anglo-Belgian alliance; the other in the middle of the square commemorates Belgian dead with Art Deco soldiers following an angel.
A stone's throw from the Palais de Justice, place Louise , part square, part traffic junction, heralds the start of the city's most exclusive shopping district. It's here and in the immediate vicinity that you'll find designer boutiques, jewellers and glossy shopping malls. The glitz spreads east along boulevard de Waterloo and south down the northernmost section of avenue Louise.
