Place du Jeu de Balle: The Daily Flea Market of Brussels

Why is it significant?

Step onto the expansive cobblestone rectangle of Place du Jeu de Balle and take in the chaotic, joyous carnival of Brussels' Old Market, or Vieux Marché.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step onto the expansive cobblestone rectangle of Place du Jeu de Balle and take in the chaotic, joyous carnival of Brussels' Old Market, or Vieux Marché. Every single morning of the year, rain or shine, hundreds of vintage vendors spread out canvas tarpaulins, cardboard crates, and folding tables heaped with antiques, old vinyl records, African wooden masks, copper kettles, and eccentric forgotten curiosities. The square is anchored on its eastern flank by the imposing neo-Romanesque church of Notre-Dame Immaculée, whose dark brick towers look down serenely on the vibrant human comedy below.

The square was laid out in eighteen fifty-three as a public playing field for the traditional ball game known as jeu de balle, or pelote pelote, a fast-paced sport beloved by Flemish factory workers who struck a hard leather ball with their bare palms. In eighteen seventy-three, city authorities moved the ragged ragpickers' market here from Place Anneessens to clean up the central boulevards. No two mornings are ever identical at the Jeu de Balle: on any given day, you might find a seventeenth-century copper sundial, an art deco chrome lamp, or a vintage leather travel trunk once belonging to an African diplomat.

Comic book lovers will instantly recognize this square: it was right here on the Jeu de Balle that Hergé's intrepid boy reporter Tintin bought the wooden model ship of the Unicorn in the opening scene of The Secret of the Unicorn. Fans from across the globe wander among the stalls hoping to make their own miraculous antique discovery hidden among dusty books.

Around the edges of the square sit timeless Marolles cafes like Le Brocanteur and Chez Klot, where elderly locals, antique dealers, and bohemian artists gather at ten in the morning to sip bitter pilsner beer, eat raw beef spread on rye bread, and share lively gossip in the fading Marollien dialect. The market begins packing up by two in the afternoon, when municipal street sweepers wash the cobblestones clean, leaving the vast square empty and quiet for neighborhood children to play soccer in the fading twilight.

Walk toward the eastern corner of the square, slip onto Rue Blaes, and proceed toward the striking red-brick entrance of Cité Hellemans.