I Visited The Ugliest City in the World

Welcome to Charleroi.

Welcome to Charleroi. Photo by the author.

Charleroi is a Belgian city and the biggest one in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

It’s known for two things:

1. Its (very) cheap airport.
2. The fact that it’s the ugliest city in the world.

It has a bad reputation in Belgium and around because of the numerous corruption, murder, strike, and more sinister stuff (that I won’t be talking about here) that have been happening since the end of the second world war.

I expected my visit to be bad but…not to that extent.

Here’s what I saw.

1. Everything Is Being Remodeled

Photo by the author. Photo by the author.

Let’s start on a positive note. Charleroi is being completely remodeled which makes it pretty much impracticable.

I arrived at my hostel to drop my bag and the receptionist told me the city had created a virtual treasure hunt.

I downloaded the app and headed outside by the statue where the treasure hunt started.