Living in Saint-Gilles

South of the centre, between Gare du Midi and avenue Louise: Saint-Gilles, a young and dense municipality, its lively squares, its Art Nouveau and two art and architecture schools. One of the best connected municipalities in Brussels, with Gare du Midi on its doorstep.

The neighbourhood

Saint-Gilles is a dense 19th-century municipality, rich in Art Nouveau, with Victor Horta's house, now a museum, and the Hôtel Hannon. It presents itself as "a village in the city", in four neighbourhoods: Louise, at the top, towards Le Châtelain, the Parvis, the Midi and Bethléem. The Parvis is the lively heart, with its cafés, its terraces and a market almost every day. The upper streets, towards place Janson, are quieter, the lower ones, towards the Midi and Porte de Hal, more working-class and more hectic.

Markets set the rhythm of the week: the big Midi market on Sunday mornings, the Parvis from Wednesday to Sunday, place Van Meenen, in front of the town hall, on Mondays. For fresh air, place Marie Janson, turned into an urban park in 2023, the Porte de Hal park, and the Forest park on the edge of the municipality.

Getting around

• Gare du Midi is in Saint-Gilles: trains to the whole country, international trains and direct trains to Brussels Airport.
• Metro lines 2 and 6 run through the Midi, Porte de Hal and Louise. At Gare de l'Ouest, line 5 takes you to Erasme, and at Arts-Loi, lines 1 and 5 take you to Woluwe, the Plaine and the VUB.
• For the Solbosch, take the metro to Louise, then tram 8, about twenty minutes.
• Trams 4 and 10 run underground through Porte de Hal, Parvis, Horta and Albert, and tram 92 through Louise, Janson and Ma Campagne.
• Major works until 2027: since April 2026 and for a year, no tram runs between the Midi and Porte de Hal (the 4 is cut in two, the 10 stops at the Midi), and the Barrière is being transformed until autumn 2027, which also cuts trams 81 and 97. A temporary bus, the 96, links Trinité, the Barrière and the Midi, and bus 50 goes to Gare Centrale.
• By car, parking is paid everywhere in the municipality.
• At night, the Noctis N11 and N12 cross the municipality on Fridays and Saturdays.

Schools nearby

Two schools are in the municipality: ESA Saint-Luc, the école supérieure des arts, on place Morichar, and UCLouvain's Faculty of Architecture, LOCI, on rue Wafelaerts, with its architecture library. The Haute École Francisco Ferrer, near the Palais du Midi, is just on the other side of the boundary.

Everyday life

The Horta museum stays open during its renovation works. The Victor Boin swimming pool, an Art Deco gem, has been closed for renovation since 2023, and its reopening date has not been set yet. The municipality has a French-speaking library and a Dutch-speaking one.

Housing

Kots and flatshares share the offer equally, with a good share of studios, and flatshares here are among the largest in Brussels, often for four or more.

For whom?

A good choice if you study at Saint-Luc or LOCI, if you often take the train, or if you have classes at Erasme and want to live in town, and if you like young, lively neighbourhoods.

Less suited if you have a car, or if you are a light sleeper near the Parvis. And until 2027, the works make tram journeys more complicated.

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