Michel Lambrecht

It’s rarely a compliment to be called a pack rat, but it all depends on what you’re hoarding. For the city of Brussels, it’s antiques. Everyone from the Romans to the Germans have controlled this 1,000-year-old city, and they’ve each left a piece of themselves. Instead of sweeping it under the rug - Belgians are too tidy for that - they’ve simply slapped a price tag on the lot and brought it to market.

“There’s no better place than Brussels for antiques,” says British-based interior designer Olga Polizzi, who decorates the hotels of the Rocco Forte Collection, the luxury hotel chain. Like many design professionals, Polizzi shops Brussels twice a year because its vendors offer what no other city’s does: deals. “Give me two or three days in Brussels and I’ll buy masses,” she says. “Everything is half price.”

Your impression of Brussels depends on where you stand. To some, it’s all grey government buildings and European Union bureaucrats having expense-account lunches. But to the creative community, Brussels is a living legacy of arts, having made gorgeous contributions to Renaissance painting, art deco architecture, decorative arts and, thanks to local agriculture, textiles such as linen and lace. Dignitaries and diplomats kept these trades in business - they favour comely homes, after all. And today, the high volume of commerce in upholstery and antiques keeps prices low for visitors too.

Polizzi is well aware of this fact. Her most recent shopping binge was for the Augustine, a Prague hotel set to open in May, where each of the 50 rooms is outfitted uniquely. Conveniently, Polizzi’s Brussels base camp, the luxe Hotel Amigo, is within walking distance of scores of antiques shops and weekend markets.

At the heart is the Place du Grand Sablon, or simply the Sablon, a postcard-perfect 17th-century square 10 minutes on foot from Hotel Amigo.

The Sablon is home to heavy hitters such as Costermans. Packed with 18th-century furniture, this shop is about as gilt as you can get, with price tags to match. Those who prefer to find their diamonds in the rough should arrive early to the square’s weekend antiques market, when a couple dozen vendors hawk small wares including silver, prints and porcelain, and some of the most erudite street food ever: escargot and white wine.

The area holds a few more treasures, not all of the vintage variety. On the Sablon is Flamant, the Ralph Lauren of the Low Countries. This high-end home furnishings shop arranges its products into rooms that are quintessentially Belgian: elegant but never showy. The shop’s merchandising and styling offer ideas to take home, such as using rich crimson, putty or charcoal paint to intensify a room filled with neutral-coloured upholstery.

Up the hill, hugging the exquisite formal garden Place du Petit Sablon, is Laurent, whose inventory is like the marriage of a naturalist and a mad artist. Insect parts hover inside a bell jar, plaster ducks wear the 17th-century collars that were once used to identify their living brethren and 1930s fashion sketches from Berlin are framed in glittery ribbon.

Nearly every street around Place du Grand Sablon is dotted with antiques shops. At Michel Lambrecht, beautiful antique architectural ornaments such as iron gate finials are transformed into lamps and sconces. “I’ll ask Michel, ‘What’ve you got?’ ” Polizzi says. “He’ll tell me that he’s just found masses of something. He’ll make anything for you.” For The Augustine, that something was radiator parts. Soon, they’ll light guests’ bedside reading.

Those who revel in the hunt will want to veer west to the Marolles, a neighbouring district where prices tend to be lower. Follow Grand Sablon down the slope and you’ll see Notre Dame de la Chapelle,

a behemoth Romanesque-Gothic church dating to the 13th century. Its grounds hold the final resting place of Renaissance master Pieter Brueghel the Elder - and a popular frites vendor. Shops and cafés are cheek-by-jowl here between the church and Place du Jeu de Balle, the site of a massive daily flea market.

At Jacques Brol, turned-wood lamps and rough-hewn farmhouse tables live alongside the sometimes-edgy work of local artists. The shop’s name is sort of a joke - brol means junk in Marollien slang, the rich dialect native to this former working-class neighbourhood and spawned by the cross-pollination of Dutch residents in a French-speaking land.

The Marolles has several warehouse-sized stores selling brol en bucht (odds and ends), such as Stef Antiques, which extends a full city block. It contains one-off wonders, such as a massive vintage carousel, but its strength is in numbers - many of its objects can be purchased by the dozen. Wooden children’s chairs, blue enamelled-metal house numbers, and boxes of vintage laundry soap are among them. If you need to outfit a sprawling bohemian café, this is your place.

But the most trafficked destination for second-hand miscellany is the daily market at Place du Jeu de Balle. Dealers and hard-core collectors arrive at 7 a.m. as vendors are laying out their wares, and the whole cluttered affair is over by early afternoon. African art - evidence of Belgium’s colonial interests - is plentiful, but some of the market’s best deals on are tabletop goods. An ironstone vessel from defunct Belgian ceramicist Boch was only $8, while a porcelain tea set hand-painted in orange and silver was selling for $49. A bit of bartering is expected, though you’ll have more leverage doing it in French or Flemish. (When I spotted a green glass apothecary jar marked at one euro and muttered something in English to my shopping partner, the price immediately doubled. Her quick-witted retort - in native tongue - brought the price back down.)

Enjoy the ambience of second-hand goods without the haggling at Restobières, a funky café that’s decorated with floor-to-ceiling collections of beer bottles, biscuit tins, meat grinders and cake platters. For dessert, order the light-as-air kriek sabayon, because if Brussels has served you well, you’ll be forgoing the 20-minute walk to the hotel in favour of a taxi. You’ve got brol to carry.

*****

Pack your bags
Getting There
Jet Airways and Air Transat fly direct from Canadian airports.

Where to Stay
Hotel Amigo, Rue de l’Amigo ; 32 (2) 547-4747;from $417.

Where to eat
Restobières, 32 rue des Renards; 32 (2) 502-7251

Where to Shop
Costermans 5 Place du Grand Sablon; 32 (2) 512-2133

Place du Grand Sablon weekend antiques market Saturdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sundays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Flamant, 36 Place du Grand Sablon; 32 (2) 514-4707

Laurent, 11 Place du Petit Sablon; 32 (2) 346-2670

Michel Lambrecht, 18 Rue Watteau; 32 (2) 502-2729

Jacques Brol, 202 Rue Haute; 32-476-250-253

Stef Antiques, 63 Rue Blaes; no number

Place du Jeu de Balle Flea Market Daily 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.