Belgium. It's not the most obvious tourist destination at the best of times, its charms sometimes so subtle as to be invisible to the traveller's eye. I'm allowed to say that: I live here. But imagine bypassing the obvious cultural and gastronomic centres that are Bruges, Brussels and Ghent and heading for the depressed ex-steel town of Charleroi, recently voted "ugliest city in the world" by readers of Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.
Charleroi has some of the highest unemployment rates in Belgium and a moribund coal and steel industry, so it's hard to see what would draw visitors to the country's third-largest city. But local art graduate Nicolas Buissart has decided to make the most of its decaying industrial heritage with his Urban Safari, an action-packed adventure around a town whose very name strikes fear into the hearts of even the most stoic Belgians. Charleroi Adventure promises to take visitors on an epic trip that takes in "the place where Magritte's mother committed suicide, the house of the (Belgian serial killer) Marc Dutroux and the most depressing street in all of Belgium", all for 25pp for a five- or six-hour tour, including a picnic. The concept has angered the municipal authorities, but the safari now attracts visitors from across Europe.
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