Galerie du Roi, Brussels - Galeries Royales St Hubert

This 1847 beauty with its high glass ceiling and iron framed windows is buzzing today with a wonderful mix of old traders (the Neuhaus chocolate shop dating from 1857, with the original N in its stained glass windows; the Italian glove shop from 1890; the Brussels lace shop), and the more modern arty shops, with a creative designer touch. Sadly the old Vaudeville Theatre is now a branch of the (admittedly very good) café chain Pain Quotidien.

The Galerie du Roi is one of the three arcades that make up the Galeries Royales or Galeries St Hubert. It is usually busy with people shopping, eating or simply strolling as it is only a short walk from the Grand Place, Brussels’ iconic main square.

Inside the arcade, the eyes are drawn up and along the length, with the ceiling the focal point, while down at the far end are two classic figures standing either side of a small clock-face which must once have been a kind of barometer, though I was uncertain of all the abbreviations for different weather forecasts, and there was no dial to indicate today’s weather.

Each shop front has its number cast in a semi-circular frame of wrought iron, the Neuhaus chocolate shop impressing the most with its stained glass around the No 25, and a bust of Mr Neuhaus himself in the window; the Theatre Royal also numbered at 32.

There are plaques to commemorate the architect Cluysenaars, and the 50^th and 100^th anniversary of the arcade opening. Also a plaque to remember the first ever cinematographic screening in Belgium inside this arcade in 1896. And at the time of our visit in 2023, there was an exhibition in the basement of the cinema to commemorate 175 years of the Galeries Royales.

Above the entrance are the words Omnia Omnibus (‘All Things to All Men’).

My favourite shop today

I love the Neuhaus chocolate shop, obviously for their chocolates, but also for the story of the company and their shop in this arcade. Neuhaus began, apparently, as a pharmacy for its first 10 years, until Mr Neuhaus discovered the medicinal quality of chocolate and converted his shop to deal only in chocolates, quickly inventing the praline, which became the trademark Belgian chocolate. The chocolate shop has been in this same premises for over 165 years now.

My pick of the arcade’s past

The Illustrated London News of 28 August 1847 said of the new arcades in Brussels: “No Englishman should fail to include this in his tour through the city.” It said the whole arcades complex is about 20 or 30 times the size of Burlington Arcade in London, with about a quarter of a mile of glass roofing and ‘brilliant shops’.

With the Belgian nation still just 25 years old, shops in the arcade in the 1850s showed their displeasure at the takeover of power in Paris by Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III). Some were reported as showing portraits of the execution of various French personalities, including Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, as a way of declaring their independence from the French.

French poet Charles Baudelaire used to enjoy a walk up and down the arcades when he lived nearby in the 1860s. In 1873 another writer Verlaine shot fellow author Rimbaud with a revolver bought in this arcade. An 1876 report of a visitor to Brussels estimated that a fifth of the shops in this arcade sold Belgian lace (only one now remains in Galerie du Roi).

This arcade in films or books

The 1995 film Total Eclipse starring Leonardo di Caprio and David Thewlis has scenes set in Galerie du Roi. The film is about the Verlaine/Rimbaud relationship, where the arcade has a significant role to play in the violent outcome…