Mons - A Sunday by Train

One Sunday in February, Mons for the length of a round trip by train. In the carriage, a passenger reads, pencil in hand. On arrival, the city is still asleep, grey and wet: black and white imposed itself.

Stairs and escalator climbing to the station footbridge beneath its ribs, Mons — Mons

The station and its ribs.

You enter Mons through the station designed by Santiago Calatrava. From afar, its white arches span the tracks; up close, the footbridge becomes a forest of slats and ribs, a staircase climbing towards a milky light. An architecture made for black and white.

The Gothic town hall on the almost empty Grand-Place, Mons — Mons

The gargoyles and the Grand-Place.

On the Grand-Place, a sentence in large letters stands in front of the empty terraces: the gargoyles that escaped from Mons now fly like angels above the domes. The town hall waits for its first passers-by. In the nearby streets, a man in a work jacket stops on the wet cobbles, and two women’s faces watch the city from a brick gable.

The belfry behind the bare branches of a tree, Mons — Mons

In the shadow of the belfry.

Higher up, the belfry towers over the city behind its bare trees. On a bench, two people wrapped up warm catch what little sun February has to offer. All around, Mons reveals itself backstage: gardens seen from above, a small courtyard full of flowerpots, deserted lanes, a wisteria winding across the stone, a vaulted passage opening onto the light.

A young woman in a trench coat looking out of the window of the train home — Mons

The way back.

Then the station again, its fenced footbridge, its platform where travellers cross paths under the canopy. On the train home, a young woman in a trench coat watches the landscape go by. Mons fits into a single day, and leaves that rare feeling of having watched a city wake up.