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From the heights of the Upper Town , the Francophile ruling class long kept a beady eye on the proletarians down below, and it was here they built their palaces and mansions, churches and parks. Political power is no longer concentrated hereabouts, but the wide avenues and grand architecture of this aristocratic quarter - the bulk of which dates from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - has survived pretty much intact, lending a stately, dignified feel that's markedly different from the bustle of the Lower Town below. The Lower Town ends and the Upper Town begins at the foot of the sharp slope which runs north to south from one end of the city centre to the other, its course marked - in general terms at least - by a traffic-choked boulevard that's variously named Berlaimont, L'Imperatrice and L'Empereur. This slope is home to the city's cathedral , a splendid Gothic edifice that's recently been restored, but otherwise is little more than an obstacle to be climbed by a series of stairways. Among the latter, the most frequently used are the covered walkway running through the Galerie Ravenstein shopping arcade behind the Gare Centrale , and the open-air stairway that climbs up through the stodgy, modern buildings of the so-called Mont des Arts . Leopold II gave the area its name in anticipation of a fine art museum he intended to build, but the project was never completed, and the land was only properly built upon in the 1950s. Above the rigorous layout of the Mont des Arts lie the exuberant rue Royale and rue de la Regence , which together make up the Upper Town's spine, a suitably smart location for the outstanding Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts , probably the best of Belgium's many fine art collections, and the surprisingly low-key Palais Royal . Further south, rue de la Regence soon leads to the well-heeled Sablon neighbourhood, whose antique shops and chic bars and cafes fan out from the medieval church of Notre Dame du Sablon . Beyond this is the monstrous Palais de Justice , traditionally one of the city's most disliked buildings.
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