Den Ouden Tijd

On your left, look for a dark bronze seated woman with a smooth, curved base, a relaxed pose, and a youthful figure that stands out against the older stone around her.

Leuven honors not a rector or a saint here, but the woman who kept student life running: the kotmadam, the landlady who rented out student rooms, handed over keys, and laid down the house rules.

This statue began as a Marktrock music-festival idea, not some lofty art project. Miel Vandezande, working with the local traders and the V-V-V tourist office, helped set it in motion, and sculptor Fred Bellefroid stood beside the first model at a press conference in June of nineteen eighty-four.

They unveiled the statue on the sixteenth of May, nineteen eighty-five, as a gift to the city worth eight hundred thousand Belgian francs. Maria Swerts, then Leuven’s oldest kotmadam, served as its godmother, which gave the whole thing a proper local heartbeat.

Here is the little wrinkle locals remember: people first complained that Bellefroid made her too young and too elegant. They expected a kotmadam to be older and heavier, more like a walking house rule in sensible shoes. If you check the image in the app, that poised look is exactly what stirred the debate.

Like Fonske, she outlived the grumbling and became a favorite. People sit beside her, even on her lap, and by two thousand twenty-one the city formally recognized her as heritage. That is Leuven in miniature: learning depends on ordinary people, too. When you are ready, head for Minderbroedersstraat, about six minutes away, where old street lines and later science quietly meet. The square around her stays active from early morning until around half past one, and it is usually kind to your wallet.