DOEL
There are tons of places for urban exploring, and Belgium has its fair variety. From train stations that haven’t been in use for decades to villages claimed by nature. One of those villages being Doel. This being my first time urban exploring, Doel seemed like a great place to start. This small village is located in west Belgium near the border of the Netherlands. South of the Schelde river.
A brief history
In the 60’s, Doel was planned to be taken down to make space for extensions of the Antwerp harbors. A decade later these plans were canceled, the extensions were now planned to be built around the village. In these ten years, people already started leaving their home’s. Another 10 years later, again new plans were made for extensions of the harbor. This led to more and more people leaving. Since then the number of people living in Doel decreased dramatically. Now just a hand full of houses are still occupied.
Reaching the village
The village isn’t accessible by public transport anymore. Your best bet is to go by car. Doel does have barriers on the road leading to the village, but these are only closed between 10 pm and 6 am, to keep unwanted guests out. Or another option, if you are a cycling fanatic like us, you could hire a bike in Antwerp and cycle from there. It’s about 27km from Antwerp central.
We arrived in the afternoon when the sun was already lowering a bit in the sky.
When you first enter the village, the atmosphere feels completely different. It’s like you step into some post apocalyptic village. Where everything has been abandoned. The buildings are all either covered by trees and plants, graffiti or both. After cycling through the village we first settled for a drink in the windmill behind the village, which is now being used as a restaurant.
House rules
Because there are still some people living in Doel. It is illegal to enter houses or damage anything. All windows and doors have already been barricaded with metal plates in the past years. There was one house I could find where the metal plates had been bend open so you could walk in. When I got close to the entrance I heard voices coming from inside, I didn’t know if there were maybe homeless people inside, other explorers or someone else, but I didn’t want to risk anything. Seen as there are still people living in some houses, which are not homeless.
Conclusion
Abandoned can be beautiful. That is also what I tried to capture with the photos I took. Which, in my opinion, turned out great. For some more photo’s check out the gallery at the end of this post!
For a first time visiting an abandoned place, it was a great experience. It was a shame you couldn’t enter any buildings for some interior photos, but that will be my goal next time when I go urban exploring. If you have any questions or suggestions, leave a comment below.
