The Doomed City of Doel, Belgium

Hello Steemians! My name is Rick, I am 20 years old and I would like to take you with me on my first trip to an abandon village.

In 2015 I started to get more and more interest in photography. I got inspired at school were we learned to handle a photo camera. The teacher learned us how we could use the shutter, getting used to the diaphragm and all that kind of stuff... We practiced a bit at school by photographing abstract statue's, art and buildings. After about 3 weeks we got the task to photograph something we would like, as long as we put the effort into it. Me and 3 other friends wanted to do something big and different from the rest and choose to visit a ghost town in Belgium. This is my journey and experience in The Doomed city of Doel.

In the early morning we meet in Tilburg (Netherlands) next to our campus. We were lucky enough that one of us could drive. It was pretty busy on the road and we drove about 1,5h before we arrived in Doel.

We were stupid enough to not make any photographs before we entered the city but there were butchers and rules on big signs. One of these rules said to NOT enter any buildings. You probably know which rule we broke...

We then drove into the city to the closest parking lot which was located next to the church. We packed our bags and photo cameras and explored the environment.

Some minutes later we stumbled upon this building after climbing over this knee-height fence which you can see in the picture above. We were so curious that we entered the building with the nice graffiti on the front.

The whole house was completely destroyed and there was graffiti all over the place. Some places were actually quite scary.

A friend of mine then tried to climb up the stairs which resulted in a stunning photo.

About 15 minutes later we decided to get back on the road to walk around Doel a bit more. As soon as we hit the road a old man drove up towards us and shouted: "You shouldn't enter the buildings, because the police will arrest you if they catch you!". We then started the conversation and the man told us that he still lived here. He explained why people moved away from Doel and told us more about the city history. It was a pleasure to talk to this kind man. We continued our journey after talking to him for a tens of minutes.

To be continued...