Doel is located near the border of the Netherlands. It’s also right next to the port of Antwerp and the famous nuclear reactor that has cracks in it’s nuclear reservoir also beter knows as Doel I.
Doel is threatened with complete demolition due to the future enlargement of the port of Antwerp. However, Doel has played an important role in the 17th century. They had one of the two famous forts. Fort Liefkenshoek, they were able to see for miles with there big watch tower. Also during that time they housed sailers who were infected with (at the time) deadly diseases. They not only housed them, but they also went trough a complete disinfection process.
Time to visit Doel. Doel has a unmanned checkpoint at the entrance of the town. This is to keep vandals and other people away at night. Since there are actually still a few people who live there.
One of the things that immediately hits you is the silence. And all the graffiti on the houses. As you can see there are a few cars, those are from the people who still live there and also from all the tourists.
We’ve also been inside the Institute since the door was open.
But to our surprise, there wasn’t only broken stuff to see there. There was also a lot of art. Some of the graffiti there is defiantly considered art. But I was surprised to see beer caps for an artwork.
There are a lot more pictures on my Flickr page.
It was a very interesting trip. And I want to thank Mr. W Van Wichelen to take us there. If it wasn’t for him we might never even have seen this.
