GHOST VILLAGE OF DOEL
Village with a real open-air museum where you can find a strange silence and a post-apocalyptic atmosphere
What a destiny for this village located in a polder on the banks of the Scheldt! The long history of Doel (pronounced "Doul") began in 1969 when a nuclear power plant was built there. At the end of the 1990s, a project to expand the port of Antwerp doomed it to destruction. The inhabitants were expropriated, but the resistance was organized and went to court. For more than twenty years, legal battles raged while the village slowly died, being emptied of its inhabitants. During this time, squatters and street-artists take over the empty houses and turn them into real works of art and Doel becomes famous as a site of urbex. The Ghent artist ROA came to make his animals, the Brussels artist Resto his alien robots, the Amstelloden artist Ives and his Barack Obama as the Joker... When you visit, be respectful. The buildings remain private properties and you can't enter them as you please. Especially since some of them are always occupied. In this real open-air museum, there is a strange silence and a post-apocalyptic atmosphere. Only the church, which is still maintained, seems to have escaped the decay.
There are still about twenty inhabitants in Doel who are determined to revive the village. In a spirit of Belgian compromise, an agreement was reached in 2022. The Port of Antwerp will be able to expand and the village will continue to exist. The two will be separated by a green zone serving as a buffer. The future of Doel is thus changing!
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