Doel

Once a small and quiet village with a thousand inhabitants next to the Schelde river at Linkeroever, now it's a ghost town with only 28 die hard inhabitants left. Doel is situated in the middle of an industrial harbor area, next to a nuclear factory. The people of the town didn't have to leave because of nuclear dangers, the government had plans to expand the harbor in the mid nineties. They wanted to build a dock next to Doel. There were protests but after a lot of juristic jibberish and uncertainties the people had to leave anyway. After the government decided people had to leave, a lot of sqautters and looters came to Doel and people who just left their houses saw how their windows, bathrooms,... where looted. They couldn't do anything because of the contract they signed. Soon the village was a sort of lawless place full of squatters and looters. This went on for a couple of years till it got in the news and the police became very strict and did a big clean up. Today Doel has only a few diehards left and the squatters are also gone. It could be the perfect setting for a zombie outbreak movie. Most of the houses are empty and full of grafitti. It's defenitely one of the most spooky places you'll ever visit. It's forbidden to enter the houses, if the police would catch you you also would be fined 250EUROS! Some crazy (angry) local told us a few weeks back, he found a photographer who died because the walls had collapsed, so be careful if you can't resist. In summer you can also take a ferry from Doel to Lillo, great fun and free! Another shitty review by the shitty guide of Antwerpen.