Januari 11th, 2015 - Morning. Blue Christ Church. On this cold and snowy winterday, we went for another urbextrip in our dear old Belgium. It was a short night, before I knew it, we heard our alarm and it was time to get out of our bed. Busy day today, 3 locations to do and we have to drive a few hours before arriving too! ;) Let's get going! ;) Our first location was Blue Christ Church. You know, the church with that blue cross, hanging on the ceiling? Yup, that's it! ;) We drove for almost two hours this time, the city where this church is located, isn't exactly nearby... ;) This one was really high on my to do list, I was really excited for Blue Christ Church, since I've seen so many gorgeous pictures of this location online and I was thrilled I had the chance to go there. Arriving at the scene, we park the car at a nearby parking, heading over to the location when we spot a dark blue car with a Romanian license plate, standing in front of one of the doors of this church. Nothing or no one else to see however... We had to walk around the church to find an entrance, but that part of the city was quite empty and we didn't see anyone while exploring for an entrance, except for the blue car, obviously! ;) However, I did entered the building with chills running over my back, I wasn't too sure about that car, but inside, there wasn't a living soul. The ground was smuttered with pidgeot poo, skeletons of pidgeots and dirt. It was the most grows thing I've ever seen and I loved it! The dirt gave this location such a great atmosphere! ;) The noises inside really gave me the shivers, because everytime one of the pidgeots made a noise, I was convinced the men of that blue car came back, but we managed to take pictures, from the bottom to the top, and leaving the location without running into anyone. Seeing all those gorgeous pictures online, I really had high expectations of Blue Chirst Church and I felt like they didn't really came true, because of the poo, the skeletons and the dirt everywhere, but I was still glad I had the chance to go there! ;) For any history or more pictures of Blue Christ Church, check out my gallery HERE. Januari 11th, 2015 - Noon. Fort de la Chartreuse. Our second location that day was Fort de la Chartreuse, When we arrived at the area, we spotted some locals, out for a walk with their dogs, so this is a quite known location. There's nothing much to say about the location though, I didn't find it quite interesting, to be fair... Grafitti, stones, ruins and that's about it, although this location is quite large. When leaving the location, more locals and their dogs found their way to Fort de la Chartreuse, so be prepared to see a whole lot of people (and to be seen by a lot of people! ;)) when visiting this location! ;) The buildings are also used by local youth to hang around. Just saying... ;) What else can I say? Let's put it this way: in my opinion, Fort de la Chartreuse is a good location when you're already in the neighbourhood, and it could be an attractive location when you're shooting "grungy" models, but I certainly ain't doing a revisit! ;) For any history or more pictures,, check out my gallery HERE. Januari 11th, 2015 - Afternoon. Chateau Rouge. When we arrived at Chateau Rouge, there wasn't anyone, but once we were inside, we heared people coming in. Chateau Rouge is a popular loction amongst urbexers and the people coming in, were urbexers too. There isn't much left to see or to photograph out there, a forgotten sofa, an abandoned table, some empty rooms and some stairs, Chateau Rouge isn't what it's used to be anymore, according to older pictures I've seen, but it's a good location to visit when you're already in the area. We were able to take our pictures without any problems, said goodbye to our "collegue urbexers" and went back home after a long day! ;) For any history or more pictures of Chateau Rouge,, check out my gallery HERE. Untill my next footprints! ;) XOXO Nathalie
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November 28th, 2014 - Afternoon Chateau Zakspeed. Before visiting Chateau Zakspeed, we actually never heard nor seen anything on this beautiful location. A friend of ours told us there was this abandoned chateau near his home, so on a chilly fridayafternoon, after my boyfriend was done working, we went to check it out. We were amazed by the amount of junk laying around in the chateau, but the beautiful hallway and the amazing staircase really were worth the visit! ;) When we arrived, there were some railway workers, working on the trainrails near the chateau. My boyfriend asked them if we were allowed to pass, which we were so we went along and bumped into a city worker riding a bycicle in front of the chateau. After he asked us what we were doing out there (photographing, sir!) and if we were photographing for some magazine (No, sir!), he warned us not to go inside and took of. We waited for a little while, shooting the outside of the chateau and the side building, before entering the chateau, to make sure he wasn't coming back to check on us, but we haven't seen him anymore and were able to shoot our inside pics without any problems. There was a whole lot of stuff inside: toys, papers, cd's and movies and a lot of, well, just junk! But the hallway with the chandelier and the gorgeous stairs left me breathless! Besides the gorgeous entree, also the large unbroken mirror and the furniture that was left behind, made it really worth the visit! Unfortunately, this chateau burned down some months after our visit and the hallway is in really bad shape now. Such a shame! For more pictures and the history of Chateau Zakspeed, check out my gallery HERE. Untill my next footprints! ;) XOXO Nathalie November 15th, 2014 - Morning, Schollaerts Monastery, For this trip, we stayed in our dear old Belgium! And what locations do we have on our planning today? Lost Boeing and Chateau de la Chapelle. Schollaerts Monastery actually was't on our to do list, we bumped into these buildings when driving to Lost Boeing and couldn't resist taking a look inside. After an 40 minutes drive (approximately), we bumped into an unknown abandoned building and stumbled into some other people before going in but it seemed they weren't real urbexers, he was carrying some burglar stuff and looking for copper while she was photographing the place. Luckily we didn't share any locations with them! Such a shame to have locations trashed by people like that! Anyway, we went inside and well, there wasn't that much to see, to be fair... Some abandoned chairs, a staircase and some empty rooms... Not really worth the drive, but if you bump into it by accident, it's nice to have another location to add this to your "Done" list! ;) For more pictures and the history of this location, check out the gallery HERE. November 15th, 2014 - Noon / Afternoon Lost Boeing After leaving Schollaerts Monastery, we took off and drove to the real first location on our to do list: Lost Boeing. We didn't have to search for it, as the planes are already visible from the road so after parking the car, we walked over there and started shooting. Those busses really took me back into time. 2 years ago, my boyfriend (and urbexpartner! ;)) took me to a trip to London, to celebrate my 30th birthday, so I was thrilled to see those busses. Those were the first items I photographed over there! ;) We went into the bus too, but apart from one seat, the drivers seat, the stearing wheel and the stairs to the opper deck, there wasn't that much to see. We dind't get into the airplanes either, since the big one was standing on the roof. I've heard you can get into the big one, but there's a shooting club just next to the building where the plane was on top and people were going inside and outside all the time. Bummer! ;) For more pictures and the history of Lost Boeing, check out the gallery HERE. After visiting Lost Boeing, we went to Chateau de la Chapelle but I had to let my boyfriend do that one on his own, since I was to scared to cross the tree in the water... What a chicken I am, right? ;) Bummer! ;) For pictures of Chateau de la Chapelle, I recommend you to go HERE. Untill my next footprints! ;) XOXO Nathalie October 19th, 2014 - Morning Chateau Hogemeyer. Time for another urbex trip! But this time, we stayed in our old, dear Belgium! ;) Of to Chateau Hogemeyer! After less than an one hour drive, we arrived in the street of the chateu. We had to drive by a few times to see for a spot to park the car because there waren't any parking spots and we didn't want to park too nearby to avoid beeing seen by anyone. But we didn't get to walk too far back... ;) Back at the chateau, we immediately see the gate with the no trespassing text on it, but hey, we're urbexers, and we ignore such texts, right? ;) Passing the gate to enter, wasn't hard at all, there's plenty of space to enter so that was a piece of cake., and entering the chateau itself was as easy as wel. Inside, we were stunned by the amount of decay. Broken windows, some pieces of floor that weren't there anymore, collapsed ceilings, ... We had to be really careful in here. We managed to take some shots of the hallway, the stairs, the ornaments above the doors in the hallway and ofcourse, the chapel. I also found myself some pretty windows and a beautiful couch, so I was happy! ;) Back outside, we looked around at the property, shooting the camper and the cars and trucks out there before we went into one of the barns. Inside the barn, we found a wooden carriage we just had to photograph. We took a look into the garage, took some pictures of the cars and the equipment inside and went back to the front of the chateau for some last exterior shots. When we were photogrzaphing in front of the building, a guy with a camera passed the gate and asked us if we were the owners, because he was interested in the building. He was the only living soul we bumped into out there... ;) After a brief conversation, we took of. Time for our second location! ;) Check the Chateau Hogemeyer gallery HERE. October 19th - During the day Salve Mater After visiting Chateau Hogemeyer, we drove to Salve Mater. We all know some of the buildings are already renovated, but at the time, there still were some abandoned buildings left too. Getting there wasn't hard at all, there were signs everywhere! ;) Getting in wasn't hard either. The buildings are surrounded by a (public?) park and you can walk straight in it. This was probably the easiest urbex location to find ever, so it was a very good one to start of an urbex career. I don't know if there's anything left by now (after all, our visit was months ago and when I'm typing this, it's june 2015 already) but if there is, you better hurry up! ;) We ignored the already renovated buildings, obviousely, and we didn't bump into the photographer living in one of the abandoned buildings, so I guess we were lucky that day... ;) We started our walk in the park, watching the buildings, untill some guy walked up to us and told us there was a way to enter one of the buildings. He was going in himself, so we went along and followed him. Inside, we immediately spotted some other urbexers, so we weren't the only ones... ;) At first, there was't much to see. actually. Just a bunch of empty rooms (or, if we were lucky, a room with one bed in it... ;) ), a bunch of hallways and doors (some of the doors were pretty though) and once and a while, an abandoned chair in the hallway, but the further we went, the better it got! We managed to shoot the freaky shower with the rubber boots, the bleeding bathtub and the grafitti man, amongst other things, and I was very pleased with that. Unfortunately, when we wanted to enter the church, a girl, living in the pastors house, walked across us, asking what we were doing and telling us we weren't allowed to go inside the buildings. Luckily she didn't catched us entering or leaving one of the buildings! ;) Well, I guess our luck was gone by then! ;) When the girl walked away, we took a fast "through the window" picture of the table inside the morgue, and after that, we also took of. Check the Salve Mater gallery HERE. Untill my next footprints! ;) XOXO Nathalie October 4th, 2104 - Morning. Departure to France and Prison H15. Well, it's actually june now, when I'm writing down all of this, so I have to do some deep digging into my pour and miserable memory (I really can't remember anything these days! ;)) to be able to write everything down! ;) Let's hope I'm not forgetting something! ;) When my boyfriend and me woke up that morning in october, we both were so enthousiast! We were heading of to France to go see Prison H15! Yay! This was going to be my very first real urbex experiece, can you imagine?! I've been visiting urbex locations before, but this was the first time I was actually photographing a location myself, so it was a big deal to me! ;) So, after a 2 hours drive, we arrived at the scene. We drove around the complex, to see where to put the car, found the perfect spot to park and after a short walk along the guards houses, we found ourself standing in front of the wall of the first building. We've found the woman's wing! Well done! ;) Getting inside the first building, wasn't hard at all, I'm not gonna share the ins and outs here, obviousely, but let me tell you that one walk around the prisonwalls was enough to show us all we needed to know! ;) So, that was it, we managed to get inside and it was time to get busy! ;) We started off at the roof of a security room to get some exterior shots of the buildings. My "wire fence" picture (left) was also taken up there. After taking the obligate "outside" shots, it was time to take our business inside, so after we went down from the roof, we left the security room, walked through an open gate (how convienent! ;) ) and set foot on the actual prison floor! The first rooms we spotted, were some empty working rooms and then we found ourselfes in the main prison block. Let's go see what a prison cel really looks like! ;) Well, what can I say... It's small and uncomfortable! ;) We did all the floors and took pictures everywhere but let's face it, those prisoncels all look the same... ;) After a while, we've seen everything (yes, the chapel too) and we went back outside to look for an entrance into building two, the men's block. We did hear a lot of noises while we were still in the first building, but didn't spend too much attention on it. I guess we better did after all... But more on that in a second! ;) Outside, we peeped through the peephole in the main entrance (and spotted the gypsy camp. We haven't seen them anywhere else in or around the buildings), took some pictures from the gates, the buildings, the guarding towers and the sporting facilities outside the men's block before we went into the second building. So, as I mentioned before, we've heard a lot of noises while photographing in building #1. You probably guessed it already: the whole building was filled with airsofters. Quite scary actually. I never seen, nor have I done airsofting, so I really didn't knew anything about it. Little did I know they were dressed like soldiers and actually really shooting people, in real life! Well, with airsoft bullets ofcourse, not real ones, but hey, they both hurt! ;) My boyfriend got hit while entering the second building. We walked up some stairs and were standing in front of a half open door when an airsoft bullet hit him on his hand. We didn't know how to get downstairs any faster! I think we were almost flying back then! ;) Lol! One of those men came outside and told us they were airsofting, we better dind't enter the building as long they were in there, but we entered through another entrance and took our pictures as fast as we could, with our ears wide open for any airsoft sounds... ;) Besides the airsofters, we did bump into lots of other urbexers, from all over Europe! ;) After a few hours, we've seen it all and called it a day. Off to the next location! ;) Check the Prison H15 Gallery HERE. October 4th, 2014 - During the day Usine Standart S.A. Cant say much about this one actually. We took some pictures of the abandoned industrial things and equipments left in there... It was fun, but I'm not really interested in industrial places... We did bump into some French teenagers, probably wanted to chill in there. Let's hope they didn't trash the place! ;) Check the Usine Standart S.A. gallery HERE. October 4th, 2014 - Afternoon Les Moulins de Paris Another location I really can't tell much about, actually. When we arrived, some girls were shooting a photoshoot in there, they must have seen something special here, but I couldn't see it. The location was decayed that much I had trouble making some pictures, can you imagine? I managed to take a grafitti picture and some location pictures, but I sure ain't doing a revisit here! ;) When we were taking our pictures, it started to rain really bad and we didn't wanna ruin our camera's, obviousely, so we left, got to our car and went back home. Check the Moulin de Paris gallery HERE. Untill my next footprints! ;) XOXO - Nathalie |
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