Thanks for watching! Here's more you might like: ▪ The sad last days of a German Ghost Town: ua-cam.com/video/WWBgCnRwGqc/v-deo.htmlsi=TGJWu6l6rEOKVY7I ▪ Weird border: Is this Germany or the Netherlands? ua-cam.com/video/jATA_9A-fWE/v-deo.htmlsi=eEzQSYPAWwoCaf2w ▪ Why the Windows XP Meadow no longer exists: ua-cam.com/video/-M-6YCHIJtU/v-deo.htmlsi=EPBndg7VpSftw4Je
Hello Matthias, great story again! I lived very close to Doel for several years for work and I'm quite familiar with the village and what happened to it. As a small correction, the sign at 10:33 says "Wij wonen hier!" which translates to "We live here!", not "Welcome". They probably put up this sign as people entered and trespassed their property without permission because they thought the property was abandoned. The plan for the harbor was that the village would be torn down and a dock would be built there. Residents of the village were initially offered the estimated resale value of their house +20~25% extra to encourage them to sell their house or property. Many people took the money and moved to towns close by Doel (towns like Kieldrecht, Zandvliet, Verrebroek, Berendrecht, Stabroek..). The people that refused the buy-out and stayed initially got criticized by the government, harbor and contractors for not allowing the expansion to happen. Over time they got sympathy from outside people, as you mentioned, and people started petitions and protests against the removal of Doel. The "Doel 2020" people see themselves as David fighting Goliath. The people that do still live there are mostly older of age and have lived/worked there their whole life. Most of them worked in the port of Antwerp or companies close or related to the harbor. Nowadays it's not as easy to live there anymore, super markets aren't close enough, there's no school or restaurants.. it must be very tough to still live there. From the other abandoned towns you mentioned some still exist; Lillo as a town is no longer inhabited but Fort Lillo (very small centre of the town of Lillo) still has residents living there and they have a small bar/café where the residents meet and talk over a beer. It even has a very small pier where residents have their private boats moored.
Its selfish to stay when you are offered such a good sum of money that these villagers were done, for once the government was kind. And they are met with rejection still, this will only encourage government to offer no cash and send in the army and tanks, run your house over, because a few select people think they are better than everyone else. If this story was about the poor villagers being offered poor value, it would be sympathetic, but this is not the case.
@@SMGJohnIt's not about that... It's about the fackt thay lived and worked thare thare hole life, thare soule is engeaved in the touwn... I live at Kieldrecht, a town next to it, and im proud to live at Kieldrecht, if lived thare my hole life, it's about pride, my grandmother walked these Streets, my grandfather helped lay the streedstoned, Stone by Stone... It's about pride and love for your home... Becouse the house is not our home, it's the hole touwn
Been there a couple of times! In the Netherlands we don’t have much abandoned places so that’s the reason there are a lot of Dutch tourists. It’s the closest abandoned place near the Netherlands. The ride to Doel is indeed a wild ride haha, last ride I got a flat tire… 😅Anyway cool video and shots, thanks for sharing!
julliez in Nederland leven ook met 5.000.000 mensen meer dan nin Belgiè, daarom zijn er ZEKER geen verlaten dorpe, ohg ja de statushouders in Nederland hebben voorrang op een woning boven de native Nederlander
Until 1944, "Doel-Dorp" was even the terminus of the SNCV interurban tram line 367 Sint-Niklaas - Doel. (today bus line 31 with one trip per day). The line was never electrified, it was run by classic steam trams and in the last years of operation with diesel tramcars. The once huge network of Belgian interurban trams (max. 5200km) was largely closed down after WWII.
6:28 This is part of history for most, if not all towns near the Belgian / Dutch (/ Belgian) border, by the way. Substiute Austria-Hungary for Spain if you have to.
and in a few months, years at most, there will be another government either in Flanders, in Antwerp, or at national level, that reverses course again and decides to tear it down anyway. Not a good investment.
I'm personally of the opinion they'll just let it die a slow death by itself and then turn it into harbour. It's really in the midst of a gigantic industrial area and shouldn't be promoted for living circumstances tbh. Air quality of the surrounding villages is the worst in the country. I'd personally love to see it kept as a green zone, a bit of nature to counter everything around it.
That's the plan, but to be honest I can't imagine it being even close to liveable for a long time. As has been said before, the air quality is terrible, and the soil is probably not much better. Because the village has been forgotten for so long, there's hardly no public transport and the road connection to Antwerp is pretty bad, so it's not really an alternative to Antwerp. And it still looks like that, there is still a lot of refurbishing to do.
it reminds me a bit of the village of Heijplaat, part of the Rotterdam municipality. Actually the only thing it has in common is that it too is a village completely surrounded by port facilities, but it is not abandoned at all.
There's a "similar" city in France : Goussainville (the old city), it became a ghost town because of an airport nearby and the plane noise made many citizen leave before their houses were worthless (and there was a deal with the airport company who bought many houses). But now modern airplanes are quieter so people are slowly coming back.
Yes. And lots of other empty villages all over France (with houses for peanuts) but Goussainville is indeed incredible as there’s so much demand for property in ile de France.
Long time ago, i have been into Doel. Some group of photographers decided a Urbex Tour, a group of them climbed over the wall and were gone that day. We didn't see them the rest of the day. Only me and two mates decided to respect the town as it is. The thing is people still live there. And we basically did the same what you did. Walk outside taking pictures of the art, church and so on. The very danger of Urbex and we realised it very quick. Frontwalls can fall down, roofs are dellerict. So to go inside is gambling with you life Tho I got one very good tip Matthias. Did you know if you turn google streetview on, you go back in time? Buildings gone appear again.
Well done. I remember Doel from when it was still a more or less normal village. Over 20 years ago, we went on a school trip to the nuclear power plant
Tiny country with so much unnecessary complications 😅 Indonesia is so huge and real Indonesia is as wide as Russia, Indonesia is the true richest in the entire world, from world's biggest gold reserve, oil and gas are much more than the entire middle east, and so on.. aside world's richest spices and herbs, but very dumb eternal criminals Europe always scam the world including drawing Indonesia too small since Mercator projetion 1569, also claiming the Dutch brought the coffee, while coffee and so many other stuff are native to Indonesia. There are so many criminality the west and middle east has been doing, nothing surprising with your endless karma. The west belong to the medieval and will always be the true poor, real rich will never colonize others, colonization is brainless lowest intelligence action.
Ok so small addition it's not that hard to get to doel, the reason you had a bit of a wild ride is because of the route you took. Which is the main route for freight and as such is the route gps will advice. You also don't pass trough any teminals although you passed the edges of dpworld and mpet, two of the largest container terminals in europe. And under a beidge conecting 2 parts of one terminal. Also the "bridge" that was closed is actually one part of a sluis for said massive ships and the signage will always point to the bridge that is down so all you have to do is look at the signs and follow their direction. But yeah you drove near yhe port of anntwerp which together with the ports of amsterdam and rotterdam are the largest in europe(I'm repeating myself but there is a point here somewhere) which explains the massive amounts of trucks and also why you probably had to wait in a traffic jam at multiple points
Very nice video! Small note though: Lillo still exists! Admittedly, not a lot of it nor with a large population. Nowadays, you can reach it by public transportation (read: a boat) from Antwerp or by driving through the harbor. It's a wonderful place to walk around during the summer (although you'd mostly be walking the same circle over and over again). It's got a population of around 40-50 people.
If it wasn't for the Nuke stacks, it would be worth building a nice community and renovating a part for port workers. But because the government seems like a bunch of celebrity pandering jerks, who would trust them? People need some security in their future.
I'd rather live next to a nuclear power station than next to an international container terminal. Much cleaner, more safe, and far less noisy and smelly.
I think the Church refers to a church no longer in use as abandoned, so in this case ‘the church is not abandoned’ would be fine. You could also say the church is ‘still in use’. Or my instinct would be to refer to the church as ‘still in service’, as church services are still provided there. I’m interested in local communities and I enjoyed this, thanks.
'oe' in Dutch is virtually the same as the German 'u'. As in 'du' or 'Kuh'. You're turning it into a kind of diphthong ending on a schwa. 'Doo-el' as an English approximation. Sorry, "Doel" is said so much in this video that it started grating on me :-D no offense meant to our neighbours!
Nice Video. Good content. Good information. Journalism that looks at things other than politics, sports or entertainment, or at least from a different angle.
I live at Kieldrecht, a town next to it, im 21 but thare is so much more to this story, farmers had to go too, thare are pictures of farmers fichting with hayforks to kranes thare to destroy thare barns, fichts between politics, harborbosses, farmers and the peaple of doel, it's so much sader and so much more special, things that happend in that town that Will never see the daylicht and Trust me it never schuld... I get so sad walking trou it knowing what it once whas....
Actually the expansion of the port was considered before WWII, there are some really interesting plans that survive from that period with one that could have cut off the now residential left bank of Antwerp by a broad canal with dozens of docks connected like the teeth of a comb.
Thanks for watching! Here's more you might like:
▪ The sad last days of a German Ghost Town: ua-cam.com/video/WWBgCnRwGqc/v-deo.htmlsi=TGJWu6l6rEOKVY7I
▪ Weird border: Is this Germany or the Netherlands? ua-cam.com/video/jATA_9A-fWE/v-deo.htmlsi=eEzQSYPAWwoCaf2w
▪ Why the Windows XP Meadow no longer exists: ua-cam.com/video/-M-6YCHIJtU/v-deo.htmlsi=EPBndg7VpSftw4Je
Hat nur mit Belgische Politik zu tun. Habe 35jahre in Antwerpen gewohnt.
5:11 on the bench it says "doel" and "loos" in graffiti. Doelloos is Dutch for purposeless. Very fitting, it seems
It's easy: if it's cheap to get a land or a house there, people will move in.
Yes but most houses are owned by the harbor that wants to destroy the village
Hello Matthias, great story again! I lived very close to Doel for several years for work and I'm quite familiar with the village and what happened to it.
As a small correction, the sign at 10:33 says "Wij wonen hier!" which translates to "We live here!", not "Welcome". They probably put up this sign as people entered and trespassed their property without permission because they thought the property was abandoned.
The plan for the harbor was that the village would be torn down and a dock would be built there. Residents of the village were initially offered the estimated resale value of their house +20~25% extra to encourage them to sell their house or property. Many people took the money and moved to towns close by Doel (towns like Kieldrecht, Zandvliet, Verrebroek, Berendrecht, Stabroek..). The people that refused the buy-out and stayed initially got criticized by the government, harbor and contractors for not allowing the expansion to happen. Over time they got sympathy from outside people, as you mentioned, and people started petitions and protests against the removal of Doel. The "Doel 2020" people see themselves as David fighting Goliath.
The people that do still live there are mostly older of age and have lived/worked there their whole life. Most of them worked in the port of Antwerp or companies close or related to the harbor. Nowadays it's not as easy to live there anymore, super markets aren't close enough, there's no school or restaurants.. it must be very tough to still live there.
From the other abandoned towns you mentioned some still exist; Lillo as a town is no longer inhabited but Fort Lillo (very small centre of the town of Lillo) still has residents living there and they have a small bar/café where the residents meet and talk over a beer. It even has a very small pier where residents have their private boats moored.
I read that the goverment changed its mind and the village will stay. So do you think it will be refurbished?
Its selfish to stay when you are offered such a good sum of money that these villagers were done, for once the government was kind.
And they are met with rejection still, this will only encourage government to offer no cash and send in the army and tanks, run your house over, because a few select people think they are better than everyone else. If this story was about the poor villagers being offered poor value, it would be sympathetic, but this is not the case.
@@SMGJohnIt's not about that... It's about the fackt thay lived and worked thare thare hole life, thare soule is engeaved in the touwn... I live at Kieldrecht, a town next to it, and im proud to live at Kieldrecht, if lived thare my hole life, it's about pride, my grandmother walked these Streets, my grandfather helped lay the streedstoned, Stone by Stone... It's about pride and love for your home... Becouse the house is not our home, it's the hole touwn
Why do I suddenly want to live there?
The houses in Doel are almost as much filled with graffiti as a random house in Berlin! But not quiet as much, of course.
Been there a couple of times! In the Netherlands we don’t have much abandoned places so that’s the reason there are a lot of Dutch tourists. It’s the closest abandoned place near the Netherlands.
The ride to Doel is indeed a wild ride haha, last ride I got a flat tire… 😅Anyway cool video and shots, thanks for sharing!
julliez in Nederland leven ook met 5.000.000 mensen meer dan nin Belgiè, daarom zijn er ZEKER geen verlaten dorpe, ohg ja de statushouders in Nederland hebben voorrang op een woning boven de native Nederlander
7:13 This photo is a beautiful example of an optical illusion. A tiny human being is walking on top of the bench.
Until 1944, "Doel-Dorp" was even the terminus of the SNCV interurban tram line 367 Sint-Niklaas - Doel. (today bus line 31 with one trip per day). The line was never electrified, it was run by classic steam trams and in the last years of operation with diesel tramcars. The once huge network of Belgian interurban trams (max. 5200km) was largely closed down after WWII.
When I was a kid, my father used to invite our family in restaurant Saeftinghe in Doel.
6:28 This is part of history for most, if not all towns near the Belgian / Dutch (/ Belgian) border, by the way. Substiute Austria-Hungary for Spain if you have to.
In belgie is elk dorp een spookstad van okt tot maart
As it seems the harbor will not be extended there after all, maybe it will be refurbished? It is close to Antwerp, after all.
and in a few months, years at most, there will be another government either in Flanders, in Antwerp, or at national level, that reverses course again and decides to tear it down anyway.
Not a good investment.
I'm personally of the opinion they'll just let it die a slow death by itself and then turn it into harbour. It's really in the midst of a gigantic industrial area and shouldn't be promoted for living circumstances tbh. Air quality of the surrounding villages is the worst in the country. I'd personally love to see it kept as a green zone, a bit of nature to counter everything around it.
That's the plan, but to be honest I can't imagine it being even close to liveable for a long time. As has been said before, the air quality is terrible, and the soil is probably not much better. Because the village has been forgotten for so long, there's hardly no public transport and the road connection to Antwerp is pretty bad, so it's not really an alternative to Antwerp. And it still looks like that, there is still a lot of refurbishing to do.
lillo actually still stands and is not deserted. It also has a certain pitoresque vibe with the old houses. you can have a beer there :)
Time to do a Belgian Western "Duel at Doel".
I live in belguim....
it reminds me a bit of the village of Heijplaat, part of the Rotterdam municipality. Actually the only thing it has in common is that it too is a village completely surrounded by port facilities, but it is not abandoned at all.
There's a "similar" city in France : Goussainville (the old city), it became a ghost town because of an airport nearby and the plane noise made many citizen leave before their houses were worthless (and there was a deal with the airport company who bought many houses).
But now modern airplanes are quieter so people are slowly coming back.
Yes. And lots of other empty villages all over France (with houses for peanuts) but Goussainville is indeed incredible as there’s so much demand for property in ile de France.
funny i came accros tis video because i am the mailman in doel :)
Long time ago, i have been into Doel.
Some group of photographers decided a Urbex Tour, a group of them climbed over the wall and were gone that day. We didn't see them the rest of the day.
Only me and two mates decided to respect the town as it is. The thing is people still live there.
And we basically did the same what you did. Walk outside taking pictures of the art, church and so on.
The very danger of Urbex and we realised it very quick. Frontwalls can fall down, roofs are dellerict. So to go inside is gambling with you life
Tho I got one very good tip Matthias.
Did you know if you turn google streetview on, you go back in time? Buildings gone appear again.
This is an awesome informative video! Underrated channel
Well done.
I remember Doel from when it was still a more or less normal village. Over 20 years ago, we went on a school trip to the nuclear power plant
welcome to Belgian politics.
Tiny country with so much unnecessary complications 😅
Indonesia is so huge and real Indonesia is as wide as Russia, Indonesia is the true richest in the entire world, from world's biggest gold reserve, oil and gas are much more than the entire middle east, and so on.. aside world's richest spices and herbs, but very dumb eternal criminals Europe always scam the world including drawing Indonesia too small since Mercator projetion 1569, also claiming the Dutch brought the coffee, while coffee and so many other stuff are native to Indonesia.
There are so many criminality the west and middle east has been doing, nothing surprising with your endless karma.
The west belong to the medieval and will always be the true poor, real rich will never colonize others, colonization is brainless lowest intelligence action.
To Belgistan yes.
Small towns having to make way for large industrial projects is not a "Belgian politics" problem.
It's probably the only remaining remote cosy village in this part of Belgium. It might be very popular.
So fun update, old residents are allowed to re-buy their house now and move back.
That particular building wasn’t a school but an asylum
Ok so small addition it's not that hard to get to doel, the reason you had a bit of a wild ride is because of the route you took. Which is the main route for freight and as such is the route gps will advice.
You also don't pass trough any teminals although you passed the edges of dpworld and mpet, two of the largest container terminals in europe. And under a beidge conecting 2 parts of one terminal.
Also the "bridge" that was closed is actually one part of a sluis for said massive ships and the signage will always point to the bridge that is down so all you have to do is look at the signs and follow their direction.
But yeah you drove near yhe port of anntwerp which together with the ports of amsterdam and rotterdam are the largest in europe(I'm repeating myself but there is a point here somewhere) which explains the massive amounts of trucks and also why you probably had to wait in a traffic jam at multiple points
Very nice video! Small note though: Lillo still exists! Admittedly, not a lot of it nor with a large population. Nowadays, you can reach it by public transportation (read: a boat) from Antwerp or by driving through the harbor. It's a wonderful place to walk around during the summer (although you'd mostly be walking the same circle over and over again). It's got a population of around 40-50 people.
Correction at 10:34 i think the sign says "wij wonen" or "wij wonen hier" which translates to "we live here" 😉
Nice shots as usual
Again nice video! It comes to show how ridiculously absurd my country is! One thing is a certainty... money evaporates here!
If it wasn't for the Nuke stacks, it would be worth building a nice community and renovating a part for port workers. But because the government seems like a bunch of celebrity pandering jerks, who would trust them? People need some security in their future.
I'd rather live next to a nuclear power station than next to an international container terminal. Much cleaner, more safe, and far less noisy and smelly.
@@jwentingthere is not a housing crunch in Antwerp like many other cities.
It's in the middle of an industrial area. Air quality isn't the best...
I think the Church refers to a church no longer in use as abandoned, so in this case ‘the church is not abandoned’ would be fine. You could also say the church is ‘still in use’. Or my instinct would be to refer to the church as ‘still in service’, as church services are still provided there.
I’m interested in local communities and I enjoyed this, thanks.
'oe' in Dutch is virtually the same as the German 'u'. As in 'du' or 'Kuh'.
You're turning it into a kind of diphthong ending on a schwa. 'Doo-el' as an English approximation.
Sorry, "Doel" is said so much in this video that it started grating on me :-D no offense meant to our neighbours!
it hurt why ears the way he pronounced it.
are you sure its abandoned? it looks like any other village in Belgium.
If I didn’t know it was about a village in Belgium I’d have thought it was any town in the UK…
"abandoned" - when did the ghosts leave?
Nice Video. Good content. Good information. Journalism that looks at things other than politics, sports or entertainment, or at least from a different angle.
(looks at title) The reason a Ghost town exists is because it is abandoned
well yeah, obviously, but I think he meant it in the way of why was it abandoned in the first place?
I live at Kieldrecht, a town next to it, im 21 but thare is so much more to this story, farmers had to go too, thare are pictures of farmers fichting with hayforks to kranes thare to destroy thare barns, fichts between politics, harborbosses, farmers and the peaple of doel, it's so much sader and so much more special, things that happend in that town that Will never see the daylicht and Trust me it never schuld... I get so sad walking trou it knowing what it once whas....
lol another driver that doesn't look at sign boards bridge is closed cuz the other one is open 🤣😂
he wouldnt even have to go trough the port to get there, get exit verrebroek and its more or less a constant straight drive, straight into doel
00:40 => Among Us.
Actually the expansion of the port was considered before WWII, there are some really interesting plans that survive from that period with one that could have cut off the now residential left bank of Antwerp by a broad canal with dozens of docks connected like the teeth of a comb.
I wouldn't be surprised if that rain is highly toxic. Doel be making the timefall in real life. I expect this from the United States.