The Adventures of Molly and Tyler: Week 15 July 21-26

This week was a short work week since we had the holiday and our trip to Rome. Molly started her job this week, and we had a pretty lazy weekend. It was very rainy and windy all of Saturday so we didn't venture out of the house too much. On Sunday, we decided to go on a bike ride and adventure. Our friends had mentioned the town of Lillo and the abandoned city of Doel to us on Friday night and this piqued our interest. Lillo is located 18 km north of Antwerp. After riding mostly through the port of Antwerp (think shipping yards, chemical plants, and refineries), we arrived at the very small community that contains a fort that Napoleon built when he was trying to conquer Belgium. Lillo is about 4 square blocks with a handful of cafes and not much more. There is a ferry from Lillo across the river Schelde to Doel. Doel is an over 300 year old town that is now almost completely abandoned. Doel lies on the river in the midst of the Antwerp harbor. As the port expanded, Antwerp wanted to buy the land of Doel in the late 90's early 00's to make room for another container yard or ship dock. Many residents took the port up on the monetary offer and left the city, but there were some people that refused. Over the years, there have been many legal battles back and forth and the number of residents has continued to dwindle. The town has gone from a little over 1,000 folks to now not quite 20! Arriving off the ferry, we were not really sure what to expect, and honestly we were a little nervous. The town is full of abandoned houses that have been covered with graffiti. During the day, the town has a handful of tourists and families wandering about, but we decided we would probably not want to be one of the 20 remaining residents there after dark. After reading more, we now discovered the citizens of Doel had originally planned the street art as an attempt to try to create a sort of outdoor, evolving museum with graffiti from famous artists throughout Europe. While there was certainly some amazing art, it is obvious that Doel has also become a playground for the less talented graffiti artist/vandals. With all of that said, we were struck by the oddity of an 'almost' abandoned city. Taking away the graffiti and boarded up doors and windows, the houses could very easily be ours. It is bizarre to think that in a matter of 15 years, a city can all but disappear.

As we set out on our ride back to Antwerp, of course it decided to rain. By the time we got home, we were soaking wet and freezing, but we had a great adventure in Doel.