June 2008. Me and some friends had a really nice weekend planned of exploring some abandoned places in Belgium. On our first night away, coincidentally on a friday the 13th, we were going to do an Urbex-hotel. For me and Martino being virgins to this kind of sleepover, it was quite exciting. The location was chateau Miranda, a huge castle in Belgium in the middle of a forest. We arrived on the base of the hill in the middle of the night after a detour through France caused by a faulty tomtom. We packed the bare necessities for the night and started our uphill hike through the forest. When we finally found the castle it was like magic. Through the darkness we first only saw the tips of the towers and slowly but surely we saw the whole building.

To celebrate our arrival we poured ourselves some whiskey, made some nightshots from the outside of the building and chilled for a bit. Then all of a sudden we heard loud noises coming from a distance. It took us quite some time to figure out what it could have been. We heard the sound again but this time much closer. Tjarko figured it must have been a wild boar. I remember getting a bit scared now because all our stuff was scattered around on the ground outside, so it was hard to go for a quick sprint inside the building. Martijn was good at calming me down by getting us all to stand close together and saying that shining our lights in the boars eyes will make him go another way. When we heard the boar again from a further distance we made our way inside with all our stuff to find a decent sleeping spot. The chateau is in a pretty bad state now; the banister of the staircase is really falling apart and the ground is basically just a bunch of beams. We found a spot for sleeping and got our beds prepared for sleepytime, but before calling it a night we had to get the full view of the area by going all the way upstairs and have a look from the towers. This view must have been the best i have ever seen. The sun was already lighting up the skies in the distance and the fog over the surrounding forest made this fairytale castle experience complete!

The next morning we got woken up by the caretaker of this decaying castle. Asking us what the hell we were doing here and telling us to leave asap. Luckily he left us to our own devices after that giving us some time to make some coffee in the morning sunshine and the chance to make some photo’s of this amazing location before leaving. See for yourself.

Pentacon six TL, FujiChrome Provia400

Pentacon six TL, FujiChrome Provia400

Pentacon six TL, FujiChrome Provia400

Noisy
Pentacon six TL, FujiChrome Provia400

Pentacon six TL, FujiChrome Provia400

Belgium, June 2008.