Abandoned places

In 1954, the Belgian army built a bunker at the foot of the Kemmelberg. The top secret command center would house the army headquarters in the event of a crisis or conflict during the Cold War.

After the Second World War, the acrobats and horses in the Ghent Winter Circus made way for the out-of-control classic car collection of the Mahy car garage. After more than 20 years of vacancy, the Ghent circus was renovated.

After more than twenty years of vacancy, work on the modernist main building of the Kosmos holiday domain on the Rodeberg will start at the end of 2024. The modernist building will house a hotel, café and restaurant.

One of the first open-air swimming pools in Belgium is located in Spiere-Helkijn. A water treatment plant at the mouth of the Spierebeek in the Scheldt was converted into an open-air swimming pool at the end of the 1930s.

The Stasi prison Hohenschönhausen is hidden in an ordinary neighbourhood in Berlin. From 1951 onwards, the GDR regime interrogated and imprisoned thousands of political prisoners here.

A seven-hundred-meter long embankment, a splash of asphalt here and there, and two useless viaducts: cars will not immediately drive on the four-lane road of the N60 in Frasnes-lez-Anvaing.

Excavation works of the Ypres-Comines canal started in 1864. The canal would realize a connection between the Yser River and the Leie River. However, landslides at the ridge in Hollebeke soon threw a spanner in the works.

"Bien travailler, bien s'amuser" (in English: Work hard, play hard) is the motto on the facade of the banquet hall of the Fauquez glass factory.

After a century, a concrete gun emplacement is all that remains of "Lange Max," the Germans' giant cannon used during the First World War.