Antwerp

An idyllic little park on the banks of the Scheldt gives no hint that you are standing next to one of the most heavily polluted industrial sites in Flanders.

In a green oasis along the Rupel River, a concrete elevated walkway rises, seemingly leading nowhere, yet it still holds quite a story.

The clay pits of Terhagen in Belgium are part of a vast extraction area along the Rupel River, where clay was mined on an industrial scale throughout the 20th century for brickworks.

Clay pits had, from the end of the nineteenth century, taken over more than half of the territory of the hamlet of Terhagen in Belgium. After excavation, nature gradually reclaimed its space.

For more than half a century, you’ve been able to cross the Kempen Canal near Geel via a Bailey bridge, a temporary bridge developed for military purposes during World War II.

Antwerp has been connected to the Netherlands by rail since 1854. In the early days, trains wriggled through the city centre at street level, which was not ideal. Indeed, steam locomotives caused a lot of noise and odour during their passage.

The unfinished concrete carcass of a ghost hotel has been receiving its first visitors since early 2025 after more than half a century of vacancy and decay.

You will find relics of the former railway yard Spoor Oost along the ring track around Antwerp.

For almost a century, the Veuve Van Enschodt bridge over the Rupel was the only connection between the Antwerp municipalities of Klein Willebroek and Boom.

The Norbertines of Tongerlo Abbey erected a moated castle on the site where noble lords and ladies had resided since 1271.