Explore #8 of the Operation Baguette tour

It was only 7.15am when we arrived at what was already our second location of the day – this abandoned school, located slap-bang in the middle of a busy Belgian town.

I haven’t been able to locate much history on this place, other than it used to be a girls’ school and now it’s closed and is being slowly reclaimed by nature. The light, colours and textures of this place had always really appealed to me whenever I’d seen other explorers’ shots, so I was really keen to see it for myself.

During our initial scout of the perimeter we happened to bump into a couple of French explorers, Romain and Lily, who were in the middle of their own urbexing weekender and were just about to head inside too. After exchanging a few brief pleasantries Romain soon disappeared off and scouted the way in, and we soon followed.

Without giving too much away the access and exit for Lycée V were a definite highlight of the weekend – both in terms of the challenge they posed, and also for pure comedy value. It included Lily being confronted by an elderly local resident and having a 5-minute conversation with her whilst halfway into her access efforts, and a hilarious old Caribbean-looking dude who was laughing his arse off when the six of us finally emerged out onto the street on the way out. He gave Richie a slap on the shoulder whilst walking past which nearly caused dislocation!

Oh, and Darren managed to headbutt some barbed wire but seemed completely unperturbed by the whole incident (“I’m a builder, I’ve had much worse” etc etc), despite bleeding visibly from at least two minor wounds. It did give me the opportunity to cement Anglo-Gallic relations further by chatting with Romain and asking him what the French for barbed wire is! Barbelé I think, right Romain? I forgot to ask what the French was for “foolhardy builder”…

Anyway, on with the photos, and as always please [click on a photo to VIEW LARGE]

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Come enter with me in to Lycée V…

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Another derp, another staircase to photograph…

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The library had seen better days…

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Nice spot of PPP (Peeling Paint Porn)…

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A map of the school… I like the colours in this shot.

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We ventured down a dark and trashed corridor to discover the old gymnasium…

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…before returning to the light and space of the beautiful central courtyard, or “préau” as it’s called in French (I learned that through a combination of looking at the map above, and google translate!).

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One last view of that beautiful ceiling…

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…before it was time to exit Lycée V.

After exchanging Facebook contact details with Lily and Romain us Brits headed off shortly after breakfast time for our third target of an action-packed day: the remains of an abandoned army barracks and prison! Report for that coming very soon.

Cheers
Adam X