Explores #88 and #88a (revisit): Alla Italia health spa, Belgium – August and September 2014

November 28, 2014

Explore #11 of the Gigawatts & Megalolz Tour

The final day of our Belgian weekender was another stupidly early start, so that we could make our entrance to this beautiful former spa whilst still under the cover of darkness.

As with The Grand Hotel Regnier I also ended up paying a revisit to this location a month or so later, so have combined my shots from both visits into this single report.

History
I can’t say much about this location, other than it was a former health spa located in an affluent Belgian town. The building is renowned for its hugely impressive entrance foyer, which is decorated in an Italian renaissance style with paintings, ornate plasterwork, and marble columns.

Our Explore
Our entrance went off without a hitch. So smoothly in fact that we then had to wait for well over an hour for even the first faint glow of dawn to illuminate our surroundings!

As always, click on a photo to VIEW LARGE.

As the light slowly began to creep in the Gigawatts & Megalolz team moved into action…

I left the others, and ventured downstairs into the foyer. This area is overlooked, so I tried to keep as low as possible so as not to be seen by any passers by…

It doesn’t look like it, but it was still pretty dark when I took this shot – it is a 30 second exposure, and I can vividly remember the coolness of the marble floor as I lay flat on my back, gazing up at the magnificent ceiling and waiting for the exposure to finish.

I then explored the corridors and treatment rooms of this impressive building.

Before we left I couldn’t resist a couple more quick shots of that foyer…

…and one of a treatment room which we passed on our way out.

Revisit

Explore #5 of the Taking the Piscine Tour.

During my revisit a month or so later in September 2014 I decided to focus on taking some detail shots. These were all taken with my 50mm f/1.8 on Canon 7d body, giving an equivalent focal length of 80mm.