Explore #10 of the Operation Baguette tour
After three successful explores already that morning time was running short on the last day of our France and Belgium weekender, but we figured that we had just enough time to try this former eurology doctor’s house and clinic located in a small Belgian village.
I don’t have any history on the place, but it appears to have been uninhabited for a while, with many personal possessions remaining.
Our Explore
To be honest I have mixed feelings about this explore. The location has been very popular within the exploring community, and this has clearly not gone unnoticed either by the locals in the village or the relatives of Dr Gentil. We were immediately spotted and eyeballed by at least two old ladies as soon as we arrived. Given the overlooked location we weren’t particularly keen on pushing things, and almost aborted our efforts then and there.
However, Dan was not quite as deterred as the rest of us, so we decided to try an alternative angle of approach. In doing this we somehow managed to leave Darren behind, so this one was just Rich, Dan and I.
I was still hesitant about pushing our luck, and it looked as if someone had recently visited the property and cleared the driveway, removed some items from the house, etc. However as soon as we’d found access we decided that we’d come that far, so would give the place a very quick 10-minute walk around. There was no time for careful composition of shots here, and I was also in the midst of a massive sneezing attack brought about by a combination of terrible hayfever and the dusty attic – which isn’t great when you’re trying to be as quiet and discreet as possible!
As always [click on a photo to VIEW LARGE]
Kitchen.
Bedroom.
Bathroom.
Up in the attic.
Dr Gentil’s consultation room.
Various ephemera left in the living room.
Rough translation: “there are more old drunkards than old doctors”.
The good doctor himself perhaps?
Waiting for no-one…
So after a handful of snatched shots we were soon back in the car and heading to Calais for the ferry home.
Thanks to Darren, Rich and Dan for a brilliant weekend, with 10 successful explores and only 2 fails, many laughs and great memories, and 1,460 miles driven – I can’t wait for our next Eurotrip! 🙂
As always thanks for stopping by, and if you haven’t done so already then please sign up to follow my blog and you’ll receive notification each time I post a new report. I’ve got a lot more from the UK coming imminently…
Cheers
Adam X