Day 6: Close encounters

We arrived in another city mid-afternoon on Day 5. It was raining pretty hard so we went straight to our hotel. The rain stopped in the early evening and we made our way to the city centre to look for dinner. While we were there, we decided to walk around the Chambre du Commerce to assess the situation. We found parking on one of the side streets leading to the building and walked over to check it out. Bart nudged one of the doors with his foot and it simply opened. We were in shock. One of the locals that joined us for Day 5 had told us he last tried to explore the Chambre du Commerce about a month ago and had no luck. We regretted not taking our camera gear with us but slipped inside the building for a quick peek anyway. Wow. We would definitely be back in the morning. We left after a taking a few cell phone pictures and did a quick walk around of the outside of the building. Once we were done, we returned to our original mission of finding dinner.

We left the hotel early in the morning in order to arrive at the city centre by 7am so that we could enter the building while it was still somewhat dark outside. We entered quickly and quietly through the same door. We started a cursory walk-through when we heard door opening noises and saw flashlights cutting through the darkness. We quickly ducked for cover and waited. Bart and Matt watched the two figures moving through the darkness. My heart was pounding because I couldn’t really see what was happening. They had ducked one way and I had ducked another. Eventually Bart and Matt came out from where they were and started waving their flashlights around. What was going on?!

It turns out the two figures where moving in such a way that it did not look like they were patrolling. It was also obvious that at least one of them was carrying a tripod. Hello, fellow urban explorers. ;) We had our first unplanned encounter with other urban explorers. The two cautious figures were a pair of females from Holland. We spoke quietly with them and learned that they had driven about 2 hours to get there and also entered through the same door. We found a quiet spot and waited together for enough daylight to begin our photography. We learned that they had been exploring together for the last 2 to 3 years. They were impressed that we had travelled from Canada to explore European sites. They gave us some tips regarding other local sites that they had been to recently.  When there was finally enough daylight, we all went our separate ways and did our best to not get in the way of each other. We agreed to do a quick group photo before leaving.

The Chambre du Commerce has been disused since approximately 2003. It is one of the most popular urban exploration sites in Belgium so it was not extremely surprising to run into other urban explorers there. It still caught me off guard. The best features of the building included the extremely large atrium, the surrounding balcony, and the numerous unique columns. The ceiling was also fantastic, highly ornate. The building was void of any furnishings.  We spent a few hours exploring and photographing. While we were there, another couple showed up. They asked how we had entered the building and managed to stay so clean; they had quite a bit of grime on their clothes. It turns out they were from the Netherlands and had entered through a basement grate. We pointed to the door that we had used. They were amazed. We were amazed that they had uncovered the grate and entered in full daylight. We exchanged pleasantries and continued our photography and they disappeared to begin their own.

A few minutes before leaving, we met up with the two females again and took our group photo. We got a good laugh out of it. They wished us well and we quietly slipped outside. What a fantastic adventure!

Unfortunately, we managed to miss our opportunity to see Henk’s gallery showing in Antwerp. The combination of bad weather, a lack of time, and exploration worked against us. We managed to check out the location of the showing but could not see into interior of the gallery. It was a slightly ironic situation. We returned to the hotel, checked out, and then drove to Brugge, our next destination. This would be our first opportunity to actually be tourists and enjoy the historical city centre with just the motive of seeing the sights with no time pressures. Yay!

Update on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 5:02PM by Cess

Taking a shot inside the Chambre du Commerce:

The dramatic atrium of the Chambre du Commerce:

Goofing around:

The gallery showing. Sort of: