I’ve recently been for a weeks road trip in Belgium, Western Germany, Northern France and Luxembourg. For the most part we slept in or on derelict sites to keep costs down, and in some ways we got really lucky with the weather - scorching heat meant we could sleep on the roofs twice, which was an awesome experience.
Here are a selection of the images from the trip. I’ll add more as I process them if you’re interested.
Eventide Communion by jamescharlick, on Flickr
Chapel Rose was built between 1290 and 1308 as a convent and hospital, occupied by the Augustinian Sisters. Around 1600 the entire complex was destroyed by fire, after which it was rebuilt. The oldest parts that have been preserved date from that period. In the 19th century the south and west wings were partially demolished and rebuilt.
This was certainly one of my highlights from our trip.
The Cages by jamescharlick, on Flickr
Miners in Germany used these cages in place of lockers to store their clothes and personal items before going to work underground. Each cage is padlocked in a numbered slot, which when unlocked could be lowered or raised to the ceiling for safe keeping. The miners would change out of their regular clothes in one room, walk through a shower room and into an identical cage room from which they’d retrieve their grubby mining clothes.
The Cages II by jamescharlick, on Flickr
This is a close up of the cage hooks as described above, and you can just see the basket sections hanging below.
The Grand Hotel Regnier by jamescharlick, on Flickr
The Grand Hotel Regnier was once a luxurious top class hotel & restaurant, now faded and rotten. In 6 1/2 days exploring, who would have thought that the one place we’d be caught inside would be the most rotten of old derelicts?
After no more than 5 minutes inside there was a colossal banging on the front window. Assuming it was the police, we turned around to see an angry, red-faced local slamming his hand against the glass.
Yeah, yeah, ok, we’ll be out shortly… Still, having seen the best the place probably had to offer we weren’t too upset. It was our final night of the trip, so we promptly went for beer and steak. Tough times.
Specimen Shelves by jamescharlick, on Flickr
The basement of “The Horror Labs” is the last real feature of this old veterinary school, where the bulk of the samples have been removed - presumably in slow preparation for the development of this, the final building on the site.
This macabre scene features various Frankenstein’s Monster styled formaldehyde specimen jars, containing anything from lungs and livers to whole dogs heads.
Not a site for the squeamish.
Home Sweet Home by jamescharlick, on Flickr
Abandoned since 2008, this care home for the elderly used to house 221 residents.
Unfortunately metal thieves have now systematically moved through the place and ripped it apart.
We slept on the roof here on our second night while vandals and thieves threw cables, chairs and radiators out of the windows below us until the early hours.
Sulzer X by jamescharlick, on Flickr
On our final morning we headed into Powerstation IM. It’s huge, there’s no doubt about it, but either through fatigue or because of the ridiculous amount of sites we had already visited IM felt a little ‘meh’.
An impressive place of course, but it didn’t live up to my expectations after all I’d heard. Perhaps with all the community hype, it never could.
As you can see I’ve experimented a bit with the processing and whatnot. Any feedback is more than welcome. I’ll add more as I sort through them 
