Mold, alarms and Proust — A week of urban exploration in France
We were a bit surprised when during a snowy winter night in Helsinki, Finland, three Russian-French travelers came to visit us. They’d had some difficulties getting out of Russia because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Their previous destination was Vorkuta, the infamous frost hell Gulag of Russia and were heading to France, their home, but because of the unusual circumstances, they were forced to make a pit stop to Helsinki. We had been planning a joint urban exploration trip to France with Ksenia (Instagram: Ksenia_hound) and Vadim (Instgram: Vadhim) (two of the travelers), Niko (Instagram: Kupanik) Tanja and myself (Instagram: abandoned_ nordic).
We actually hadn’t met with Ksenia and Vadim before and we thought that our first ‘live’ encounter would be in Paris, but now — surprisingly — they were drinking wine and laughing with us in our home in Helsinki. We had a great evening and a couple months later we, the three Finnish urban explorers, were in Charles De Gaulle airport, and were greeted by our new friends, and Hera, an experienced urban exploration dog. So, five explorers, a dog, a very compact car and six days exploring forgotten castles and abandoned houses in France. This is what we experienced.
This trip would be something different, for sure. In the car English, French, Russian and Finnish were spoken. Ksenia and Vadim knew some ‘hush-hush’ places in France where we were hoping they would guide us in. We also had some nice places in our database for all of us to explore. With Niko, we had had a couple of trips outside Finland before — one to Romania and one to Italy. We knew from experience that our Finnish trio was experienced in urban exploration, so it was interesting to see the ‘style’ of our new Russo-French friends. Because Ksenia’s and Vadim’s explorations get lot’s of visibility in social media, we knew that they had been in some really cool places and so, it was pretty safe to assume that they knew what they were doing. After the trip, it occurred to me that perhaps it could have been even more exciting to them to see how we would handle the various situations faced while doing the art of urban exploration.
Castles and grand staircases
For six days we explored abandoned and forgotten castles and manor houses which are standard stuff in France. Many castles were mostly empty but they still had old beautiful round staircases and hallways. From outside they can look pretty wild with their collapsed roofs and lush vegetation. Sometimes the castles had basically all the furniture, paintings and other items left intact, collecting dust. Our business was just photography so we didn’t — and never have — take anything from the places. Also, it is important to mention that we never break any locks or windows to get into an abandoned place. We walk from an open door, or sometimes climb through an open window to reach an abandoned place. There is a difference between abandoned and temporarily disused buildings.
Alarms and ominous mold
In many cases it is hard to draw the conclusions whether a place is actually abandoned. During this trip we visited a manor house which had been turned into a hotel a decade before but the hotel was now abandoned. We saw newspaper articles about an auction ten years before, where all the furniture and valuables had been sold to the highest bidder. We walked to the manor house-hotel and entered the place through the front door. Many of the windows were broken and there was shattered glass everywhere. Inside we found old photographs of events that were held there, weddings, and large meetings. The place was in sad condition. While exploring the place, Niko managed to trigger an alarm. Our initial reaction was to exit but then we noticed that the alarm was an old, lazy device which dozed off in seconds. We laughed, even the alarm system was abandoned. We didn’t encounter any security or neighbors, just like expected.
From time to time, we stumbled on rooms covered in ominous black mold and taking a breath inside this kind of a room felt like an extra minute would have been taken away from our lifespans. There are stories about urban explorers who have been hospitalized because of aggressive fungus infection so we were careful not to touch anything and stay there for only the necessary time for the photos.
The movie set
One odd but fun location during our trip was an abandoned movie set. The movie, Arthur and the Invisibles, was released in 2006. To reach this particular location, we hiked in a typical french forest quite some time (which is not very uncommon during urban exploration) just to reach a house which looked like a prairie house from the United States. It was strange to be looking at this set, a house, because it was so out of context. You can google how the house looked like in the movie easily, and for us it has been fun comparing the movie scenes and the reality.
Lover’s house
Just like we had hoped, Ksenia and Vadim eventually took us to some smaller and lesser known French houses which had all the furniture and items still there. These places can really feel like time machines because the everyday household items are from an era which is no more. For us it was a bit surprising to find these places so close to active ordinary houses. For one particular place, called ‘Lover’s house’, we basically walked in the center of a medium-sized town, opened a rusty gate and stepped in from the open front door. There were people all around us and they didn’t pay much attention to a group with camera gear. Inside ‘Lover’s house’, we found rooms filled with stylish old French furniture. Also, the original owner of the place was probably a literature scholar or at least extremely interested in the works of French author Marcel Proust. Almost every bookshelf and closet had books written by Proust, which probably isn’t so uncommon in France, but this time there was literature theory about Proust, university grade books dedicated to Proust and many copies of his novels. I don’t know why the place is called ‘Lover’s house’, but at least there was love towards Marcel Proust’s novels here.
Minor discomfort - but wine.
Although the trip was a success, there were some minor inconveniences. Our French hosts travel a lot so they have a pretty tight budget — which is quite understandable. For us Finns traveling is limited because we all have ‘regular’ 9-to-5 jobs so we can only travel when we have statutory holidays. This means that we can have a more relaxed budget due to smaller amount days we can spend exploring abandoned places. Our hosts preferred hostels without the usual luxuries like multiple power sockets, towels and breakfast. During the first night I found myself using the extra bed sheet instead of a towel to dry myself after a cold shower. Our hosts were also willing to sleep in the car to save in the costs which sounded very uncomfortable for us. I can totally understand that hotels are a huge cost item if you travel half or most of the year, so I don’t blame them for being strict with the budget. The inconvenience turned quickly into a fun experience. If we would have the possibility to travel and see the world more, we would probably do it the same way. Without hotel breakfasts we also could stop at a classical French boulangerie every morning, and to be clear, fresh French bread is really good. Our hosts also wanted to make sure we had a good time in our fairly compact van by offering us red wine from fairly compact sized wine bottles fairly often. During the time in the van, we changed experiences and stories, heard about the best and the worst urban exploration can offer and had a really great time with same minded people.
The house with the famous legs
Social media has made it possible for almost anyone to see photographs of really weird places that are out there, somewhere. But you never actually believe that they exist, until you see such a place for yourself with your own eyes. My friend recently told me that seeing photographs of abandoned places on Instagram are shown often in a way that it is hard for the viewer to actually believe they exist — they are too abandoned, too wild and too unbelievable. Also, the photographs only show the end result, torn away from the context of searching, reaching, entering and visiting the place. One of those places for me has been an old French house with a particular chair, which has old prosthetic legs lying next to the chair so it looks like there was once a person sitting there, but not only the prosthetic legs are left behind. It has a touch of ‘Ghost photography’, where the camera could caption something that the human eye cannot. When I heard that we could visit this place during our trip, I was thrilled. And so we went. It was the last place during our tour, just a regular old house in the middle of ordinary houses. We had to be a little bit careful because of the neighbors who, according to our hosts, aren’t very happy about people visiting the house next to theirs. It was a quiet afternoon and we managed to get into the house. There inside, we found the chair and the prosthetic legs, just the way I had seen them in photographs many times before. I stood there, quietly, staring at the legs and bed and the old room with small paintings. Perhaps it wasn’t the legs, but the sensation of freedom that I could see an unbelievable place and eventually visit it myself, which moved the place from the realm of ‘non-existence’ to ‘existence’, at least in my mind.
After the ‘legs house’, it was time to head back to home. It was a pretty intense week filled with extraordinary abandoned castles, houses, cars and other weird locations. Only a handful of these were mentioned above. At least for me, urban exploration trips are rewarding, but quite heavy. Abandoned places don’t have safety guidelines — if you hurt yourself, it’s your own fault. According to society these places aren’t meant to be explored. Visiting them can sometimes be physically hard, but in many cases, the psychological effect is much more intense. It felt nice to go back home, to ‘safe zone’ with my memories and experiences, and lots of photos of course.
K / 24.7.2022
