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Dadipark amusement park in Dadizele, Belgium (via flickr)
Dadipark is an amusement park located in a village called Dadizele in Western Belgium, about 15km from the French border. Dadipark was the first amusement park in Belgium. The village of Dadizele was already a very touristic area before the opening of the park as it is a place of pilgrimage.
Opened in 1950, the park started as a small playground for the children of the visitors of the nearby basilica. By the 1980’s it evolved to a real amusement park. During its peak year the park welcomed over one million visitors. One of the main attractions was an 800 meter long footbridge, the largest in Europe at the time. Dadipark has always been a park with free entrance where most of the attractions were mechanical, running without electricity.
In the year 2000 a boy broke his arm in an attraction called the Nautic Jet. After the accident visitor numbers declined, as people were complaining about the safety of the park. In 2002 the owners of the park announced that the park would be closed for a year to make renovations, but the park hasn’t been re-opened since.
All the attractions in the park are still there, left behind. They are rusted and weeds are covering them, making some of the attractions hardly visible. Since the closing, a few investors announced they are interested in investing in the park and renovate and eventually re-open it. But today, the park is still left abandoned.
