OCTOBER 2023
I wanted to do some little autumn daytrips and stumbled upon the Trollenbos in Boom. This is a forest that hosts gigantic wooden statues of trolls. These statues used to belong to famous festival Tomorrowland, but now they permanently reside in Recreation park De Schorre in Boom. We were a bit too early for real autumn colors, but still had a really good time in the Trollenbos. The search for the trolls definitely adds interest to your forest walk. I highly recommend to visit ASAP to see the autumn colors hit peak!
Practical information
The Trollenbos is located in Boom, which is a town close to Antwerp. You have to navigate to Recreatiedomein de Schorre, inside you will find the Trollenbos. You can access the terrain for free and also do not need to pay for parking. There are several parking areas, we choose P1 near the entrance, but P2 seemed a bit closer to the trolls. Of course this is an activity which is a lot of fun with kids, but it is not stroller accesible. You need to venture off the main path quite a few times to find the trolls and I would not recommend to do this with a stroller. Hugo now is 2,5 years and he was a bit too young to complete the full circuit. Sometimes De Schorre hosts events and the Trollenbos is not accesible or really busy, check their website before you visit. When we visited there were no lunch options in the park but apparantly they are building a new lunch cafe.
Our experience
I was very impressed with the trolls and it was harder to find them than I expected. I definitely cheated and checked locations on google maps. Unfortunately for us the colors in the forest did not yet hit peak, I am sure it is even more beautiful when the colors are more vibrant. What did remind us of autumn was the weather, we got stuck in a big rain shower and did not end up finding all the trolls. But I will be back to search for the rest! It definitely wasn’t busy when we visited in October, I was pleasantly surprised.
