How To Find 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower At De Schorre In Boom, Belgium

I was recently in Belgium as part of the Frequent Miler 40k To Far Away challenge. One of the main reasons I decided to include Belgium in my plans is so I could visit 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower.

If you’ve been following No Home Just Roam since at least 2018, you’ll have seen that we visited The Morton Arboretum just outside of Chicago in August last year. That’s home to several giant trolls created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo and we had a great time finding them all.

The following year we visited Bernheim Forest which is about half an hour south of Louisville, Kentucky. That’s because it’s home to Forest Giants in a Giant Forest which is another set of sculptures by Thomas Dambo.

I’m now following Thomas Dambo on Facebook and saw that he’d created numerous trolls for Tomorrowland, a dance music festival held at De Schorre in Boom, Belgium every year. The great thing is that De Schorre is accessible year-round as it’s a free public park, so you can go find 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower whenever you like.

The thing is, I had the hardest time finding several of the trolls as there aren’t any directions in the park. Una and Joures are easy to find as they’re out in the open and I happened to come across Kamiel and the Magical Tower, but the others were hidden away pretty well. Thankfully I happened to find an information center which provided me with a map of De Schorre, but that didn’t have the trolls marked on there either, so the assistant gave me a rough idea of where the remaining four trolls were located and off I went.

I therefore thought I’d put together this guide for how to find them all and have embedded the map below with the locations of the 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower.

Information Center

The map above should lead you to the different trolls and Magical Tower, but it might be worth popping into the Information Center anyway to get a copy of a paper map. I’ve pinned the location of the Information Center in the above map too to help you find it.

You can look for the trolls in any order you like, but the numbered list below is probably the most efficient route from the Information Center, although you could also do it in the reverse order.

1 & 2) Una & Joures

The first two trolls I found were Una and Joures.

They’re extremely easy to find as they’re both laying down on a grassy mound out in the open and can be seen from the main walking paths around De Schorre.

There isn’t an actual path leading to Una and Joures, so you have to walk across the grass to get to them.

The story of the trolls that you can find at the Magical Tower lists Joures’s name as Jeuris. However, Thomas Dambo has written the name as Joures elsewhere and that seems to be the correct spelling.

3) Kamiel & The Magical Tower

If you walk up the mound behind Una and Joures, you’ll find a walking path. Follow that along to the right and you’ll come to the Magical Tower…

…which is guarded by Kamiel.

The Magical Tower is presumably the home of the 7 trolls as it has all kinds of troll artifacts, home decor, etc.

One of the great things about the Magical Tower is that you can climb up its levels to the very top. From here you can look down at Kamiel…

…and out over the rest of De Schorre and beyond.

I loved all 7 of the trolls, but I think Kamiel was my favorite.

Attached to the tower was a sign in Dutch (the official language of this part of Belgium) that provided a little more information about Kamiel.

The thing is, I don’t speak Dutch. The good thing is that the Google Translate app does. Not only that, but you don’t even have to type the Dutch text into the app to translate it. Instead, you can tap the ‘Camera’ button within the app, hold your phone up in front of the sign and it’ll automatically translate the text on your screen. You have to hold your phone pretty still for it to work, but I managed to just about take a screenshot of what it said about Kamiel.

n.b. The screenshot below shows it as a conversion from Danish to English as I’d selected Danish as I’d assumed that was the language given that it’s Thomas Dambo’s nationality, but Google seemed to pick up the fact that it was Dutch and translated it into English.

You can also read the story of the 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower; this is provided in both Dutch and English.

Seeing as the text is so small in the photo, here’s the story:

They were 7 good friends both together and alone
By the river in the valley in the forest they had home
They had seen the sun set and rise a million times
The 7 giant trolls stood as tall as the pines

Una and Joures were friends for life and liked to lie in the grass
Watching the skies crawling by, telling stories about the past
Mikil was strong as a dragon and always on his way
Kamiel was wearing a mask, a new for every day

Arvid liked to carve his dreams into the ancient trees
Hannes to put beautiful pearls on a line for everyone to see
Little Nora had only seen the sun rise around a million times
She was still a growing troll with her tail and young mind

They could see past the forest to where the future emerged
They had seen civilizations crumble and rise from the dirt
They had seen the mountains grow, turn to ice, melt and burn
Seen the fish turn to birds and seen the continents turn

And now they saw these little people with actions so great
It could break what forever and ever had made
And the trolls got afraid life should never be borrowed
It was meant to be shared with a day off tomorrow

So the 7 trolls gathered on the mountain top
To find a new way, the old way had to stop
And Kamiel spoke up – we must help them get better
The little people mean well but are too young to be clever

Let’s build them a tower as tall as a troll
And show them that all beings are one in the soul
It took them all winter, by summer it was done
They then invited all the little people to come

And the little people climbed to the top and opened their eyes
And saw past the forest, the mountains and skies
They looked to the future with tears in their eyes
What they saw no one knows, but the eyes never lie

4) Arvid

The Magical Tower is at the very end of the path, so you’ll need to backtrack once you’re done climbing the tower and meditating with Kamiel. When you come back to the opening where Una and Joures are on your left, you can either continue straight or head to the right.

There aren’t any trolls straight ahead (the path will just take you around De Schorre), so head off into the woods on the right. The path will split again, giving you the option to continue pretty much straight ahead or turn right, so turn right here. Follow the wooden boardwalk along and you’ll soon meet Arvid.

The description of Arvid said that she’s a diligent troll who likes to make things out of old, dead trees. There must be more than a little Thomas Dambo in Arvid as he makes all these trolls out of reclaimed wood.

Arvid is also apparently really proud of her ring which her “over-over-over-over-great-grandmother” gave her (that was Google’s actual translation).

One of my favorite features of some of the trolls is their hairstyles.

5) Mikil

The path that Arvid is on loops around a pond/small lake. While walking along that path you can see Mikil on the other side.

It might be possible to get even closer to Mikil, but I didn’t notice a path leading down to him and decided not to go exploring for one. He was the final troll I found and I’d already walked several miles with a 25 lb backpack on my back by that point. Knowing that I had to walk all the way back into Boom to catch a bus back to Brussels, I decided not to traipse around any further. Looking back now though, I wish I’d made the effort to get a little closer to him.

6) Hannes

The path continues down through the forest, so follow that along. It’ll eventually curve around to the right, but be sure to look to the left as Hannes is sitting on the ruins of a building.

As the story of the 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower explains, Hannes likes to put pearls on a line for everyone to see.

I think Hannes might be one of the only trolls that Thomas Dambo has created worldwide who has facial hair.

7) Little Nora

Once you’ve visited Hannes, follow the path back round to the right. You’ll cross over a little bit of water, then shortly afterwards you should see an offshoot to the right. Follow that down and you’ll get to meet the 7th and final troll – Little Nora.

Hannes is one of the only trolls created with facial hair, while I think Little Nora might be one of the only ones with a tail. She also collects magical stones for good luck.

Final Thoughts

I love finding Thomas Dambo’s trolls and his ones at De Schorre in Boom, Belgium are no exception. I also love that even though 7 Trolls & The Magical Kingdom were created for Tomorrowland, you don’t have to be a festival-goer in order to enjoy them.

If you ever find yourself in Belgium, I recommend finding your way to De Schorre to check out the trolls. I hope this guide helps you find them a little more easily too 🙂

How To Get To De Schorre

De Schorre in Boom is located about halfway between Brussels and Antwerp. If you have a rental car, just put De Schorre into Google Maps and it’ll give you directions.

I was relying on public transport though, so here’s how I got there. I’d flown into Brussels airport the night before (the main Brussels airport rather than Charleroi). The next morning I took the 272 bus from the airport to Brussels North railway station which cost €3 (~$3.30). I then took the 460 bus from Brussels North to Boom Markt which also cost €3.