Relics of Victory - Fort V.

I had read about this abandoned military facility in various forums online, and I've seen quite a lot of photos from there, so when it was clear for my wife and me that for this years' spring vacation we were giont near that area, we had to go check this place out.
So after our successful tour of the Starch Factory (and a rather unsuccessful attempt at another industrial site in the same city), we decided to take the trip in spite of the weather getting a little worse.
We drove about 40 kilometers from our first stop. I had the coordinates figured out some time before, but we had no clue how to get in.
The base lies right on a pretty busy road, and there was a bunch of cars passing by all the time. So we went past the place a couple of times and tried to figure out a place to park, but there was nothing inconspicuous, so we dcided to settle for the obvious way. Park right in front of the location and pretend to be hikers just walkign alongside the road...It worked nicely. After walking for a while, we found an opening in the fence...only to find another fence beyond that...and another hole in that fence as well...
After crawling under some pipes we had finally made it on the base.
Although it was thoroughly vandalized, we weren't disappointed. The church, the cinema, the bowling alley...what a great spot!
The light could have been better, but what the hell!
While on the base we noticed some workers and trucks moving around and we had to hide from time to time. I think that there is a lumber company exploiting the premises, but I am not sure.
As it got darker, we made our way back out past the workers and safely reached the car.

Starch Factory A.

On our tour in March, my wife and I drove southwest and on the way down there, we checked out a former technical museum and an abandoned choclate factory.
We spent the night at an apartment in the house of some relatives that live in the area.

The next morning we got up relatively early and drove about 20 kilometers to our first location.
This old starch factory lies right in the center of the city near the main train station, so it looked a bit risky at first.
We found a place to park a little down the street, got our gear out of the car and went over to the factory building. The entire side facing the road was surrounded by a rather high brick wall only interrupted by a large iron gate. So no way in on that side.
On one side of the factory lies a small park that is seperated from the old railway tracks that lead to the factory only ba a high wooden fence. After walking around for a while, we found a pretty small gap between some of the boards and quickly slipped through.
Damn! There it was, another fence, this one made of steel. This was getting harder than we thought...
After wandering along the metal fence for some time, we found that someone had cut a small hole in that fence as well and we managed to squeeze through that one, too.
On the railroad tracks, we made our way to the back side of the factory building.
...only to find that the difficulty level had risen again. All the doors and windows on the ground floor were walled shut, some boarded up, some with brick walls.
The only way in was a window one floor up that could only be reached by a little artistic climbing over the branches of an old dead tree...
But we managed that just fine and after a few minutes we were standing in the abandoned factory halls of the starch factory.

Chocolate Factory B.

After we had finished our visit at the old technical museum, my wife and I wanted to check out another spot in the same town.
It was actually only a couple of blocks down the street, but we somehow managed to miss it and had to circle around a bit until we had found a proper place to park.

We walked the short way to the location and found it completeley surrounded by a site fence. There was a huge sign saying that a group of investors is going to build an office building - one they advertise on their website as "visionary center of excellence" which will "realize the networking of the 21st century".
Construction or rather renovation of the old building is scheduled to take place in 2016/17.

So after looking around a bit, I found a way in through the fence but was stopped again at the building wall. There was no way in whatsoever, so we had to be content taking a couple of outside photos.

To find out more about the history of this location, please visit my website.

Technical Museum B.

This place is pretty well known in the German urbex community.
My wife and I visited it as the first place on our tour a little further south in Western Germany than our usual routes.
It used to be a privately owned car and aviation museum near a spa town in the middle of Germany.
The museum area is made up of several exhibition halls and an outdoor area. The outdoor area leaves the impression of randomly collected militaria from several former Eastern-bloc countries.
The museum was a tourist attraction for the city - even today, there are still roadsings showing the way.

So although we had found out the address and coordinates, the place was really easi to find.
We were a little unlucky bvecause there was some gardener or caretaker working on the premises, and he didn't look too friendly. As we approached him and asked if there was any chance if we could take some photos, he answered rather grimly that we were allowed to take photos from the street and from outside the fence but weren't allowed to enter the property.
So that's what we did; we walked all around the palce and took our pictures. The weather was great, almost a little too much sun for my taste. The publicly accessible area is relatively small, so some people might be disappointed when they go there after seeing the pictures that you can find on the internet, but when you're in the region and are interested in old military (and some other) vehicles, you should definitely check it out!

Some information about the history: The museum was founded at the beginning of the 1970s and was closed in 2007. Since then, there is no information concerning the exhibition or plans for a reopening.
Most of the exhibits in the outdoor area and by the side of the road can be freely accessed or viewed from a short distance. Among others, there is a MiG-21 jet, an Mi-8 helicopter and a T-35 tank.

For more photos from this and other places, please visit my website!