Tour Report: The Command Post of the Navy

The rain had set in during our exploration of the abandoned office building, but we wanted to continue our tour and followed the plan we had made. After all - a bit of rain can't be so bad, can it? As our next location, we had chosen a really interesting place: The main command post of the National People's Navy of the GDR. It consists of a huge underground bunker complex along with the corresponding facilities and barracks above the ground.
It was clear that the bunker would be inaccessible since the city has ordered the owner to seal it to keep people from entering - although it had been open for guided tours a couple of years ago. Still, the area itself and the remaining buildings were interesting enough to go for a little explore.

Upon our arrival, the rain had ceased a little; it as only a bit of a drizzle as we were gathering our stuff out of the car and started making our way from the road where we had parked through the forest. The path was about one and a half kilometers, so we did get a little wet, especially when the rain picked up again.
The buildings that we got to explore were unspectacular. There were no signs of the former military use, and the copper thieves had stolen every metal part over the years. However, there were hardly any graffiti on the walls, and the humid conditions have painted some nice colors on the walls.

After we were finished with the barracks, we wanted to check if there really was no access to the underground bunkers, so in spite of the rain we undertook a rather long walk through the forest - luckily, I had a rain cape with my, and my wife - as always - carried an umbrelly in her backpack, so we stayed realtively dry.
We did find some former access spots, but they were tighly locked and most of them even sealed with concrete. But we did find a curious looking emergency exit that made a nice location for a tour selfie.

We spent about two and a half hours in the area, before we got back to the car and started heading to the next location.

To find out more about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Tour Report: The Moldy Office

Right in the middle of an industrial area in a small city in Eastern Germany lies this abandoned office building. I had gotten a tip regarding this place while planning a tour together with my wife.
The first spot of the tour had been a really successful explore, and the dinner at our friend's place had been spectacular, so we were hoping for another good day after a kind of short night.

The next morning, we left pretty early since we had planned a couple of spots. For the first spot, we drove East. It took only about thirty minutes before we arrived. As mentioned, the place was right in the middle of a commercial area. It was Thursday, so there were lots of cars and people passing by, and the building itself didn't really look spectacular; it looked like the typical East German apartment block, so we pondered for a while if we really should take the risk of getting caught for nothing...
After a few minutes, we decided to just go in. There was an open fence, so we quickly went to the back side of the building. It didn't take long and we found an open door.

At first sight, the inside was just as we'd expected - the same boring East German stuff as on the outside. After we inspected the first couple of rooms, however, we began to appreciate what we saw - a building that had been vandalized a rather long time ago, so the decay had enough time to set in and paint mold on the walls, ceilings and floors...
We took our time to check out every room of the place, and in the end, we didn't regret entering this building. There were some really nice shots to be taken - I especially liked the room with the moss-covered floor...

After about one and a half hours, we were done. It had started raining, and we made our way back to the car to drive to the thext spot on our list...


To check out all the photos from this surprisingly colorful place, click the button below.

Tour Report: The Unknown School

In May of 2017, my wife and I went for a tour of the Northeastern part of Germany. We had arranged to spend a couple of nights at a friend's house who lives pretty central in the area where we had identified some spots to explore.

The first spot was a tricky one. It actually consists of three parts. One is an old manor house. The other is a bunker that sits practically in the back yard of the manor house. And then there was the third building. We had only seen the large structure on Google Earth during the planning phase for the tour, but we had no clue what it was.

Due to the three different spots in one location, it seemed to be a promising place to start our tour, and conveniently enough, it was right on the way to our friend, so it wasn't even a long detour.

Upon our arrival, we could see right away that the abandoned manor house wasn't so abandoned anymore. There were workers on scaffolds renovating the whole thing. So the main building was out of reach for an exploration. But knowing about the other two potential places on the grounds, we asked one of the workers if it was alright to go walk around the area and take some photos, and he said yes.

So we went back to the car to get our gear, when a car drove past us right onto the grounds. Inside the car was a grim-looking man who eyeballed us pretty intensely. After he'd passed us, we made our way back on the premises - where the guy was already waiting for us. He asked us what we were planning to do, and we told him about our conversation with the workers on the scaffolds. He said, the workers didn't have anything to say and that we weren't allowed on the premises. Feeling that arguing with him was going to  be unrewarding, we opted for a different approach. We accepted what he said, but started a conversation about the history of the whole place. It took some time, but then he started opening up. The guy was the groundskeeper and he really knew a lot about the place. The mansion was being renovated by the new owners and through the proper channels could even be visited legally - if you called ahead...

He was kind of surprised that we knew about the bunker, but also told us a couple of things about that. The large building that we didn't know anything about used to be a school, he told us - and in the end, he allowed us to explore it.

This was another fine example that if you are open-minded, friendly and don't run around in camouflage hiding as soon as someone sees you, you can sometimes gain more than you initially thought!

So we took our time to explore the place undisturbed, which took about two hours. After that, we got back into the car and drove towards a nice dinner at our friend's house.

To find out more about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below.

Tour Report: The House of the German [DK]

It was the final spot on our tour together with Pixelcracker and Lost Places in Schleswig-Holstein und Umland back in April of last year. We had gotten a tip regarding this place, but had first checked out the location right across the street that we didn't know about.
So after we were done exploring the "First House on the Left", we went over and entered through the open front door - as it's common in Denmark.
The place was pretty much trashed, so I only took some detail shots - but those reveal very clearly why the location is called "The House of the German".
Apparently, the person who lived here displayed some more than right-wing political views. We found newspapers, books and even sheet music that clearly pointed in this direction.
After about 45 minutes, we had seen enough and started our drive back home.
South of the Danish border, we went for our traditional quick snack at a fast-food joint and then went our separate ways.


To check out all the photos of this neat little place and to find more galleries, click the button below.