Tour Report: Sanatorium "Hydro"

It was a beautiful, warm day in May of 2019, and we met up with our friend North Urbex for a short tour of the beautiful mountains in Germany. The first part of our excursion took us to an abandoned sanatorium in a well-known spa town. Since we're always keen not to arise any suspicion, we didn't want to park right in front of the place, and looking at the map, there weren't too many possible parking spots near the location, so we decided to take the long way.

We parked about two kilometers away near the woods and had to walk for about twenty minutes until we arrived at the location. It was sunny and warm, and the springtime had taken care of a beautiful green and colorful flowers all around us, so it was a really nice walk.

Once we were at the sanatorium, getting in wasn't too hard. We just had to walk along the fence until we found an opening. Then across the small park and around the building - there was an open door. The smell of mold and humidity was oozing toward us and made us hope for various stages of decay.

We weren't disappointed. Although the vandals have had their go at the building and its interior, nature had done a beautiful job painting the place in beautiful colors. The windows were partly boarded up, and the vegetation around the building had grown pretty tall, so it was fairly dark inside, which added to the mysterious atmosphere.

We had the whole place completely to ourselves, and we took our time exploring every single room. This was one of these locations, where you really have to check everywhere to get to the good parts. There were even some instruments left, and a few rooms looked really nice - decorated, but nice! When we were finished, we walked back to the car and headed to the next spot.

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

Tour Report: Prison of the Navy

In May of 2019, we got the chance to legally explore a historically significant building in my hometown: The abandoned former prison of the Navy. It was built in the early 20th century and used as a prison until after World War II. Many delinquents waited in one of the narrow cells for the transport to the local shooting range - to be executed.

The association that takes care of many of the old Navy buildings in the area organized an exhibition a few years ago, and I had the pleasure to contribute a few photos from the abandoned former military hospital, so I was able to establish some contacts which I used to get permission to explore the old prison.

I met up with my good friends Pixelcracker and Lost Places in Schleswig-Holstein und Umland at the parking lot right across the building, and we only had to wait a few minutes until the president of the cultural association drove up to us and nonchalantly handed the prison keys over through the car window.

The building is abandoned, but had been used a year earlier to stage a play about the Kiel sailor uprising of 1918, and some of the stuff had not been cleaned out yet, so in terms of photography, the place was a nice mixture of a little decay, long hallways, old furniture and historical "gimmicks", such as posters, cartoons, etc.

Since we had permission to be there, we wee able to take our time without the risk of being caught, and we did. We checked out every room on every floor and took a lot of photos - not forgetting that for the first 40 years of the 20th century, this must have been one of the most feared places in the city...

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

Tour Report: Civil Defense Warning Station II

A friend of ours rents and operates the former "Warnamt II", a huge underground shelter housing one of ten German "Warning Offices" built for civil air defense during the Cold War. Since we were in the area during our Easter tour in April of 2019, we decided to pay him a visit and take a few photos.

Mirko really is doing a marvelous job keeping the place operational and expanding the collection of relics not just from the bunker's past, but from the Cold War in General.

We were joined on our tour by our friend Petra and her father, who was also very interested to see what had been built pretty close to his home...

We had announced ourselves a few days ahead, so we were greeted by Mirko, who immediately started showing us the bunker and explaining absolutely everything! He really is a wealth of information regarding the Cold War in general and the German warning system in particular. It's really interesting and a lot of fun listening to his stories - if you ever get the chance, check the place out!

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

Tour Report: The Administration of Steel

On our Easter tour in April of 2019, we checked out the abandoned administration building of a steel company. At the time, it had been abandoned for more than ten years, and it looked like some of the surrounding buildings had been demolished. There was no good parking place, and the area was open and flat, so there was a good possibility of being spotted upon entering. We still wanted to try.

So we parked way off and walked the rest of the way. As we reached the premises, we just walked right across towards the building and started looking for a way in. It looked like it had been freshly sealed - some broken windows had been boarded up with fresh wooden boards - and the degree of vandalism suggested that this probably happened a lot.

But we did find a way in - there was an open door!

As we entered, we were shocked at the level of destruction that the vandals have inflicted on the building. Broken glass, graffiti, ripped out floorboards and ceilings - and everything that could be moved around had been tossed around...

The place was huge, but didn't offer a large variety of scenes - after all, this was only an office building. We could see that it used to be a very modern office when it was built in the 1970s, but it probably wasn't modern enough to make the transition into the 21st century.

We walked through long hallways and huge office spaces, we found the cafeteria and the central reception desk. I did like the facade of mirrored glass; it looked really nice with the sun and the blue sky. What surprised us was that we were completely alone. The place looked like it is regularly frequented by teenagers looking for thrills - but there was no one there except us. Being alone in a large building like this always creates a weird atmosphere; every sound becomes really loud, and every window or door closed by the wind startles me - even when the building itself has no spooky aspect at all.

We had finished our explore after about two hours and went back to the car to drive to the next location that we had planned.

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