Tour Report: The Tiny House on the Hill

It was the beginning of our vacation week in May 2021. We were visiting our dear friend Biggi, who had moved onto a property on the northern slopes of the Kyffhäuser Mountains with her sled dogs just a short while earlier. To celebrate her birthday, she had invited a few friends over for a lovely day of good company and barbecue.

As we were sitting together, Biggi mentioned that there was a small abandoned cabin hidden somewhere further up the wooded hillside, above her property.

Naturally, we had to take a look, so at some point we set off to find it.

The slope was quite steep, and the vegetation was dense, garnished with thorny bushes. There was no path leading up to the property where the little house stood - and it certainly didn't look as though there had ever been one. Then again, perhaps a path had simply become overgrown over the years and was no longer visible.

In any case, the walk was short, but not exactly easy. Eventually, we reached a tiny clearing on the hillside, where the cabin came into view: a very small, narrow, elongated building, complete with a firewood shelter and an outhouse.

White curtains hung in the windows, and at first glance, the cabin didn't even look particularly abandoned - if it hadn't been for the vegetation slowly swallowing it up and the visible cobwebs inside.

The front door was locked, but one of the windows at the rear of the building was slightly open. It could be pushed further, allowing me to climb inside.

I found myself in the bedroom. There was a small bedside table, a stove and two beds. And then there was a newspaper dating back to 1993 - perhaps the last time anyone had used the cabin.

Through a narrow doorway, I could make my way from the bedroom into the combined kitchen and living area. Only slightly larger than the bedroom, it was furnished in a similarly cosy manner. There was another stove, a small cooker and a table with three chairs. The highlight, however, was a charming little mid-century minibar cabinet from the 1950s or 1960s.

And that was pretty much all there was to see inside the little house. It really was tiny.

Nevertheless, this turned out to be a particularly charming little adventure for several reasons. It was entirely unplanned, we didn't have to travel far to get there, and the place appeared to be completely untouched.

And I like to think that we might have been the first - and perhaps even the only - urban explorers to ever set foot inside this little place and photograph it.

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