Tour Report: Cycling Track "Victory Wreath"

We had planned one last stop on the way home from our short tour in March of 2019 - an abandoned cycling track. It was located conveniently on the way and presumably easy to reach, so it wouldn't take up too much time, because after all, it was a pretty long drive home.

I had checked for a parking place before we arrived and had found a public parking lot within walking distance of the location. It was Wednesday, so there was a lot of traffic, but since the place was pretty close to the Autobahn, we managed just fine and didn't have to drive a long way through the city. We parked the car, got our gear and walked to the old track.

The place was right at the street and there was a large scrap trading company right next door, and since it was a weekday, there were a lot of workers. We still started walking around to check for access. There was none that we could find. The only option was to climb over the fence, which we did.

I'd never visited a cycling track - neither active nor abandoned - and so this was a pretty exciting location. The excitement was heightened by the fact that there was a worker on a crane in the scrapyard next door who could clearly see me walking around. We didn't want to stress our luck and only took a few photos before climbing out and getting back on the way home.

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

Tour Report: Rest Home "Fernview"

After visiting our friend Jens and revisiting "his" sanatorium in the Harz mountains, we still had two more days to go on our short tour in March of 2019, so we took the opportunity to visit my mother-in-law and check out a few more locations.

On top of a hill in a small town lies an abandoned rest home. I had seen lots of photos from there, but the most "famous" scene is one room with an old armchair and ferns growing up the wall behind it. So of course, when we were in the area, we had to stop to check it out.

As we drove up to the huge building and saw the broken windows and piles of trash on the outside, we didn't have high hopes to see anything interesting. The place was wide open, so we didn't really go through the trouble of looking for a parking place far away and found one pretty close to the building. Now we only had to find a way in.

There was no fence, and almost every window was broken, so this was an obvious way in - but lazy as we are, we looked for an open door, and we found one right away!

As we entered, we were once again shocked and amazed what vandals can do to a building. There was no single room in its original condition, all remaining furniture had been moved around - either to create the better photo, or to create the better party room, or simply to create chaos. There had even been a fire in some of the rooms, and local kids apparently also used the place as "canvas" for their "graffiti"...

We still took the time and walked through the entire place, and we even managed to get some pretty decent shots - although the vandalism was omnipresent. And then we found the room with the ferns on the wall.

Well, that was a bit disappointing. Firstly because the armchair had lost one of its "arms", but mostly because the ferns weren't nearly as green as we had expected. Yes, it was March, and spring hadn't really started yet, but I suspected that the reason was the immensely hot and dry summer of 2018 that had dried up a lot of the plants.

So after about two and a half hours, we went back to the car and drove off to the next location.

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

Tour Report: Sanatorium J. [Revisit]

A short vacation in March of 2019 took us to the Harz Mountains to visit our friend Jens. On the morning after our first night, we had explored a small old original 1970s apartment, and in the afternoon, we returned to chop some wood for the next night and prepare the fire for the evening barbecue.

We decided, however, that there was still enough time to use the (admittedly bleak) afternon light to go for another quick tour of the old sanatorium on the site. The rain/snow had stopped, and even a few blue spots could be seen through the thick cover of clouds.

What I didn't know at that point was that the photos I took that day were the last ones I was going to take at this place for more than three years.

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