Tour Report: Baroque Graveyard O.

We don’t always seek out the most spectacular, abandoned places. We find it just as exciting and interesting to explore the area where we happen to be. Sometimes we just drive around and see what we end up stumbling upon, and sometimes we check Google Maps to see if we can find an interesting marker where something exciting might be hiding.

It was similar with this cemetery.

The day before, we’d been on a long tour and wanted to treat ourselves to a quiet, relaxing day. By late afternoon, though, we felt like taking advantage of the nice weather and going on a short tour of the area. I checked Google Maps and found a reference to a small churchyard. Upon closer inspection, we could make out several stone graves that caught our attention.

So we set off. The drive was short; the cemetery was only a little over 10 kilometers away. Directly across the street is the small village square, where we were able to park without any trouble.

The church and the cemetery are still in use, but the last burials had already taken place several years prior to our visit in November 2020.

As we entered the small graveyard, we could already see the four old stone graves. On the way there, I had of course looked up some information about the place and discovered that these were graves from the Baroque era.

What particularly fascinated me were the depictions of skulls on the graves. This was quite common during the Baroque period. The large, richly decorated tombs suggest that the people buried here were once quite wealthy.

A few old gravestones still lean against a wall of the cemetery - this, too, is not uncommon: When relatives are no longer willing or able to pay the grave rental fee, or when there are simply no relatives left to rent a grave site for their ancestors, the grave is reused after some time. The gravestones often remain in the cemetery and are leaned against either the walls of the church or the cemetery wall.

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

Tour Report: Hotel "Lampshade"

On a bleak, cold day in November 2020, we set out to explore an abandoned hotel. It stands on the edge of a small village in the Thuringian Forest and was closed in the early 1990s after barely a decade of operation.

The drive from our accommodation was not exactly short—just over two hours. Along the way, we took in the late autumn scenery: the cold and damp had wrapped the Thuringian Forest in a dense veil of fog that would linger with us throughout the entire day.

The hotel sits atop a hill. To the south and west lie residential areas; on the eastern slope, a few cattle grazed quietly on a wide pasture, while to the north the complex borders an expansive stretch of forest.

We parked some distance away in a spot that seemed inconspicuous and made our way toward the building. The fog swallowed every sound. There was no wind, and the cold felt sharp and still—I couldn’t help but feel like we had stepped into the opening scene of a horror film.

Even from afar, the structures were visible: a large, prefabricated six-story accommodation block, flanked by two lower annexes that once housed kitchens, dining halls, and various other facilities.

Finding a way inside didn’t take long. Within minutes, we discovered an open door and slipped into the building. We began by exploring the guest room block. As was typical in socialist times, the rooms were all identical: beds, a wardrobe, a lamp, and a small shelf.

The higher we climbed, the more evident the decay became. Water had clearly been leaking in from the roof, and the damage intensified with each floor. The mold was so pervasive that, despite the cold, we could almost taste the decay in the air. We didn’t even want to imagine what it must be like here in summer.

I found the small shelves particularly charming. Much like the rooms themselves, they existed in various stages of decay—from nearly pristine to damp and green with mold, all the way to completely gone. Tracing this “path of decay” in detail would go too far here, but I’ve included a small photo at the end of this post that captures it quite well.

After finishing the hotel section, we moved on to the areas that once housed the restaurant and other facilities. This was where vandals and cable thieves had done the most damage. The rooms bore clear signs that parties had taken place here over the years—none of which had done the building any favors.

Even so, we were still able to capture some truly striking images. At one point, however, our progress was abruptly halted: access to further parts of the complex was completely blocked and secured, which took us by surprise. With that, our exploration came to an end—aside from the sealed-off section, we had seen nearly everything.

On our way back to the car, we suddenly heard noises coming from behind the barricaded area—metallic, rhythmic, unmistakably the sound of tools. Apparently, someone was using that section as a workshop at the time—or perhaps metal thieves had sealed it off themselves to go about their “work” undisturbed.

Either way, we were glad we hadn’t tried to push further. We weren’t particularly eager for human contact out here.

And so, after a truly successful exploration, we made our way back to the Husky farm, where a well-earned, hearty dinner awaited us.

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

Tour Report: Farmyard for Sale

The final spot we explored on our tour in November 2020 with our dear friend Biggi from Der Schlittenhundehof was an old, abandoned farmhouse located right in the middle of the village. It was easy to get onto the property - the construction fence was basically just leaning loosely against a wall, so we could just slip right through. We hurried into the buildings so that no one would see us wandering around the yard. The doors to the buildings were all open, and there wasn’t much to see. Some of the ceilings had already collapsed or were on the verge of doing so; the same was true of some of the walls. On top of that, it was slowly getting dark, so despite our flashlights, we couldn’t properly assess the condition of the floors. So we stayed in the rooms that seemed reasonably safe - even though the old wood creaked and cracked in every nook and cranny.

The rooms were completely empty - but we did find a few relics left behind by former residents.

In the end, they were just a few small items, but even these were fragments of a life and tell stories about it - such as the correspondence between Edeltraud and Erna, two young girls, friends who had apparently been separated by the division of Germany.

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