Tour Report: School "Heart of the Mountain"

Having started out the day exploring two underground bunker complexes in the morning, it was time for something above ground, and not too far away, we had an abandoned school on our map. The drive only took about ten minutes, and we found a nice parking spot in the shade under some trees which is good around noon on a day in late July :)

Access was really easy - there was no fence around the building, and the door was open. There also was no one around; the school lies on the edge of a small village, and in the heat, most people probably just stayed indoors.

So we entered the building undisturbed and took our time exploring everything.

The main building was in surprisingly good condition - most of the windows were intact (some were boarded up), and even the vandalism was "within limits"!

After we were finished with the main building, we found a few classrooms behind the building. These had apparently been added at a later time and consisted only of thin prefabricated parts.

It was these classrooms that offered beautiful green decay!

Though this was by far no spectacular place, it was a really nice exploration due to the mostly "untouched" condition of the place - and the very calm mood that it transported in the lazy midday heat of a summer day.

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

Tour Report: The Medical Train

Towards the end of our summer vacation in 2018, we were more or less on our way home - only one more overnight stop at a friend's place was scheduled - and we decided to check if we could pay a visit to the so-called "Medical Train".

The "Medical Train" was a kind of mobile hospital in the GDR and was used especially during major military maneuvers under the Warsaw Treaty. It is kept by the "Eisenbahnfreunde Staßfurt" and can be visited legally.

It was Monday, so we didn't really think that we'd get the chance to even enter the old railyard/museum where the trains are kept, especially since we knew that it's better to make an appointment in advance, but since it was on the way to our destination, we tried it anyway.

As we arrived, we were surprised to find the gate open, and we started looking around. Inside the engine shed, we found a couple of guys working on various old locomotives, and we asked them if it was possible to photograph the Medical Train. Since they were working, the asked if we could make an appointment and come back on the weekend, but when we explained that we were almost five hundred kilometers from home and that it was more or less the last day of our vacation, they made an exception and started looking for the key to the train. It took some time to find the key - and also to find the door which the key unlocked - but at some point, we were inside the train and started taking photos.

Of course, I had seen plenty of photos from the train in the past, but it's always different when you're finally there for yourself and have the chance to look in every corner for yourself, so we took our time to explore the train from front to back.

After we were finished, we said a big thank you to the guys that had let us in, and we left a donation, so this amazing place can be kept up for future visitors, and I'm sure that we will return sometime in the future to check out all the other trains that they have there.

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