Tour Report: Sand-Lime Brick Factory L.

On the way back from our tour to the abandoned dialysis clinic, we had two more locations planned. The first one was an abandoned prison, which of course promised to be an interesting exploration - if we had found a way in. But at the time, that wasn't in the cards. However, six months later, I did return and had more luck - but that will be another story!

The second location was more or less a last resort, because we didn't have anything left that was en route. So we tried it out.

The place was located right next to a residential area which conveniently offered a public parking lot only a short walk from the old factory building.

As we arrived at the location, we could already see that there weren't going to be many photo opportunities: lots of trash had been dumped on the premises, the walls were covered in graffiti, and there were no windows left intact.

The fence around the area hardly deserved that name, so we could just walk onto the premises as we pleased.

We only needed about an hour until we had all the photos that we wanted, so it was a short visit. It wasn't spectacular, but at least we got to see the place before it was demolished a few yeas later.

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

Tour Report: Villa "Kidney"

About a month after our summer vacation in 2020, it was time for another exploration tour. The plan sounded perfect: the evening before, we met up with our friends from Pixelcracker and Lost Places in Schleswig-Holstein und Umland at our place and enjoyed a great barbecue together.

Unfortunately, the evening ended with a small accident. My wife seriously injured her right foot, tearing the ligaments and breaking her tailbone. As a result, only the three of us were able to set off the next morning.

Still, the tour promised to be an exciting one. Our chosen location was already well known and quite overrun at the time, but it was also famous for offering many fascinating and beautiful photo opportunities: a huge villa that had been built in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a dialysis clinic, combined with the private living quarters of the doctor.

After the doctor passed away, the clinic continued to operate under a successor until 2009. Since then, the entire complex had been left abandoned.

We started early, as we were planning to meet another friend on site. She wanted to explore the clinic as well, accompanied by a former employee — which was especially interesting, as it often means you can pick up additional background stories and details about the place.

After roughly two and a half hours on the road, we arrived in Boye and parked in a nearby residential area. There we met Andrea and her companion, and just a few minutes later we entered the property.

We quickly found an open door and stepped inside the villa. It became obvious almost immediately that we weren’t alone. At least two other groups were already inside, wandering around and taking photos.

So even early in the morning, the place was surprisingly busy. We decided to move quickly, knowing that the infamous “urbex bus” could arrive at any moment.

The villa itself absolutely blew me away. Even the large entrance gate to the property had a thatched roof. There was a garage with a car lift, high-end furniture throughout the building, partly gold-plated fittings, fabric-covered walls, and parquet floors that must once have shone like a mirror. The swimming pool was designed like a jungle grotto — an almost surreal touch of luxury.

Sadly, vandals had already done significant damage. Valuable items had been stolen, and the walls were covered with poorly executed graffiti.

While we were taking our photos, even more people arrived and started roaming through the house. We hurried even more, and when we heard someone flying a drone over the property, we decided it was time to leave. At that point, there were around 20 other people inside the building — not all of them behaving responsibly. There was shouting, smoking, and littering, all things we deliberately avoid on our tours. For us, respect for these places is essential.

With so much illegal activity in a high-end residential neighborhood, there was also a real risk of neighbors calling the police — something that had reportedly happened there more than once.

So we left the site, leaving the “amateurs” and “idiots” behind, and headed off to our next location.

Looking back, it’s a shame that the place was so crowded that we couldn’t explore it in peace. But I’m still glad we went. Just a year and a half later, the villa was completely demolished.

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

Tour Report: Abandoned Barges

In April of 2019, we undertook a short tour to visit a friend in the German state of Lower Saxony, and of course, we had a few locations on our list of possible explorations. The first one was an easy task - just two abandoned gravel barges that have been rotting on the bank of a flooded gravel pit near a river.

There was a public parking lot near the dike that protects the inland if there is a flood that pushes water over the riverbanks. From there, it was only a twenty-minute walk to get to the former gravel pit. The barges can be seen from the trail, and there was even a small beaten path through the reeds that made it even easier for us to reach our target. The barges are in water, but the surrounding area has silted up, so we could reach the rusting hunks of metal without getting our feet wet.

The weather was beautiful - it was pretty windy, but sunny and warm, so we took our time to stroll around and take a bunch of photos. It was one of those explores that are unspectacular regarding the target, but are made memorable by the setting in general - weather, accessibility, company, potential historical relevance etc., so we really enjoyed ourselves.

The day ended with a nice dinner and a few drinks with our friend Petra at her parents' place, while we were already pondering what to explore on the next day...

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

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: Riverside Seventies

In March of 2019, we took a few days vacation to go on a short tour. Our first stop was our good friend Jens' place in the Harz Mountains. We arrived Saturday afternoon, and for the start of the weekend, we got our "party room" ready, went to shop for groceries, chopped some wood to keep warm for the night and went to roam through the abandoned sanatorium on the premises. In the evening, we had a barbecue in the teepee, and if I remember correctly, it got a bit late that night :)

In the morning, we had an unhurried breakfast, before we got on our way to check out a location that we had on our list for quite some time. It was a supposedly completely unvandalized apartment with the entire furniture from the 1970s. I had seen pictures of it, but I hadn't thought that it was anywhere near. But it was.

We drove to the location. There was an ensemble of a couple of houses, all of which seemed abandoned. There was no light in the buildings; it all looked dark. As we looked through one of then windows of the old guest house right at the street, we were startled to see a face appearing from out of the dark. After the scare, we all started laughing, and the man came out, and we started talking. It turned out that he and his wife had bought the buildings to turn the place into a multigenerational residence complete with vegetable garden - but they got into huge trouble with legal obstacles and the administrative machinery... So they were doing all that they could to keep the place alive and standing. We had a really good talk, but it was sad to hear that a great concept was on hold due to weird laws and official pedantry.

At some point, we asked the two about the 1970s apartment that was supposed to be in one of their houses...and it was! We asked if there was the possibility to check it out and take a few pictures, and they gave us their blessing - if we were careful! The building was more than 300 years old and so ramshackle that even parts of the basement had already collapsed. The apartment actually was the only place in the entire building that still had fairly solid flooring.

When we opened the door, we were amazed at what we saw. Although some of the furniture obvisously had been decorated sometime in the past, the apartment still looked authentic and was in great shape. Yes, the floor still felt a bit wobbly, but it was okay to walk on. The apartment wasn't big, but there were quite a few details, so we did spend a considerable amount of time taking photos before we came back out.

The owners hadn't expected to be paid, but we didn't want to leave without contributing to their project, so we left a small donation, which they really hadn't expected, and they were really happy about it.

It had only been a small location, but seeing and photographing it and meeting really nice people was enough for us to call it a day in therms of exploring and return to Jens and his sanatorium to enjoy the wonderful ambiance on top of the mountain...

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