Tou Report: Brick Factory "Dusty Stuff"

After exploring only one location on New Year’s Day, we decided to slowly raise the bar and visit two spots the following day.

We had picked out an abandoned brick factory and a former Soviet communications bunker. The brickworks would be our first destination.

After a drive of a little over half an hour, we arrived at the site and started looking for a place to park. There were no nearby residential areas, no public parking spaces, and the village itself was some distance away, so we decided to simply leave the car on an unused field opposite the property.

The brickworks was not fenced off, and judging by the overgrown vegetation, nobody had been there in quite some time. The first building we came across was the former owner’s house. At the time of our visit, it was completely boarded up and securely locked, with no obvious way inside. We didn’t bother trying any further and moved on.

Next, we started exploring the factory buildings themselves - and what we found left us genuinely surprised. There was no vandalism, no graffiti, and hardly any signs of previous explorers. Instead, the site was still filled with countless small remnants of both business and private life. We found tools, booklets containing industrial production guidelines from the former GDR, medicine packaging, furniture, and even a few old machines. Many of the documents dated back to the 1950s.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, which is why I later gave this place the nickname “Dusty Stuff.”

From a photography perspective, the location had a few nice highlights, though nothing particularly spectacular unless you were interested in digging through the many documents and details scattered throughout the buildings.

Still, we spent quite a while inside the old brickworks. Before leaving, we walked once more through the ring kiln, then made our way back to the car.

To our surprise, the shepherd had arrived in the meantime. He kept his sheep on a nearby field right next to where we had parked. As expected, he didn’t look particularly pleased to see us coming from the abandoned factory, though he didn’t say anything. We greeted him politely as always, and he simply grumbled a brief “Good day” in return. At least he didn’t start asking uncomfortable questions, so we quickly loaded our gear into the car and headed off toward the next location.

And there, another encounter was already waiting for us — but more on that later...

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: Children's Sanatorium "Helmut Just"

For my exploration of the former children’s sanatorium “Helmut Just” in Bad Frankenhausen in November 2020, we were incredibly lucky.

I knew that this abandoned building existed in the small town of Bad Frankenhausen/Kyffhäuser, but I had never consciously seen photos from inside. When we visited our dear friend Biggi at Der Schlittenhundehof in November 2020, we decided to take a small excursion - and the old sanatorium was our first destination.

To be completely honest, I didn’t expect us to get inside at all. As we drove along the road, I already spotted the tall stone wall surrounding the property. That didn’t look promising at all. All the more surprising, then, was the sight of the large gate leading onto the grounds standing wide open. Of course, we weren’t brazen enough to park directly on the property, so we drove a little further down the road and left the car there.

From there it was only a short walk back to the sanatorium. Slowly we passed through the gate and began looking around. There were cars parked in the courtyard, so it was safe to assume that people were on the premises. Then we noticed that the main entrance to the building was open.

An open door and potentially people inside - situations like this are, in my view, a perfect opportunity to ask for permission to look around. So I stepped through the door and called out loudly, “Hello!”

Two people came down the stairs almost immediately. After we politely introduced ourselves, they explained that the building was planned to be reused in the future and that they were currently checking whether protected bat species had chosen the old sanatorium as their habitat. Since we strongly support bat conservation ourselves - and, for example, never enter buildings during the winter months if they serve as hibernation sites - we apparently made a good impression.

We then asked whether it would be possible for us to take a quick look around and snap a few photos. To our surprise, we were given permission to move around the building until the conservationists left - which they expected would be in about half an hour.

We thanked them enthusiastically and immediately set off. Going back to the car to get our “proper” gear would have taken too long, so we rushed through the corridors and rooms armed with nothing but our phones. Time was short, and we wanted to see as much as possible. We didn’t manage to check out the basement or the attic - and I’m pretty sure this was the fastest exploration we’ve ever done!

The building was completely empty, but considering it had been abandoned for almost 30 years, the condition was remarkably good. There was hardly any vandalism at all, and the decay was relatively limited - probably due to the lack of vandalism and the fact that nearly all the windows were still intact.

This exploration was a real surprise, so with happiness in our hearts, we set off to explore the next location of the day!

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

Tour Report: Hunting Chateau "Top of the Hill"

On the way back from our tour in May 2020, we took a short trip to a low mountain range before heading to a dear friend's house to end our vacation there. An abandoned hunting lodge, which was built at the end of the 17th century and has had a very varied history over the centuries, stands on a ridge in said mountain range. This hunting lodge was the destination of our short excursion that day.

After taking a road with (I think) 36 hairpin bends to get up the mountain, we reached the small side road to the old castle. As we were coming from the north, we didn't drive past the buildings in use opposite and remained unseen.

To avoid being seen from the main road, we parked directly behind the castle.

An entrance was quickly found - as was the realization that many parts of the building were in serious danger of collapse, while other parts already had collapsed.

The condition didn't make it easy for us to move through the building, because the collapsed areas meant that we always had to take detours, for example because a piece of the floor was missing in corridors and we had to find our way across another floor.

That's also why we were denied a view of the highlight of this location during this visit - the musicians' gallery in the church pavilion. We just didn't find the right way through the building.

We postponed this pleasure until our next visit, as we had an appointment for dinner and had to leave after a while.

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

Tour Report: Railway Repair Factory "Fields of Green"

This abandoned former railway repair workshop was the last location we visited during our summer vacation in 2019.

As we still had a few kilometers to go by car, we started relatively early and made our way to the old industrial ruin.

The site is located directly on a busy road with plenty of parking spaces, so we quickly found a parking space and were able to look around for an entrance. We found it very quickly, as the main gate was open. There were no prohibition signs or anything like that, so we were able to stroll into the grounds without a care in the world.

First we took a look at the remaining outdoor facilities, then we set about exploring the factory halls.

Unfortunately, a photographer and his model were also passing the time in the factory halls, so that we were not completely undisturbed and had to interrupt our walk again and again to wait for the photographer to get the picture in the box. What often annoys me about this kind of thing is that "model photographers" expect you to wait until they are finished with their pictures - but they themselves don't seem to be able to do this and march right through the middle of the picture without any ifs or buts and start setting up their stuff.

Well, you're above it all and can overlook other people's character flaws without letting them spoil your mood.

In any case, we took all the time we needed to really take a close look at every factory hall. We particularly liked the vegetation inside the halls. Most of the rooms were decorated with varying degrees of vegetation - sometimes just bushes and ferns, but sometimes also real trees. We are always amazed at how nature reclaims the old industrial halls!

After a good two hours, we had finished our exploration and made our way to a dear friend's house where we were going to spend the last night of our vacation.

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

Tour Report: The Hearse in the Factory

On the way back from Walter's House, we took the opportunity to check out a place that we'd been wanting to see for a long time. Well, it wasn't so much the place we wanted to see, but what was waiting for us inside. Behind the unassuming walls of the old factory building is an object that has defied the ravages of time for many years. Behind an iron gate and thick concrete walls, the old hearse only gets a visit from photographers every now and then.

But one after the other.

We knew where the carriage was - fortunately, because we would never have suspected it to be in the old factory building by ourselves. 

The building is located on a busy street near other businesses, so we had to find a more distant parking space and walk the rest of the way.

On the premises, we managed to avoid the passing factory traffic, so after a short time we were standing in front of the entrance. We squeezed through the gap in the door and stood directly in front of the object of desire!

The room was "dark as a bear's ass", as they say in our country, only through two higher windows some light fell. To take reasonable pictures under these conditions is not so easy, as I had to realize, but in the end I managed.

After we had photographed the hearse from all possible perspectives, we took a look at the factory building next door. There wasn't much to see there - except a small carpet of moss and grass.

Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel and were happy about another successful tour!

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