Tour Report: Hotel "House L."

The second place we visited on our “interim tour” to bridge the time until our summer vacation in 2020 was the remains of a small hotel. Right next door was another hotel that I had visited a few years earlier, but it was in such a desolate condition that it was hardly worth taking photos. So we concentrated on the small hotel next door.

The site was open and not fenced off; we just had to fight our way through some undergrowth to get to the buildings.

The buildings were in terrible condition.  There was hardly any furniture left, there was a lot of graffiti and trash in the outdoor areas, and most of the windows and doors were destroyed.

However, there were also a few bright spots: the vegetation was really beautiful to look at, and the “real,” natural decay also provided some beautiful motifs.

The place wasn't very big; there were only two small buildings, so we finished our exploration relatively quickly. Then we went back to the car and headed to the next location.

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Tour Report: Recreation Home "Mountain View"

Somewhere in the Saxon hill country near the Czech border rises a mountain on which a remarkable building between tradition and modernity was erected. It was built in the late 1920s and served first as a recreation home for the workers' youth, later as a camp for the "Bund Deutscher Mädel" and in GDR times as an SED party school.

We had decided to pay a visit to the building during our summer vacation 2019 because of its striking architecture.

However, getting there was not as easy as we had imagined. A lot of construction sites and closed roads and paths prevented us from taking the direct route to the site, so we ended up taking almost an hour longer than planned.

Eventually we did arrive, and in the absence of a normal parking space, we parked the car at the edge of the field next door.

The grounds and buildings were wide open, so we didn't have to overcome any other obstacles as we explored.

Even though there was no longer any furnishings and the building looked as if it had been at least partially gutted in the course of construction preparations, we could sense its former glory: The main entrance is reminiscent of a festival hall, there is a high, impressive festival room with a stage, and large panoramic windows and other elements have a strong reference to the surrounding landscape.

After exploring all the rooms, we went back to the car, packed up our gear, and discussed which way back would be best given the problems on the way there.

The end of the story was that Birthe uttered the magic words "Then I'm a construction vehicle!" and took the short route directly across the construction site. Luckily it was the weekend and there were no construction workers on the road :)

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

Tour Report: Sanatorium "Grand Duchess"

After we'd explored the abandoned recreation home that we'd found by accident, we moved on to the location that we'd originally planned - an abandoned sanatorium. Built more than 120 yeas ago, the place promised to be an exciting explore in both historical and architectural aspects.

It was only a few minutes drive from the recreation home which - as far as I know - had been a part of the sanatorium after World War II. Of course, there were no regular parking spots, so we had to find us a place somewhere between the cars of the local residents. We found one a bit down the street, which was good because standing in front of an abandoned place with a license plate from a city about 600 kilometers away is not the best thing to do if you want to keep a low profile.

We walked a bit up the hill to get to the old sanatorium which really was a sight for sore eyes. It was a beautiful day - mostly sunny and partly cloudy, which always makes for a nice atmosphere. There was no wind, so we could hear the crickets in the grass as we started looking for a way in. We walked around the building following one of the many trails through the vegetation surrounding the building. It only took us a few minutes to find an entrance. This entrance seemed to be frequently closed with OSB plates and then opened again by someone else. Upon entering, we saw a hand-written note - possibly put there by the owner or some sort of caretaker. The note said something along the lines of "If you feel that you have to enter this place, at least don't leave your trash and don't spray things on the walls!".

We started exploring the building, and we found that a lot of people obviously didn't follow the note - there was a lot of graffiti and a lot of leftovers from various parties that happened in the place. It was kind of disappointing, since in the absence of any furniture or original decoration, the architecture - the staircases, windows and long hallways - were the only thing (next to the outside) that made this location beautiful. There were a lot of graffiti, however. And I'm not talking about beautiful, artistic graffiti, but only stupid slogans, tags or penises...as I said - it was a bit disappointing.

We walked through the entire place, and I did take a couple of photos, but not as many as I usually would have in a location this size.

After about an hour and a half, we went back to the car, drove back to the hotel, went shopping for groceries and started looking for a restaurant for dinner.

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

Tour Report: Recreation Home "Castle"

As we drove through the wilderness of Eastern Germany on the way to an abandoned sanatorium during our summer vacation in 2018, we came across this former recreation home sitting on the slope of a densely forested mountain.

Finding a place to park, however, proved a bit difficult on this one. The place is situated on a heavily frequented county road and only has a small access road going up the hill. Only the entrance to this road was wide enough for us to park and still leave enough room for possible forest workers that do tend to show up once in a while to cut down trees and who might get mad if they find their access blocked.

So we parked as close to the main road as we could to leave as much room as possible, which meant that the passing cars were speeding right by us with only a few centimeters in between. Not a nice feeling. we hurried up to get our gear together and walked up the small, leaf-covered road until we reached the old castle-style building.

The foundations of the place were made of large stones, so it even more looked like a castle, but we saw a lot of trash lying around, and many of the windows were walled up tightly, which didn't give much hope for the rest of this explore. As we reached the entrance, we found it open - but it obviously was being walled up over and over, only to be opened again by vandals or teenagers (the latter supported by our finding lots of empty liquor bottles, beer cans and disposable barbecue grills).

We entered through the hole in the wall that once was the main door and found the place inside just as trashed as the outside. The building was pretty much gutted. Except for the architecture, the arched windows and some old wooden appliances, nothing showed the former glory of this once popular recreation home. A fire has destroyed the staircase, so there was no way to get to the upper floors, and we left after taking only a few photos to document the place.

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

Tour Report: Recreation Home H. [Revisit]

After we had explored the abandoned inn, Pixelcracker and I still had some time left before we'd planned to go grocery shopping for the evening barbecue up on the mountain.
I'd always wanted to go for a revisit of the old recreation home, but I never got the chance - up until then ;)

In addition, it wasn't too far away, so that we'd have plenty of time to get everything else done as well.

Parking had always been an issue at this location. There is no public parking area anywhere near it, and there was no possibility to park by the side of the streets leading up to the place. So we played the "RV card" again and parked on the street right in front of the building. The access was on the backside anyway, so for any passerby, it'd look like some tourists went for a hike in the woods...in the rain...

The rain hadn't stopped, but it hadn't gotten worse either, so we took our time walking along the fence around the building until we found an opening that led us to the main entrance that was wide open.

It had been more than three years since my last visit, and the condition of the old recreation home had gotten a lot worse - the roof of the large hall had collapsed, so it had become a kind of atrium. Other parts shared the same fate, especially on the upper floor, there were many rooms with massive decay. To be frank, I was surprised that the building was still standing.

Accordingly, we moved around very carefully - the rain and humidity of the days and weeks before had soaked the wooden floors, so that it felt like we were moving on soft soil or something like that. Some rooms we didn't even enter and only took photos from the doors.

After about two hours, we had explored every room that we dared to enter, and we made our way back to the car.

I was really happy to have gotten a chance to take photos of this place again - after all, the first time, we'd missed a lot, and I'm not really happy with the old photos anymore.

Our second day of exploring ended with a great barbecue over the campfire together with good friends up on the mountain - and we managed to not be as drunk as the night before. After all, we had a long drive home ahead of us the next morning ;)

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