Tour Report: Villa of the Sleeping Piano

On the fourth day of our 2020 summer vacation, we were still traveling around western Germany. However, we left the Ruhr region behind to visit the two locations we had planned for the day and drove a little further east.

Our first stop was a stately villa with a thatched roof. The well-known motif - the “sleeping piano” - was something I really wanted to photograph, and it wasn't far from our accommodation.

By researching on Google Maps, we were able to get an idea of the local conditions in advance. There was a public parking lot nearby, and there were also parking spaces a little further down the road - after all, it was summer vacation, and you have to expect a corresponding influx of tourists.

We arrived late in the morning and did indeed have to park on the street - it was a beautiful sunny day, and many people were out and about. The nearby lake was full of small sailing and rowing boats, and the RV park also seemed to be well frequented.

We could well imagine how the residents of the elevated villa used to watch the colorful hustle and bustle on and around the lake from a large living room window or from the garden. During our visit, however, we couldn't even see the villa - the vegetation had grown so thick. Of course, this gave us the advantage of being able to move around the grounds unseen after we had quickly hopped over the fence.

We found an open door just as quickly as we were disappointed when we entered the house. The vandals - presumably local teenagers and children of tourists - had really smashed most of it to pieces, so there weren't really many worthwhile motifs left. Fortunately, the piano was still in its old place. Although it had not been spared by the vandals, it had been repeatedly reassembled by photographers.

On the upper floor, we found a few more rooms where holes in the roof and damp had caused some deterioration, but overall, with the exception of the piano, the visit was relatively disappointing.

On the upper floor, we found a few more rooms where holes in the roof and damp had caused some deterioration, but overall, with the exception of the piano, the visit was relatively disappointing.

So after about an hour and a half, we made our way to the next location.

To check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.

Tour Report: Eye Clinic N. [Revisit]

We visited a total of three places on our short tour three weeks before our summer vacation in 2020. After visiting the disused railway line and the hotel ruins, we paid a visit to a former eye clinic. We had already visited it once in 2016, and since the building was on the way, we wanted to get an impression of the location, because two years after our first visit, the building and the surrounding park were sold to a new owner.

The parking lot was the same as it had been a few years earlier, so the walk to the location was correspondingly short.

To make a long story short, nothing had changed since our visit four years earlier. There was no evidence of any work—or at least safety measures—being carried out on the building. Only the vegetation in the front area of the park seemed to have been cleared some time ago, with the exception of the trees.

The house itself was overgrown with a thick layer of ivy, and small trees and bushes grew on the balconies and window sills.

As we crept around the house, we could see that some of the ceilings and floors inside had collapsed—the danger of the building collapsing, which was already evident in 2016, had worsened in recent years. Therefore, we decided not to look inside the house again—apart from the decay, there were hardly any worthwhile motifs even at that time.

So we settled for a quick tour around the house and a few photos from the outside—which turned out really atmospheric thanks to the vegetation.

To check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.

Tour Report: Knight's Manor "Blue Sky"

In August 2019, we visited an object that we had long had on our list, but never had the opportunity to visit until this point. It is an old manor whose history goes back a long way. The villa, to which the title "manor" has passed, was built in the late 19th century.

Initially used as an industrialist's villa, over time the building underwent many new uses - as a planned mothers' recreation home, as a Reich Labor Service camp, as a Red Army military hospital, as a school for judges, as a school for the FDJ travel agency, and as a pioneer leadership school.

After a fire devastated the attic in the summer of 2018 and the firefighting efforts caused further damage, we knew that the days of this beautiful building were numbered and included it in our plan for the next summer vacation.

It was a warm day and the journey was uneventful. However, finding a decent parking spot not too far from the property was significantly more difficult. We ended up parking somewhat awkwardly on the edge of an allotment. There were already a few other cars parked there, so we could hope not to attract further attention.

From there we walked along the road until we reached the wooded area that was once part of the magnificent park that surrounded the manor. Through this now very dense forest we crept up to the building from the back. We could hear that the farmed part of the estate was busy, so we kept extremely quiet as we searched for an entrance into the building. Fortunately, there was an open door that was out of sight and hidden by trees.

When we entered the building, we were on the one hand impressed by the princely looking rooms, but on the other hand a little disappointed, because due to the fire many rooms did not look like we had seen in older photos.

The main subject, however - the staircase - was still in quite good condition despite the fire and the extinguishing work. For this, the trip had been more than worth it! Even the ceiling painting, a blue sky with a stylized sun in the center, was still there apart from some damage.

In other rooms, the extinguishing water had caused quite nice decay, so that we could make our way to the next locaton with a good yield of pictures in our luggage.

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

Tour Report: The Poetic Villa

In March of 2019, we were on the way home from a day-long excursion through the northern part of Germany, and we still had a little time and enough daylight to check out one more location. I knew about this place, but I couldn't remember seeing any photos from the inside. The abandoned villa sits on a vast plane right next to a horse farm, which is why I didn't think that we'd have any chance of checking it out, but we tried anyway. There were no inconspicuous parking spaces anywhere near, so we had to operate under the rule that "impudence wins", and we drove right up to the villa and parked right in front of it. Two local cars might look like someone was a potential buyer and looking at the place, we thought.

Now for the way in. The villa looked in great shape - no smashed windows or apparent vandalism - this might be a tough one to get into.

Or so we thought at first.

I went up to the building with little to no hope of getting in -  and the front door was open! This was a pleasant surprise :)

The good exterior condition of the villa was confirmed by the interior. There is some natural decay, but the lack of vandalism has kept most of the humidity out, so the decay is not as advanced as you would expect after more than 10 years of abandonment.

There was no furniture, and apparently, the place was cleaned of trash by an investor at some point. Still, we could imagine the former splendor of this villa where two German "poet princes" met in 1883.

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

Tour Report: Villa Dr. Anna L. [Revisit]

Our visit to the abandoned hotel took less time than we had expected due to the high level of vandalism, so we still had a little time and daylight left to explore another place on that day in November of 2018. Driving to a location however was out of the question, because it would have taken too much time, and we probably wouldn't have arrived until after dark. So we decided to take the easy option and just walk down the street a bit to pay a visit to the famous (or infamous) Villa Dr. Anna L.

I had checked out this place in 2016 together with a friend while my wife and her mother were having coffee, because they were too scared to get caught at the time. But this time, it was raining a bit, so there weren't a lot of people outside, and my wife felt a little safer.

Entering the house was easy - the front door was open.

Upon entering, I could already see that the years that had passed since my first visit hadn't been kind to the old house. More things had been stolen, others had been moved around, and the overall condition of the house hadn't improved either. Stairs were shaky, and some floors we didn't even dare to step on, especially on the upper floors.

Still - there were many interesting things left, and in the end, my wife was happy to have seen the place - after all, she is a pharmacist, so a doctor's office is an interesting place for her to explore.

And in spite of the vandalism, we still managed to get a few nice shots that made this visit worthwhile.

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

Tour Report: Villa "Lakeside"

We had saved the most spectacular spot for last on our tour with our friend Toeppi in June of 2018. We had seen two really cool bunkers, a doctor's villa that was more a dump than anything else, and we'd desperately tried to find a way into an abandoned water works facility that was more than tightly locked. But this one was to be the grand finale...

Situated in a very wealthy area with lots of villas that belong to celebrities, we didn't expect this one to be easy.

We parked the car roadside a bit down between a couple of other cars so as not to rise any suspicion. First, we took a little stroll down the street to look like regular tourists while evaluating our options of getting onto the property. In the end, we decided to just jump the fence and quickly run towards the bushes. We waited for the right moment, and then we ran. Finding an open door into the house was easy once we were on the property. We were in - unsuspected and undetected!

As we walked through the empty rooms, we were amazed at the luxury that the former owners must have lived in. This place had it all - an indoor pool, a bowling alley, a boat house, a wine cellar...

We took our time looking through all the rooms, and we were surprised that a nice seafront property such as this one wouldn't find a new owner to take care of it and bring it back to its former glory.

After almost two hours, we finished the tour with the mandatory selfie shot and then called it a day.

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