Germany April 2018 – The Easter GDR Tour

Highlights From This Trip

• 2 Days
• 7 Locations Explored
• ~80 photographs
• Happy Easter!

What better way to celebrate Easter, than a quick trip over to Germany. Having just returned from a trip to France/Belgium, I managed to enjoy one night in my own bed before embarking on Part 2 of my Easter adventures. I had not had a dedicated East Germany trip before. With only two days and much ground to cover, this was going to be a very intense whirlwind trip.

While in the area we decided to have a look at an old and mysterious pin on our map, as entered we were not sure what to expect. We eventually emerged in a room which we immediately recognised; we were inside Low Budget Hotel. This is one of the classic East German locations, an abandoned hotel in a very advanced state of decay. The walls are green with mold and damp, the furniture splintering and collapsing over time.

Ballrooms (known as Ballhaus, or Ballsaal) were a prominent feature of East Germany, and their forgotten remnants make for some very unique architecture photographs. We visited several, all decaying and crumbling in their own unique way. Colours fading and floors collapsing and treacherous underfoot. My favourite was Ballsaal Rot Weiss, with a candy-cane-like ceiling and black wrought iron chandeliers.

We visited a wide array of lost places in my short time in the old German Democratic Republic. The dark and foreboding Krematorium D, with its ominous cart for loading cadavers into the basement furnaces. A musty old Hunters House, with many antlers and taxidermy animals. An interesting rust-covered chemical factory with a rather photogenic mini-power plant (Powerplant R).