Speaking about abandoned churches in Poland, there’s a real pearl hiding in a small village in southeastern part of the country. Despite being overtaken by decay it still impresses everyone who opens its old wooden doors.
Continue reading “The Abandoned Mother of God Care Church [Poland]”
Nothing more misleading than locals in Lubawka, a small Polish town, saying that you won’t see anything interesting on the Holy Mountain situated nearby when you ask them how to get there. In fact this place is really worth to see if you’re looking for abandoned sacral places, as you can find here a few beautiful abandoned chapels and devastated sculptures of the former Way of the Cross. Despite the fact that the chapels are in a very bad conditions and the sculptures are almost completely destroyed, they all taken together still create a mystical atmosphere on the mountain. You can feel it going up the path, entering the chapels you find on the way and enjoying the silence in their emptiness where only the Saints and an angel look at you from the frescos reminding how great this place was in the past.
Continue reading “Abandoned Chapels on the Holy Mountain [Lubawka, Poland]”
Passing through Kościelniki (a former village, currently a part of Kraków) it’s worth to have a look on an abandoned palace surrounded by a huge park. Now decaying, once it was a really great and beautiful place.
The palace was built at the beginning of XVIII century by Stefan Morstin, the owner of the property in Kościelniki. There were a few more improvements later changing even its original style from Baroque to Clasicism. The palace also changed a few owners. The last ones owning it were Wodzicki family who, forced by the coming Red Army, decided to leave the property. Soviet soldiers staying in the palace for a few months devastated it and since then its situation has been getting worse and worse. Today the palace belongs to the Nowina Konopek family, according to the information on the official website of Kościelniki, it’s being renovated.
Continue reading “An Abandoned Palace in Kościelniki [Kraków, Poland]”
When you’re looking for abandoned railway places in Kraków, it’s definitely worth to visit Płaszów Locomotive Depot. It was built in 1927 as a complex of office and technical buildings. Despite being in use (trains are still repaired here), the depot is known as a great abandoned railway site because of old trains here. Huge rusting locomotives and carriages as well as the territory around create unusual and a bit creepy atmosphere which make this place popular with urban explorers and photographers.
Continue reading “The Płaszów Locomotive Depot [Kraków, Poland]”
When you’re passing through the north-western Bohemia region of the Czech Republic it’s definitely worth to visit the abandoned Saint George’s church in a small village Luková. Built in XVI century, it initially fell into disrepair in 1968 after the roof collapsed during a funeral service. Convinced that this was a curse, locals abandoned it preferring to carry out sermons and masses outside.
The church continued falling into ruin, but luckilly the way to rescue it was found—local artist Jakub Hadrava designed a collection of spooky ‘ghosts’ that line pews and aisles of the church. Since the art installation was created, the thousands of visitors from the whole world have come to visit the church and voluntary donations they leave help to restore this beautiful old church to what it once was.
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There’s an interesting industrial site hiding in Miękinia—abandoned stone mills spread in a local forest. It’s quite a huge place consisting of a few buildings which were built at the beginning of 60’s of XX century for the usage of a nearby porphyre quarry. The stone mills were closed down in 1975—all machines were moved from here to other quarry and the buildings became abandoned which made them turning into an impressive ruins.
The great abandoned Potocki Palace surrounded by a huge park is definitely one of the most impressive places in Krzeszowice—a small town near Kraków where it’s situated. The palace was built in the middle of XIX century, not counting some later improvements. The Potocki family moved here in 1862 and had been owning the palace until World War II, when it became a summer residence of the General-Governor Hans Frank. After the war the palace was nationalised and turned to a special purpose school and education center, later also a care facility for children and youth. At the same time the process of the destruction of the palace started—affected by the lack of heating and moisture, the building started getting into the worse and worse conditions and now it has already been a few dozen years as it’s abandoned. Despite this fact, today the palace and the park surrounding is still an impressive place often visited by locals and is really worth to see if by some reason you are in Krzeszowice.
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Beelitz-Heilstätten, a district of Beelitz (Germany), is home to a large hospital complex of about 60 buildings including a cogeneration plant erected from 1898 on according to plans of architect Heino Schmieden. Originally designed as a sanatorium by the Berlin workers’ health insurance corporation, the complex from the beginning of World War I on was a military hospital of the Imperial German Army. During October and November 1916, Adolf Hitler recuperated at Beelitz-Heilstätten after being wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme.
When you’re pasing through Pisarzowice, it’s worth to turn onto a backroad and visit a beautiful abandoned Protestant church hidden among trees. It was built at the beginning of XX century on order of Prince Gustav Biron von Curland in memory of his dead son Wilhelm. The church, known as ‘Prinz Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche’, was used by local Protestants. It started getting into worse conditions in 1945, after Polish militiamen had broke the doors to its basement when they had been looking for German soldiers. The church became easy to access for burglars and vandals who turned it into ruin. Despite the bad conditions, the place is really impressive which makes it popular for photo sessions (there was even one wedding photo session during my visit) and video clips (a video clip of Polish death metal band Behemoth was shot here).
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Żukowice is a small village in Lower Silesia (Poland). Once the village was quite big (in 1973 it had 1060 inhabitants, there was a school, library, cinema here) but it became almost abandoned until 1995, as a copper smelter had been built there and the environment became too polluted to live. Now the village has only a little bit more than 30 inhabitants and some abandoned buildings reminding about its good times.
Continue reading “Żukowice, a Semi-abandoned Village [Poland]”