That’s exactly it. I visited an abandoned children’s hospital and I loved it.
Now, I get how this might not seem like something to look forward to on your next city trip. But I had been looking forward to this from the moment I started planning my solo trip to Berlin in February.
As I talk about in the post linked above, I visited an abandoned children’s hospital in Berlin, called Kinderkrankenhaus Weißensee.
To be fair, I completely get it. I honestly do get why you wouldn’t want to do this.
But hear me out.
As I was preparing my Berlin trip, I browsed through Atlas Obscura (a great website to find amazing not-so-popular things to do all around the world!) and I came across the listing for this hospital.
This website described the building as a “state-of-the-art medical facility from the Imperial era” that has now become “a derelict ruin”.
So, naturally, I wanted to investigate.
After some further research, I stumbled across a Dutch article by Eva from Blackbirds & Blossom, who had also visited Kinderkrankenhaus Weißensee.
Eva took a more art-based approach to her visit, and her article perfectly shows this. It features many gorgeous pictures of the inside of the abandoned children’s hospital.
I decided to combine these two online sources and visit the building myself, paying close attention to both the decaying, abandoned state of the building itself and the graffiti transformation it has recently gone through.
If this blog post inspires you to go to this abandoned children’s hospital yourself, it’s really not as difficult as you might think.
All you have to do is get to a bus/tram stop called Buschallee/Hansastraße. The main bus/tram lines that stop here are bus 259 and trams 12, 27, M4 and M13. You’ll probably end up taking an M4 tram from Alexanderplatz.
As I explained in my Berlin itinerary post, visiting this place is illegal, strictly speaking. It’s fenced off and the city has made some efforts to keep explorers like you out.
Related: Three-day off-the-beaten-track Berlin itinerary for solo travellers (but also for non-solo travellers, honestly)
But, honestly, the fences really aren’t that big of an obstacle if you’re dedicated enough.
Walk along the street until you reach the entrance to an athletic field called ‘Stadion Buschallee’ (see picture).
You didn’t hear this from me, though.
Once you’ve gotten over the fence, the urban exploration can begin. This is where you get carte blanche to do anything you desire.
I was very excited to visit this place. I had been looking forward to this for a few weeks, ever since I found out that it was a possibility.
On my way to the hospital, I was joined in the tram by a group of schoolchildren. At about 9 am. Luckily, I had had coffee earlier that day and I had some good Spotify playlists, so I didn’t care too much.
The first nerve-wracking moment of the day was trying to find a way in. The place that I can only assume used to be the main entrance was covered up by wooden plates because too many people were trying to get in. It was impossible to climb these plates, so I kept looking for other options.
And then I found the metal fence just around the corner that I mentioned earlier. Fortunately, this fence was easier to climb – although I can’t have looked very flattering doing it.
Bottom line, I got in.
The next terrifying moment was actually taking the first step inside the building. I had no idea if any other people were in there, I didn’t know how well-preserved the floor and walls were (read: I was afraid I would fall through the floor) and I didn’t really know what to expect.
But again, I fought the fear and I went inside. I immediately saw half-wrecked stairs and wallpaper that was peeling off.
I occasionally had to use my phone’s flashlight because – obviously – there were no lights.
After a few minutes, I regained my confidence and started actually exploring the hospital buildings.
At first, what I saw didn’t impress me very much, because the first few rooms I saw didn’t have any spectacular or thought-provoking art (you can find some examples of that below). However, the further I ventured into the abandoned children’s hospital, the more impressive the things I saw were.
Note: I’m definitely not saying that every room you enter will have graffiti masterpieces. In fact, you will mostly see meaningless graffiti tags that don’t seem to contribute anything to the building. I’m definitely not trying to discourage you from visiting this place, but I’m just saying it like it is to avoid disappointment.
But then again, the scarcity of truly beautiful graffiti only makes finding the impressive pieces that much more worthwhile, doesn’t it?
An hour or so later, I went back outside and started walking towards one of the other buildings. Until I saw a man on the other side of the grounds.
Since I didn’t get a good look at him, I had no idea whether this man was another explorer like myself, he worked there, he worked for law enforcement, or something else entirely.
I decided that it was better to be safe than sorry and I got the hell out of there.
Unfortunately, that also means that I wasn’t able to see the rooms I was most excited about, like the cupcake room or the flower room (both of which can be found in Eva’s blog post I previously mentioned).
I found my way back to the fence I had jumped over to enter the premises and jumped (well, crawled) over it again to leave. I then made my way to the bus stop and got back to the city centre without any further issues.
Have you ever done something like this? How did it go?
Thanks for reading!
-S
PIN IT!
Design by NXNW.
