Visiting: Beelitz-Heilstätten

Last Sunday (the 23 of August) we went to Beelitz to visit the famous “Heilstätten”.

If you don’t know what they are, here is the Wikipedia link. Basically it’s a complex of abandoned medical buildings that are rotting away and look pretty creepy/cool. I’ve been wanting to go there for a (long) while so I was happy to see that someone in the motorcycle Facebook group suggested a ride there.

EDIT: here’s a nice video that shows the location with drone shots

To make this ride even more interesting, it would be Loki’s first long trip in the sidecar; so far he had only been in it for 15 minutes max (I’ll post an article on the training steps soon-ish).

The rendez-vous was at 11:00 at some gas station in “West” Berlin. Since it was the first serious ride with Loki I made sure we’d leave early enough – at 10:00.

Surprisingly Loki was quite chill all the way to the meeting point. He was whining a bit from time to time, mainly at traffic light stops, but that’s because he likes his momentum. “Tel maître, tel chien“.

We met up at the gas station and went on our way; there was 3 of us on bikes, 4 if you count Loki in his royal carriage.

The way to Beelitz was pretty straight forward (they had GPS’, I followed) and aside from the “traffic light whining” Loki was alright.

We arrived at the location around 13:00, right on time to be starving, but that wasn’t an issue because to my biggest surprise, what I thought would be some random abandoned buildings in the middle of nowhere turned out to be a very well monetized tourist attraction with food stands and everything. I’m not gonna lie, it was quite disappointing to see so many people, and especially so many old people and families.

After a small lunch break made of over-priced fries and half a pizza which was actually more of a ‘flammküch’ with tomato sauce and salami, we started the tour. However, the disappointment grew even bigger when we realised that the real interesting part had an entrance fee (of 10eur!!!) and a massive queue to get in. Plus dogs weren’t allowed in that part either.

We decided not to wait in line and just walk around a bit on the free area and then leave again. I will give it another try off-season (and without Loki) when the weather is not so nice and the arthritis kicks in.

For the return journey we decided to get some ice cream somewhere in the South of Berlin, so that’s what we did.

Loki was still okay-ish in his sidecar, but he didn’t really manage to relax enough to lie down and sleep, and as time passed he grew more and more tired and therefore the whining and screaming intensified. I’m not blaming him, for a first serious ride it was quite long.

Here’s my ice cream (Hazelnut and Nougat):

And here’s our bikes (mine’s on the left):

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos or footage of Loki in the sidecar yet, but I’m working on getting the equipment. And if you want some cool pics from Beelitz, just google it, whatever you’ll find will be a million times better than anything I would have shot.

After our short ice cream break it was time to go our separate ways to our respective homes. Of course I got “lost” because I didn’t have anyone to follow anymore (and no GPS) but I made it.

Loki was exhausted and on edge, but he did very well overall. I’m cautiously optimistic for our future travels 🙂

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P.-S.: feel free to send me money so I can buy a camera and a GPS

(that’s a joke, but if you want to, go ahead)