spreepark, the abandoned amusement park in berlin

Ever since I was last in Berlin (2011) I've wanted to visit Spreepark, the abandoned amusement park by the river Spree. A popular park for east-Germans since 1969 until the Berlin wall fell. What happened after that is a long and awfully interesting story which you can read about here. And this is interesting with lots of pictures that really waters your interest...

The eerie and magical place has been the set for movies such as Hanna and is was perfect for urban exploring. After it was abandoned it was still possible to visit it for guided tours (and sneak in for not so guided ones. But after the city bought the park back last Autumn it seems sadly quite impossible to visit it. If you're not really adventureous of course.



The fence is sturdy and high and the guards we saw didn't seem the least bit friendly. Oh I had high hopes for seeing the swan boats, the ferris wheel, the fallen dinosours and everything. Instead we ended up with a long, brisk walk around the leafy fenced in area with very very few glimpses of what was inside...



There were also groups of people inside setting up for some sort of open cultural festival there in July. Had we come a week later we could at least have seen it from such a visit... Now it was a just a huge anticlimactic visit, albeit a nice woodland walk.