I discovered an abandoned hunting lodge in Austria
A few weeks ago I saw photos of an abandoned hunting lodge that allegedly belonged to the noble Hungarian“Esterhazy” family. The post about that lodge in a Facebook group mentioned that it’s somewhere near Vienna, Austria.
Indiana Jones Mode kicked in and after a few evenings of research I found the exact location. Last weekend I got up early and went there to take photos.
Allegedly, the former hunting lodge was built during the second half of the 18th century. It was probably abandoned sometime after World War I. Maybe due to the nobility suspension law that was established after Word War I?
The hunting lodge is rather small, so it probably was not used as a residential place rather than a kind of shelter after hunting. It’s located on top of a small hill inside a dense forest; already surrounded by dense scrub and thus not visible from the road.
After a 15 minute walk through the forest and encounters with a deer family and a number of squirrels, I saw the silhouette of the small building.
Trail to the abandoned hunting lodge
The majority of the exterior was in a surprisingly good condition except that all doors and windows were gone. One small wing of the building was collapsed.
The lodge probably consisted four rooms. One of them was completely collapsed.
One great photo spot in there is the door with all the bricks in front of it.
Bricks & door at the abandoned hunting lodge
A second photo spot is what once may was the main room. I used the Moment Fisheye Lens to capture the entire room and SKRWT App to fix the perspective distortion.
Main room shot with Moment Superfish Lens
Luckily, the place was well-lit so I didn’t need a flashlight or tripod. Still I do recommended to always carry a first aid kit and wear shoes with thick soles. Usually there’s stuff like broken glass on the floor in such places.
I edited both photos on my shiny new iPad Pro 11 using the Apple Pencil 2 and Lightroom Mobile.
Since my interest for lost places was sparked by accidentally discovering an abandoned manor house I’ve photographed quite a number of lost places in Europe always following the mantra of urban exploration: Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but your footprints.
