The abandoned town pool hall & old church ruin in Leipzig
One thing I learned the hard way in Leipzig was: Never trust the weather forecast when planing a trip. I planned the trip to Leipzig roughly a week ahead and weather forecast said that it would be sunny with partial clouds with a temperature around 50F, my ass!
A day before I left, the forecast changed to snowy and 32F. When I arrived there I (and Leipzig) experienced the heaviest blizzard in years and -4F. We even had to enter into a waiting loop before we could land because they had to clear the runway from snow every 15 minutes or so.
That weather condition was a good test for my Osprey Farpoint 40 carry-on backpack, that I reviewed earlier. I can confirm that all my clothing stayed dry while walking to the hotel in the heavy blizzard.
Because of the blizzard, I couldn't see everything as planned, but I managed to see and photograph the two lost places I had on my bucket list. I had a lot of opportunities there to try my new Moment Fisheye Lens I got just in time for this trip.
Leipzig Stadtbad (Town Pool Hall)
There are quite a number of lost places in Leipzig; old factories and abandoned railway stations. But one of the most famous abandoned places in Leipzig is the town pool hall with its oriental sauna.
Like all lost places I write about in my blog, this one is legally accessible. You just have to book a tour. I booked mine from Fototouren Berlin. We were just 6 people, could explore the building on our own and didn't run into each other during the 5 hours we had to to take photos.
Allegedly the town pool hall was once one of the biggest and most beautiful pool halls in Europe. Built before World War I, it had a separate men's and lady’s pool hall, a 1st class and 2nd class sauna, offered wellness treatments and much more.
It was abandoned in 2004 after a part of the roof in the ladies pool hall came down. Since then, Leipzig tries to collect money to eventually reopen the pool hall.
Lady's pool hall at the abandoned Stadtbad Leipzig
Above is a photo of the lady's pool hall. I took the photo with the Moment Superfish Lens and used these apps to fix perspective distortion.
I photographed it using low light HDR mode in ProCamera App. That's a special HDR mode you get when you buy the ProCamera Low Light Modes add-on and the HDR package (both affordable in app purchases definitely worth the money).
Next I tried to find the beautiful oriental sauna, that was accessible only for people with a first class ticket. Though the place was abandoned more than 10 years ago, the sauna is still in a great condition.
1st class oriental sauna at the Stadtbad Leipzig
For this photo I used Hydra Cam App on iPhone X to get a high resolution shot of almost 32 megapixel. Yes, that's possible with iPhone. Read more in the Hydra Cam App review. I also used the Moment Superfish Lens here and ran the photo through SKRWT to fix the fisheye perspective distortion and finally processed it in Lightroom CC for iOS.
And finally here's an iPhone photo of the administrative wing that's already in a decayed condition.
Decayed administrative wing of the Stadtbad Leipzig
I have uploaded a few more photos of the town pool hall on my Flickr account.
Church Ruin Wachau
Wachau is an area 20 minutes from Leipzig by car. The church ruin is in the middle of a small village called „Markkleeberg“. You won’t find a huge parking there. So be there early or park outside the village walk to the church. As an advice, local residents don’t like it at all when you park in front of their garage driveway.
The church is surrounded by a small cemetery. It was built in in the late 19th century and was heavily damaged during World War II. Since then it decayed more and more. Today only the outer walls are still standing and the inside is accessible for a small donation that's used to maintain what's left of this once stunning church.
Abandoned Church Ruin at Wachau near Leipzig
I also used the Moment Superfish Lens for this shot and fixed the perspective distortion using SKRWT.
More legally accessible lost places
If you'd like to see the Stadtbad Leipzig, check [Phototors Berlin], where I booked my tour. I've also written a blog post about other Lost Places you can visit legally through paid photo tours. And if you're curious, this way please to see all blog posts about Lost Places I've written in the past.
And finally, to get an overview about all the photo apps and iPhone photo accessories I use, check the page about iPhone Photography.
