Berlin is by far the busiest city I’ve ever been in at Christmas time! The place was cranking full tilt with hundreds of restaurants, shops, bars, cafes, malls, stalls and everything in between open the whole day.
Artwork at Lier sykehuset
We found quite a bit of graffiti on the walls at
Lier sykehuset, but I was actually surprised how little there was. Considering that the buildings have been abandoned since 1985 and are just sitting there with no lock or secure fence around them, I assumed they would be filled with abusive graffiti and general idiocy.
There were a lot of pentacles painted on the wall
Label on the toy room door
Label on the womens bathroom door
One of many rooms riddled with graffiti
Lier sykehuset destruction
During our visit to Lier sykehuset, Alice and I checked out building A, which was unfortunately being destroyed. There was a small warning sign in front of the building, but it was rather obvious that entering was horridly bad idea, since half of it had been pulled down already
View from the front of block B at Lier sykehuset. It looked fine from this side, but a quick look around the other side of the building revealed a different story.
This building was clearly marked as being dangerous.
They weren’t pulling anything down when were there as it was the weekend.
Lots and lots of bricks!
The former morgue at Lier sykehuset
My time in an asylum
My friend Alice and I visited the Lier sykehuset in Norway. It was a mental hospital built in 1926 and operated until 1985.
Between 1945 and 1974, staff at Lier sykehuset conducted experiments with LSD, performed lobotomi’s and tested new drugs which the pharmaceutical industry were not allowed to test. They also performed experimental research with radioactive isotopes on patients. Patients were known to have been placed in isolation and inflicted with prolonged use of belts and straitjackets.
Most of the buildings now sit abandoned and are due to be knocked down. Two of the buildings were fenced off and had warning signs, but two of them had an entrance way through their surrounding fences and an open door for entering the building through.
Alice looking around the outside of the building
The exterior of block B of Lier mentalsykehuset
Alice looking for interesting things in an old kitchen
Me, standing outside block B. Thanks to Alice for taking the photo :)
The past 22 years of decay has left the paint in a sorry of state of disrepair
Alice standing in the hallway
After walking around the exterior of the building, we found this warning about stuff potentially falling off the roof
Reichstag
The Reichstag is a spectacular looking building in Berlin, which was used by the German parliament from 1894 to 1933, then was gutted by fire. The German parliament moved to Bonn until reunification with East Germany in 1990, then they moved back to the Reichstag in 1999 where they are still based today.
Berlin Siegessäule
I climbed to the top of the Berlin Siegessäule (Victory Monument) with my new friend Annette. The monument was originally built to commemorate the Danish-Prussian War, but by the time it was erected in 1873, it was also used to commemorate the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. It was smaller and located closer to the German parliament, but the Nazi’s moved it further away and lengthened it by 7.5 m in 1939. The French wanted to dynamite the monument in 1945, but thankfully they were prevented from doing that and we were still able to enjoy the (windy) view of Berlin from the top.
