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10 Days, 3000 Miles, 4 Countries, & Too Many Photos!!



  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
Here goes, my annual trip to Europe! This year we decided on Poland as being our main tour, with Germany, The Czech Republic & a bit of France thrown in for good measure.


There are many sites that we did, too many pictures to post, all of them can be found on my website,
www.photoaddiction.co.uk


I have put the best of each site (there may not be a lot of pictures on each place in this thread, but we would be here forever waiting for images to load!! Again, check my site out for the full image sets).


I travelled over with Chris, we had a pretty much 24 hour drive from Birmingham to our guides house in Poland and spent 2 hours in Gridlock in Germany before being turned around and sent back up the Autobahn the wrong way!!


We had a fantastic guide and could not had asked for better hospitality.


If you can wait to reply until I have posted the France images, that would be kind :)


Lets get it started shall we?




Poland


1st off we went to (imagine Jeremy Clarkson saying this).. The Biggest Jesus in the WORLD!!
(There are no Jesus pics on my site, although I only took a few pics of him)


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The next day we went to the Miedzyrzecki Rejon Umocniony (or MRU for short!)


The MRU bunkers were built by the Germans (not the Polish) as a defence against the Red Army at the start of WWII.
The bunkers tunnel network originally ran for around 30km although many are now blocked off/sealed/collapsed.
The planning started between 1932 to 1936 and work commenced in 1937/38 and was expected to be completed in 1951.


Unfortunately for the Germans, the Soviet Army were so quick to advance, the Germans barely had a chance to fully man the complex and the Soviets took the fortifications in only 3 days at the start of 1945!


When The Germans knew of the Russian incoming advance, they hid local artifacts and other important items inside the tunnels and destroyed the area at both ends, locking them inside. You could still see the points where dynamite was screwed in to the walls.
The Russians found these artifacts and took them back to their country. After the war, a fraction of these items have been returned to Poland.


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We spent 7 hours in the MRU which took us pretty much to the end of the day, although I managed to capture a nice sunset shot...


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We then retired back to our guides house to have an amazing meal and try his dads homemade 3 year old 70% proof Wodka (vodka) and my word was it nice! I had about 5 or 6 shots and not a single bit of a hangover the next morning.


Which was good, as the following day we woke up nice and early.


Traveling through the forrest, past droves of people picking mushrooms...


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We arrived at the Dynamite Factory.


Built in the woods, this place is imminent danger of being bulldozed by the Forestry Commission as they would like to keep the forrest and add more trees (not that Poland doesn't have enough!!!).


2 people camped here in recent years, they lit a camp fire and blew themselves into small chunks as it ignited some old explosives! Guess what Chris did when we got out of the car, lit up a cigarette!! I took several paces away from him!


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The site is on a boundary line from a Polish armed forces base that does chemical warfare testing. The 'no-mans land' area around it reminded me of the Berlin Wall...


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We saw about 1/12th of the site before we left to our next explore...


The 1797 Evangelical German Church (The village was in Germany before Poland took back the land after WWII).


The church was constructed from 1796-1797 and was designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans (who also designed Brandenburg Gate).


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Continued in next post...
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
The next day was our last in Poland (for a couple of days anyway).


We started off with a small village like camp from WWII. It was manned by Germans (some of whom were SS) and they were training Indians to fight against the allies.


When Russia pushed towards the camp, the Indians fled back to their own country but were executed when they were found to have worked with the Germans.


A picture (from www.gazetalubuska.pl) of both Indian & German soldiers together in the camp...


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The Cinema...


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We then moved on to the Party Bunker a set of bunkers connected by a tunnel. The bunker is regularly used as a place for a gathering due to its remote location.


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We then moved on to the Fort right on the border of Germany


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Continued in next post...
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
Now we are in Germany, a few days of kind of understanding the language and not fearing being pulled over by the police!!


We had a nice relaxed day, first visiting the Berlin Olympic Stadium.


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37. The NSA Listening Station in the distance...
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From here we were set to go to the Olympic Village, we were driving to it when we noticed a sign, something about the Luftwaffe?


We followed the signs and found ourselves on an old British airfield, surrounded by rows and rows of aircraft and military vehicles, it was the Luftwaffe Museum and was free to view!!


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42. The Stealth Bomber...
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Continued in the next post...
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
From here we moved down back into Southern Poland. Along the way we stopped to see the old Steam Trains in Germany.


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We then drove non stop to Poland, in Northern Poland they are spending a huge amount of money in infrastructure, in particular new highways. In Southern Poland, well they have seem to have forgotten about Southern Poland!! Worst roads EVER!!


During WWII the cream of the crop of Nazi scientists were inventing machines that may have been able to win the war.


‘The Bell’ was a huge bell like machine that needed massive amounts of energy to produce its special power.


It was said that The Bell could, in turn with the ‘Fly Trap’ achieve an anti-gravity state. When the scientists left in 1945 it is said that they buried all the equipment and even some scientists inside the Project Riese tunnels in the Owl Mountains in Poland.


(Although the more realistic version is that The Nazi Bell was in fact an Accelerator Driven nuclear reactor (ADS device) to breed Uranium U233 from Thorium 232 for an A-bomb.)


The Nazi 'Fly Trap'


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After staying in a nice Holiday Inn and laughing at Polish KFC attendants with their hats (lol), we crossed the border into the Czech Republic in search of some bunkers.


On the drive through the glorious countryside I spotted my favourite car, a couple of Trabants!!


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So now we move onto some Czech Bunkers, Not the most reported bunkers in the world...


They are in no order really, you can see the dedicated galleries on my website...


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Continued in the next post...
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
From the Czech Republic we drove through the night back into Germany. The next morning we visited the Doomsday Tanks...


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From the Tanks we drove up to our next location, an industrial plant that has been made into a public park for all to enjoy...


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If you thought you had had enough of this place, then all you need to do is wait until the sun goes down...


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Continued in the next post
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
We now move on to our last explore, on a glorious day at the Dunkirk Beach Defences in France.


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:)
 

DrR

ClioSport Club Member
  VW Golf GTD
Awesome! Can't wait till I move to Germany so I can see this ace stuff.
 
Amazing, must have taken some research to plan that! I've watched lots of docs about the Nazi Bell, interesting stuff.

Despite all the abandoned stuff my favourite is the industrial 'park', fantastic idea, how did that go through H&S regs?!
 

TheEvilGiraffe

South East - Essex
ClioSport Area Rep
Brilliant.

Stealth Bomber is incredible. How do they do that ?! Quite unbelievable.

:approve:

The industrial park at night.. I assume you lit that with gels and it's not like that for the public ?
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
Brilliant.

Stealth Bomber is incredible. How do they do that ?! Quite unbelievable.

:approve:

The industrial park at night.. I assume you lit that with gels and it's not like that for the public ?

Nope, it's all lit up in different colours for the public. I added a bit of torch to a few things but otherwise I didn't do anything to the image.
 

Knuckles

ClioSport Admin
Love it!

Id love to explore on the scale you do!

Ever thought of videoing/narrating the explores and whacking them on YouTube?... Get picked up by discovery channel and get a career from your hobby? :p
 
Ever thought of videoing/narrating the explores and whacking them on YouTube?... Get picked up by discovery channel and get a career from your hobby? :p

Or arrested! I would guess 'going official' would close more doors than it would open, and remove half of the fun.
 
  RIP Dan
Or arrested! I would guess 'going official' would close more doors than it would open, and remove half of the fun.

This 100%.

I used to be a bit unofficial and now the group I am involved in is 100% official. It's great getting into things but we now have reached the point of needing personal liability insurance, getting PPE etc etc. Good fun still but not edgy like it used to be...
 
  2004 1.5 DCi 80 Dyna
Thanks for all your comments.

I have done some permission explores but as said, you have to be careful about it. Depending on the site, either they let you in without 'minding' you or they lead you on a tour of the place (you ask to go somewhere, they take you there, but don't leave you alone in the premises).

But then I tried asking Network Rail if I could photograph the regeneration of New Street station in Birmingham and instantly you are hit with insurance needs (which I have) but also you need to produce a risk assessment report etc etc. To cover their arses, I understand why they do it, but as Bully say's, it takes the fun out of it.

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Stand out 3 for me. I'd be proud of all of them but I'd have those on the wall. Great set.

A good selection! The tank one is a favourite of mine too :)
 
Some great pictures and interesting looking sites as said.
How is driving in Poland and Czech?
I'm tempted to do a Euro road trip next summer, mostly for photography and fancy something different to the Alps, Nurburgring etc.
 


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