Your Check-in Was Decayed — an abandoned thermal spa sanatorium

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A sanatorium with a hydrotherapy wing, built almost a hundred years ago, which outlived a kingdom and socialism, was abandoned in 2020.

Symmetrical façade of the abandoned 1932 spa sanatorium with a mansard roof and a corner belvedere loggia

The bath house

2. We get in through a door warped by age and damp. We are in the bath house.

Long corridor of the sanatorium bath house with rows of doors to the treatment cabins

3. Before her bath, a granny who had come to the sanatorium would visit the doctor’s office, where her blood pressure was taken, her complaints were heard out, and she was told how many minutes in a hot sulphur bath she was allowed today.

Doctor's office in the balneotherapy wing where bathing time was prescribed to patients

4. The granny would pick a cabin, open the taps and lower herself into the tub.

Bathing cabin with a tub and old taps for hot hydrogen sulphide water

5. With a bit of luck you could get a monumental tiled tub.

Monumental tiled bathing pool sunk into the floor of a sanatorium cabin

6. Or even an antique ceramic one. It seems to have survived here since the sanatorium was founded.

Antique ceramic bathtub from the 1930s still standing in a treatment cabin

7. At the bottom of the tub.

Bottom of an old bathtub coated with mineral sediment from the thermal water

8. The cabins have taken on a handsome coat of decay and stains.

Peeling walls of a bathing cabin with streaks left by damp and thermal steam

9. At the end of the building sit the tanks that served the sanatorium; they were filled with hot water from the borehole. The roof gave way and collapsed.

Hot water tanks of the sanatorium under a collapsed roof open to the sky

10. Cheap new plastic doors sit next to the old ones, probably the originals.

Cheap plastic door next to an original wooden one in the bath house corridor

11. The royal bath. The whole room is finished in handsome tilework.

The royal bath: a cabin fully lined with patterned tiles around a large tub

12. Even the pipes here are hidden inside the wall instead of running ugly along it.

Tiled wall of the royal bath with the plumbing concealed inside the masonry

13. There are some thirty or forty cabins in all.

Row of numbered bathing cabins along the corridor of the balneotherapy wing

14. There are double cabins too.

Double cabin with two bathtubs side by side for taking the waters together

15. You could soak in pairs.

Two adjoining tubs in a shared cabin, tiles cracked and stained by mineral water

16. Playing with the light.

Daylight from a small window falling across a decaying bathing cabin

17. The attendant’s chair by the exit.

Lone chair of the bath attendant left by the exit of the balneotherapy wing

18. The voices in my head remind me to beware of the swamp beasts. Points to whoever gets it.

Flooded murky room of the bath house where the floor has turned into standing water

The rooms

19. We step into the main block of the sanatorium. An almost symmetrical curved staircase.

Curved staircase in the main block of the sanatorium with a wrought-iron balustrade

20. The nurses’ station.

Nurses' station of the sanatorium with a cabinet and abandoned medical furniture

21. A unique artefact has survived in the cabinet: a thermometer from North Korea!

North Korean thermometer left in the cabinet of the sanatorium nurses' station

22. The main hall.

Main hall of the abandoned sanatorium with tall windows and empty reception furniture

23. We walk into the first room and see the reason the hotel closed straight away: it did not survive covid. A pack of medical masks from 2020 lies on the table.

Empty pack of medical masks dated 2020 on a table in a hotel room of the sanatorium

24. In six years the hotel has begun to rot away.

Hotel room of the sanatorium with damp-blistered walls and a sagging ceiling

25. I notice a serious drawback: the rooms have no bathroom. There is nothing in them but furniture.

Sanatorium room furnished with beds and a wardrobe but no bathroom of its own

26. The toilet is shared by the whole floor. When the place opened that was of course acceptable, but by our time it was a serious drawback that cost the hotel against its competitors.

Shared bathroom serving an entire floor of the sanatorium, tiles cracked and fittings old

27. Very modest old interiors. The hotel ran without a single modernisation right to the end.

Modest hotel room with socialist-era furniture never renovated before the closure

28. The television — the only entertainment in the room.

Old television set on a stand, the only entertainment in a sanatorium room

29. The last room holds a store of blankets and bed linen.

Room used as a store for blankets and bed linen of the closed sanatorium

30. A stack of blankets.

Neat stack of folded blankets gathering dust since the hotel closed

31. We climb the handsome staircase.

Sweeping staircase of the main block leading to the upper floors of the sanatorium

32. A century-old wrought-iron balustrade.

Century-old wrought-iron balustrade of the sanatorium staircase, paint flaking away

33. A table with granny’s tablecloth.

Small table with an old-fashioned lace tablecloth in a sanatorium room

34. More rooms.

Another twin room of the sanatorium with beds still made up under peeling plaster

35. There are even rooms for three.

Room for three with beds along the walls in the abandoned spa hotel

36. We go up to the third floor.

Third-floor landing of the sanatorium with light falling through a tall window

37. Torn curtains.

Torn curtains hanging in the window of an upper-floor room of the sanatorium

38. On the top floor the rooms have gone as far as decay can take them.

Top-floor room with a collapsed ceiling and plaster covering the beds and floor

39. A double bed of dubious quality, made up of two singles.

Two single beds pushed together to pass for a double in a sanatorium room

40. We crunch across the plaster.

Floor of an upper room buried under fallen plaster from the ceiling

41. The blankets have lain like this since the day it closed.

Blankets folded on a bed exactly as they were left on the last working day

42. The single rooms look more like a prison cell.

Narrow single room with one bed and bare walls, closer to a cell than a hotel room

43. Living here must have been very sad.

Bleak single room of the sanatorium with a bare bed frame by the window

44. You can step out onto the balcony of one of the rooms.

Balcony of a sanatorium room looking out over the overgrown grounds

45. The balcony used to carry a little turret roof, but for some reason it was gone already under the communists.

Corner balcony of the main building that lost its turret roof back in the communist era

46. A look along the façade.

View along the façade of the sanatorium from a balcony on the upper floor

47. Let’s head outside and walk the grounds.

Corridor of the sanatorium leading towards the daylight of the exit

48. An excellent staircase.

Spiral of the sanatorium staircase seen from below through three floors

The grounds

49. The rear side of the building.

Rear elevation of the sanatorium with its mansard roof and rows of shuttered windows

50. A window with an antique grille.

Ground-floor window of the sanatorium behind an ornate antique iron grille

51. A utility barrack converted into guest rooms.

Single-storey barrack on the sanatorium grounds rebuilt into guest rooms

52. A bench in front of every room.

Benches standing in the grass in front of each door of the barrack

53. From the other side.

The barrack of guest rooms seen from the other side, overgrown with grass and shrubs

54. The view along the barrack.

Long perspective along the barrack wall with doors and benches receding into the greenery

55. A cosy park with trees, benches and a fountain is laid out around the buildings. Because the grounds are abandoned, nothing holds the plants back — and so the benches are drowning in grass.

Park benches of the sanatorium drowning in tall grass among old trees

56. The fountain.

Dry fountain in the middle of the overgrown park of the abandoned sanatorium

57. Let’s take a look at the façade.

Main façade of the sanatorium seen from the park, its symmetry and mansard roof intact

Time to wrap up our visit to the abandoned sanatorium.

Until next time!