The photos of abandoned houses of god, have been taken in the past three years all around Europe. However, most of the photos have been taken in Italy due to the fact that I visit Italy a lot and Italy seems to have a church in each and every village. I find it very interesting to see how each country has its own way of constructing these religious places. One place was harder to visit than the other. Some of these buildings were a walk in the park, everything was open and no-one was looking after it anymore. Others were harder. The easiest one was where I ran into a lovely lady which happened to have the key of the main door of the abandoned church I wanted to visit. The hardest one was where I had to climb over a high brick wall, crawl through a tiny hole and fight my way through the bushes while not trying to be seen by other people.
In these photo’s I’ve tried to capture the beauty in abandoned chapels and churches. Places like these can be very old carrying lots of history with them. The difference in architecture is great to see and I believe that each place tells it own story. Taking a peek in a place like this and being able to share it is great to do. Chapels and churches are among my favourite abandoned places to visit because of the secrecy of what’s going on ‘behind’ the altar. I get to check every room and run into the most amazing things. Clothing, ancient books and tools used in services are just a few examples. Some of these places that I’ve photographed are well maintained by volunteers with a lot of respect and proudness of the building. They’ve happily shown me around. This generally only happens to me while photographing abandoned churches or chapels.
With some of these places I knew exactly what I was going to see. However, it does surprise me sometimes. A photo can be very misleading so some rooms look much bigger or smaller when I personally visit them. It’s obvious that the light has a big impact on that as well. Most of the times I’m very surprised by the amount of detail in architecture or items that I find. I imagine people handwriting the decoration on the walls for example or carving out the detail in the wood or stone. Paintings on the ceilings are impressive to see as well, and while researching the history I’m blown away. From one of the churches in this post, I found a video online where Adolf Hitler was marching past the front entrance of the building, and standing on the stairs of the entrance doors. The historical impact of some of these places is incredibly high.
More photos of abandoned churches and chapels:
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The Friendly Fellow Wanderer
Roman Robroek