Beelitz Treetop Walk

Beelitz-Heilstätten was built from 1898 as a tuberculosis sanatorium for Berlin, a complex of sixty buildings in woodland designed on the principle that fresh air and rest were the treatment. Parts were abandoned after 1994 and left to decay, and on one ruined building, the former women's bathhouse, birch and other trees seeded on the collapsed roof and grew into a small wood twenty metres up. The Baumkronenpfad, opened in 2015, runs about three hundred and twenty metres through the treetops and directly over that roof forest, with a tower at forty metres. Guided tours cover the surviving ruined buildings separately.

What you'll find

• The roof forest - trees grown on a collapsed building twenty metres up.
• The canopy walk - 320 metres of walkway through the trees.
• The forty-metre tower - a viewing platform above the woodland.
• The sanatorium ruins - abandoned buildings seen from the path and on tours.

When to go

April to October; the walkway is open year-round with reduced winter hours and closes in storms. Building tours run separately and must be booked.

Practical notes

Entering the ruined buildings is only possible on booked tours; free exploration is prohibited and enforced. The walkway closes in wind.

Nearby

Potsdam lies northeast; Berlin is beyond it.