Small pieces of the former East Germany

This weekend we went down to Bornsdorf, a tiny village in between forests, wheat fields and small glacial lakes. Some friends have a small "cabin" down there: these concrete structures were built in quantity in the communist DDR years in East Germany to let city dwellers have a cheap way to get out into the countryside and relax. 

We did a two day rental on a car (30Euro/day) and went down to do our relaxing. Our friends were on vacation and graciously offered us to go down and stay on our own. 

This area is called the Spreewald, a lush green zone south of Berlin that features a series of winding canals and rivers that course through the forests and connect a network of little towns. Commerce is built around these river connections, and the "Kahn" (a mix of the word Barge and Canoe) boats are one of the main symbols of the Spreewald area. Farmers take hay, pumpkins, livestock, whatever on these long boats from the field to the market towns, standing on the aft with a single long oar and pushing the boat through the water not unlike a Gondolier in Venice. 

One of the "TischKahn" of the Spreewald.

Nowadays the bucolic region has become a popular day and overnight trip from Berlin, so you can go book a TischKahn ride "Table Boat" where you sit and eat lunch while the driver slowly plies you along the canals, under picturesque wooden bridges, and down long stretches of forests. Kingfishers and herons lurk amid the willows. Occasionally a river-side drink stand appears and you can buy a bier and a Gurken (Pickle) from a guy. 

Pickles are the other major symbol of the Spreewald - the area became famous for the Gurken in the 1800's when the Sorbs, an ethnic group distinct from the surrounding Sachsen state, started growing and selling them. In the DDR years, the Spreewald pickles were quite sought-after items, and still are. For a short time (1990's until 2013) there was every year crowned a Gurkenkonigin "Pickle Queen"! who did queenly things and represented the locals at various festivals around Germany. Alas the duties were too much for the queens, who also had family and farming commitments to keep, so the pickle queens are now simply a historical footnote to this interesting area. 

The Bygone Era of the Gurkenkönigin.

Lehde's Gurken Museum. Gigantic barrels for transporting Gurkens. I want a smaller one to store things inside. What things? Not important. Just get me a Gurkenbarrel.

On Friday we cruised down, "moved in" to the little house, and let the kids play in the yard. Later on there was a fire, always a crowd pleaser for young pyromaniacs. On Saturday we went to nearby Luckau, a town on the edge of the Spreewald. We explored a surprisingly ornate village church and had a döner kabab on the grass next to the Medieval town wall. There is also a former protective moat that surrounded the place and a little trail that runs along it.

The street leading to a surprisingly huge church for a small town. Construction started in 1300's, lots of old crypts.

A spiralling double staircase leading up to a Loge viewing area, which I had not seen in a church previously.

Decorated pillar (Great War casualties) with the Loge boxes in view behind.

Everyone gets their own pew seat assignment.

Medieval City wall of Luckau.

Spotted on a long-shuttered shop door in Luckau: A sticker espousing "Soviet-German Friendship." It isn't the DDR German flag, so this must have been some initiative launched right after reunification.

The ruins of a Baroque Era castle on the outskirts of Bornsdorf. We asked the guy in the village for the key and climbed up the tower for a good view around. Fun to have a Medieval tower to yourself.

Brandenburg is so flat that any tower gives a commanding view for miles around. Unfortunately the kids are so sick of cool tower experiences that they opted for a nearby playground instead. We are trying not to feel like parental failures that our kids would make such a choice.

Upon returning to the cabin we put a big inflatable raft on top of the rental car and drove down the street to the lake. After finding a sort of dock, we were able to go to sea and paddled it to the far side where there is a small swimming beach.  Jay and Cass swam back while the kids kept up in the raft. 

The ladder here looked ancient but the dock had been recently updated.

The raft and the Miles VW.

On Sunday we followed our friend's advice and checked out Lehde, a tiny town near Lübbenau, one of the Spreewald centers. Here we enjoyed the GurkeMuseum then rented out kayaks to paddle the waterways for a couple hours. 

Self-service manual operating locks. You disembark, pull some huge levers, then under your own strength force open the doors at one end and close the doors at the other. At one we came to a couple of folks had operated the whole thing to let a family of ducks continue on their way down the canal. There were no boats in the lock when the doors opened, just a little duck family!

Forest waterways.

We were about 30 mins into the trip when the sky darkened and a thunderstorm broke over us, soaking us all to the skin and forcing a retreat back into town. 

We didn't exactly know where we were. Stopping in a deluge to check your phone for the Google map was not super easy or advisable. They'd given us a laminated canal map but it was hard to read those tiny canal names with water streaming down the map and the children yelping nearby in agony. So it still took awhile to get back. Then we got stuck behind some TischKahn boats, full of people staring at us curiously like we were drowned muskrats. 

Family Adventure: Getting Soaked

The kids were freezing in the breeze now, even as the rain slackened off. Finally we arrived back at our dock and the sun pleasantly popped back out. The attendant taking our paddles off us laughed when we told her: "Ein wenig Regen, aber viel Abenteuer" (a little rain, but lots of adventure!)

We wrung out our clothes and changed into dry stuff in the nearby field they were using as a parking lot. Then blasted back onto the Autobahn and were back in Berlin in a little over an hour.

And back in Berlin, the rain found us again. But it was a cool mix of sun and rain that we gratefully watched from inside. Look closely it is actually raining even with the blue sky..