This year I haven’t written many blog posts. I suppose there are many reasons why blogs suddenly go quiet. In my case, it wasn’t for lack of things to write about. We went on several exciting trips that I haven’t yet managed to post about (India last year in December, Iceland in March, Mauritius in November) and locally, we went on a lot of weekend or day trips within Germany or over the Czech border. So why the radio silence?
Last weekend was my first attempt to cycle 100km in one day. For cyclists with racing bikes this is no biggie, but it’s something I hadn’t attempted on my city/trekking bike before. I think I once got close to 100km, on the first day of a bike ride in the Alsace. That day was pretty gruelling as there were lots of hills. This weekend’s 100km went surprisingly smoothly, as it was mostly flat.
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One thing I didn’t know about Berlin before I moved here is that it is situated a region full of lakes and rivers. As a result, canoeing has become one of my favourite summer sports (doing bike rides is another one, in case you didn’t notice already!). Normally for canoeing weekends we head north to Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, as there are endless options of lakes and canals to row down there. However, this time we wanted to do a day trip, so we looked for something close to Berlin. A friend found a wonderful canoeing day trip route that was easily accessible on the regional train.
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Temperatures shot up in Berlin and its surroundings in February, bringing a sudden end to winter. It’s possible that this is just a “Fool’s spring” as people call it, and the temperatures could drop again in March or April, but so far the warm weather is holding. Last weekend and this weekend we made use of the warmer weather to go for some day walks in Brandenburg. There are endless possibilities for nice walks in the countryside of Brandenburg, and you could do a different walk every weekend of the year without running out of options. Continue reading
When hot summer days arrive, one of the popular weekend day trips for Berliners is to Liepnitzsee, a beautiful lake with aquamarine waters in the middle of beech and pine woods. People go by train, car or bike and as the last option is perhaps the most fun, over the years we’ve explored many different routes to the lake. In the beginning we tried cycling from Berlin or Bernau, and now we’ve started exploring other bike paths as there are so many scenic ones in the area. Both last weekend and the weekend before, friends invited us to cycle there, and we tried two different routes:
Our posts on Germany are organized according to the German states, in alphabetical order.
Chiemsee: Herreninsel and Fraueninsel
Hiking in the Chiemgau area, Bavaria
Franconian Kreuzberg and the ruins of Osterburg
Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände
Festival of Lights, Berlin 2015
Battle of the Seelow heights and a walk near the Oder river
Baumblütenfest, Werder an der Havel
Cross-country skiing in the Harz mountains
More cross country skiing adventures in the Harz mountains
Sächsische Schweiz/Saxon Switzerland
The Spree cycle route (Spreeradweg)
Temperatures dropped drastically in Berlin in September, making even the non-summer we had this year seem like a pleasant warm time. A lot of people started getting colds, including an office-mate, and I subsequently caught the cold from him. Just as i thought I was getting over it, it suddenly turned into a head cold and a cough – argh. So i did not do much last week until Sunday when my husband dragged me outside for a walk because the weather had suddenly improved drastically and it was too good a day not to miss. At any rate, here are this week’s small pleasures, because if you look hard you can usually find some. Continue reading
So summer never arrived this year, but luckily we got at least a little taste of warm weather on our weekend trip to Belgium (stay tuned for that blog post) and our road trip down to Italy and France (also coming soon!). Now it’s back to rainy Berlin, and last week was extremely busy at work, but as always there were some good moments, and in Mani’s weekly blog event “Weekly Small Pleasures“, we try to remember those!
Here are this week’s small pleasures: Continue reading
So far, this is the rainiest summer I’ve spent in Berlin. My first few summers here were good, so last year I was already surprised when June was cold and rainy. This year the cool and rainy weather continued into July, with quite a few days where it bucketed down. Sometimes it was cool and rainy, sometimes warm and rainy with thunderstorms. Continue reading
