Countryside

Two late-winter walks in Brandenburg

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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 →

All roads lead to Liepnitzsee

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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:

  1. From Oranienburg to Bernau via Liepnitzsee
  2. From Buch to Liepnitzsee, then past Wandlitzsee and Krumme Lanke to Bernau

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Ferdi’s last walk

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We lost a friend this weekend. A big, dear, white, doggy friend, my husband’s family’s dog. At least he lived to a good age, but we will really miss seeing him when we visit the family. He had a big, blocky head and he would often push your hand or leg with his head so that you would give him a pat. Every time we visited, we would take him and the other dog for a walk in the countryside, in all seasons. I thought I’d share the photos I took of some of our walks over the years, starting from the earliest about three and a half years ago. You’ll see how the scenery changes with the different seasons.

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Notes from the Czech countryside – June, the red month

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In Czech, June is called červen, which might be related to the word červený, meaning red. Another theory is that červen could come from červ (worm), because the cochineal larvae used for making red dye were around in early summer. Apparently they are now almost all extinct. Either way, June is a red month. The red poppies are out in all the fields and some of the red fruits (cherries, strawberries) are ripe too.

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Exploring Western Ireland in 3 days

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On our long weekend in Ireland, people kept telling us we were blessed. “You’re here for the best weather of the year.” We were indeed lucky; our trip was only three days and we had three full days of warm sunshine and deep blue skies. A woman who’d brought her kids to play hide and seek in the ruins of an old stone friary told us that this could be their summer weather – it might not get better than this. Maybe they’d have another spell, but you never knew. People were sitting out along the river in Galway, walking through villages with ice-creams. We even saw a guy jumping into the 10 degrees sea one evening.

We’d arrived in Ireland at Shannon airport with a guidebook full of places we wanted to see, but only three full days to spare, so we asked our hosts along the way what they suggested and their great recommendations ensured we had a wonderful trip. Here’s what we got up to.

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Relaxing weekend in the Czech countryside and a visit to Hrad Kunětická Hora

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Kunětická Hora castle

Recently I posted about the new kinds of over-the-counter medications I’d discovered in Germany compared to South Africa (mostly herbal). At the time I was busy optimistically trying them all out since I had a bad cough. Sadly, none of them seemed to help, although the good strong ginger, lemon and honey tea that J kept making me definitely soothed the cough. The terrible, choking cough was just going away when I caught another bad cold just before the Easter weekend. We’d already booked tickets to Vienna, from which we would drive to Slovenia, and nothing was refundable so we went anyway.

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