Biking, Bathing and Biergartens

Last Sunday, I went on a biking tour of the Grunewald with some of the girls from the rugby team. The original plan was to meet at the S-bahn station Grunewald and then bike to the Sacrower lake that is on the other side of the large Wannsee lake, since it is supposed to have nice beaches and cleaner water.


[Ignore the start and end points... the big body of water is the Wannsee. We wanted to bike to the Sacrower Sea, to the west of the Wannsee. We began biking in the middle of the green patch, the Grunewald]

When I got to the station at 1, I met with two of the other girls but we had to wait for two more that have overslept a little bit. We ended up biking to the Teufelsee, which I learned when I got there was a FKK (Freie Korper Kultur) beach. Freie Korper Kultur literally means "Free Body Culture." Yes, it was a nude beach. Right there in the middle of the forest, there were lots of Germans of all ages parading around naked. A little shock for me and the team Australian Jackie.


[Biking in the Grunewald]

From there, we tried to find our way around the north of the Wannsee, but ended up getting kind of lost in the forest. Although there are occasionally maps, they usually don't tell you "You are here." The best way, we found, was just to ask people. From the Teufelsee, we ended up getting rather close to the NSA complex Teufelsberg. Berlin is a pretty flat place to bike in, but somehow we kept going up and down hills, getting caught in sand pits, and kind of going in circles. It made it quite the adventure to try to get out of the forest. When we finally found our way, we followed the street that goes along the shore of the Wannsee north, and crossed the Wannsee on a bridge, and headed back south again.


[Along the Mauerweg]


[Surprisingly rural and beautiful]

When we were on the other side, we ended up following the Berliner Mauerweg. Now a very nice biker/jogger trail, the paved path follows where the Berlin Wall used to enclose West Berlin around the city. I guess since it was so "rural" and forested, it would have been a good place to sneak across the border if the wall hadn't been there.


[It reminded me a lot of Rock Creek Park right here]

From there, we finally got to what we thought was the lake where we wanted to go. After swimming around for a bit, and then asking an older man, we found out that it wasn't actually where we wanted to be. But as the old man said, "Who cares? A lakes a lake." We swam for a while, then rested on our blankets and had a mini picnic out of the crackers and cheese that we had with us.


[Relaxing after a long bike ride and a swim]

Since we hadn't actually made it to our goal, we decided to bike in search of the Sacrower Sea. After only 15 minutes, we got to a really nice little beach on the lake. We were impressed that there was actually sand, and the water really was a lot cleaner and nicer than at the other lake.


[The nice beach at the Sacrower Sea]


[Sitting on the beach]

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long because we had to get the ferry across the Wannsee before the last one left at 7:30. We didn't get lost, and had plenty of time to wait in line at the dock and find some well deserved beers.


[Jackie, Tina, and Astrid waiting on the dock]


[About to cross the Wannsee]


[With our drinks, right about to get on the boat]


[Wiebke and Jackie saying 'Prost' on the boat]


[Tina and me and the Wannsee]


[Jackie, Astrid, me and Tina on the boat]

Sitting on the boat and relaxing was the perfect end to our biking adventure. The boat took us directly across the lake to Wannsee, where we had plans to watch the Germany v. Poland Europe Cup soccer game at a Biergarten.


[the Biergarten... we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for our adventure]


[the tents they set up to watch the game]

Even though we were at a pretty small Biergarten in Wannsee (the very suburbs of Berlin), they had two tents and a projector set up to show the games. There were also tons of people; we had to stand to watch the game. We thought it would have been more relaxed, but I guess we are underestimating the new found patriotism of Germans (which I will explore in another post).

Although we did bike for a really long time, the weather was beautiful the whole time and not too hot, and having some food and drinks at the end in the biergarten was a great ending to the adventure. Hanging out with the rugby girls and getting to know them better was also a great time.