Cycle Tour Bike holiday to Berlin

Many people crammed together in a campsite often means a noisy night, and that is how it was here in Waren. Even before it turned light, and it does so grim early near summer solstice, people and cars were shunting about, but we had been warned about that before even pitching the tents. In the sanityary room fathers ruled loudly with their sons, and in the kiosk I was taught how to properly take the rolls. All in all, no cozy tent atmosphere. Our tent neighbors also made some noise. I clearly heard a Russian cut burner voice in the tent cacophony. Down by the lake shore, on the other hand, it was peaceful and empty. So I jumped in as I am created. Here in old East Germany skinny dipping is pretty common, at least for my + 50s generation. Back then, it was a kind of tacit protest against the narrow-minded state leadership. However, general secretary Honecker himself swam in the sea without trunks on his secluded holiday island of Vilm at the Baltic Sea coast. After the lovely swim in Inner Mueritz, the unpleasant experiences returned at the breakfast table when my gas cooker constantly put out an extra yellow gas flame and sooted the pot and the windshield. I had noticed that  the day before, but now it was completely unbearable. Luckily, Alexander had a new and good gas cooker we could use. All in all, a place like Camping Ecktannen is not exactly my cup of tea. The athmosphere seems sterile and businesslike, something most people try to avoid on their vacation. Poor Germans. But what many people want in their holidays, namely big and untouched nature, in addition made accessible in the finest way, we experienced on today's cycling stage, namely in the national park of Mueritz just after our start of the eastern shore of the big lake. Here we were delighted by the way the Germans organized things with a really nice bike path. There were many other cyclists on it and we trod well into the pedals out of pure cycling joy. When we rarely encountered a car road, 'cycling prohibited' signs were set up and the bikes led away from it by lanes. I guess, when everyone, both motorists and cyclists want to experience nature, that order is needed. Here even children can move completely safely. We made a short break in a huge wetland where the trees stood in a swamp. Lots of bird voices were heard and nature seemed completely intact. I was looking forward to cycling along the shores of the huge lake with views across it, but that view never came. The lake shore is simply too densely overgrown, so we should have cycled down one of the side roads. We only came out on the lake shore again to have lunch after another stop at a supermarket. I was also looking forward to another dip, because the weather had been nice, but the water did not look inviting in Kleine Mueritz off the town of Rechlin, and the wether had also worsened with a chill wind blowing from the west again, so I dropped the idea. My sons are not avid bathers, so they hadn't considered it anyway.

After lunch we passed a disused airfield and with the very nearby city of Mirow, it had to be the former Soviet air base of Mirow. I came to think of the time of the Cold War when, as a reserve officer in the Danish Air Force, I dealt professionally with the Warsaw Pact's air forces primarily in the northern half of what was then East Germany, for the name Mirow rang a bell, as you say in English. Being an intelligence specialist in the '80s, I had to be interested in all kinds of hardware on such an air base including radar, air defense and what do I know, and on long exercises at my home base in Skrydstrup, a lot of time was spent browsing through these endlessly tedious compendiums. Of highest importance, of course, were the planes themselves and their armament. Here in Mirow, I think, the Russians had deployed an aircraft type they called the MiG-25, while it in NATO was called Foxbat. At that time a relatively new, large and extremely fast fighter bomber aircraft, there was some mystery around until a certain Lieutenant Belenki defected and landed the aircraft in Japan to great interest in our circles and to great joy in NATO circles. I built it back then as a 1:72 model aircraft. There are still veteran flight displays at the airfield, now called Laerz. In the small town of Mirow we had a nice rest in the castle park on an island in a lake. It was great to rest my pins and bum among flowers, trees and statues. It was all free and there weren't many people. Children walked around looking for clues in a treasure hunt by which they were deeply taken. We slowed down totally. We also got away from each other for a little while, so we spent a lot of time here in Mirow. But coffee we hadn't had, so it wasn't long before we lit Alexander's gas cooker in a large open wooden barracks with a giant table and a view of a canal with a lock where canoes and kayakers would carry their boats over. Obviously we had ended up in something of a paradise for these people and there were many facilities for them. We just refueled water at one of the luxuriously equipped accommodation sites. In Germany everything seems so well organized. Plus clean and neat, you have to say. German children and young people make a more disciplined impression on me, and it seems they accept authority in a different way. I must say I really like that. And then they greet you in Germany, both children and adults. Youngsters seem to skip "hello" or "gutentag" for a period of life. But still...

Shortly after, we crossed the state border between Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg within one of the endless forests. The terrain had become more hilly lately, so we had to climb more hills and I was often trailing behind. But the biggest difference was the surface of the bike paths, unfortunately for the worse. In Germany the maintenance of county roads and associated bicycle paths is a state matter, and I must say that Brandenburg solved the matter a lot poorer than its northern neighbour. Especially the damage of tree roots growing through the tarmac was not repaired, at least not on the bike paths. On the adjacent roads there were no problems. So downhill, bikes don't get the full joy of letting the wheels roll and enjoy the scenery and the wind on their face, but have to ride slalom between bumps from tree roots and brake sharply up in between. That is particularly dangerous or at least uncomfortable when cycling together in a group. Well, we are such experienced and good cyclists, after all. The next stop was in the town of Rheinsberg, which has a famous castle. Frederick the Great himself, King in Prussia and Prussian King (two different things!) in the absolutist age of the 18th century had spent his youth here after being released from a prison in Kuestrin, where his despotic father, Frederick William I, called the Soldier King, had put him in because he did not obey him. In these times pedagogy of consistency and genuine allegiance to the authorities flourished, and in these days Prussian militarism really celebrated triumphs. After all, Prussia was only a part of Germany, but clearly the greatest military force, so this part of the country came to influence the view on Germany abroad. A fact they really regret in southern Germany, especially Bavaria, where Prussians are a scathing word, often extended by the word sow Prussians. I think one of the few good things the Nazis did was to abolish the state of Prussia. It was simply too dominant. Frederick the II. (The Great), who is celebrated in Rheinsberg with a statue, a classical music festival and much more, became the image of the enlightened monarch who loved art and music, but was also a very capable military commander, who greatly broadened the boundaries of Prussia. He was born in Berlin, which under his dynasty, the Hohenzollers, grew into a world city, incidentally in a castle, later demolished by the GDR regime as it stood in their part of Berlin, but now being rebuilt. More on that in Berlin itself. For the time being, my sons and I took a closer look at this youth residence in Rheinsberg. It was freely accessible and it was really nice to walk in and enjoy the extremely well kept castle park. They were staging a classic opera concert in the castle courtyard, where rehearsals were held while we were there. The sun was shining, and on the other side of the lake, an obelisk and a large garden parterre was seen. Sure, absolutism needed to mark its power back then, and it's maintained so nicely today, of course, also in order to attract tourists who drop a lot of money in a small town like Rheinsberg, I'm sure. A white tent had been pitched for the opera singers where they could rest between their singing parties. Everything was open to the public and tourists strolled freely around. Of course, for the concert itself you needed a ticket, but Alexander looked astonished as the female singer, who had just sung a beautiful arie, dressed in a stunning blue dress, walked past him on his way to the tent. That's life. But life quickly changed for him and us when we again chose a stupid shortcut through the woods with deep, soft sand that we had to wheel through. We  even missed the right way as I hadn't logged the shortcut on the GPS. Furthermore, we were well tired and hungry, especially Simon and I. Alexander, on the other hand, as soon as he got asphalt under his wheels again, hell took hold of him and he headed off to our target town of Lindow as if he fled from evil. We cycled along a country road without a bike path, but traffic was very light. When Simon, whom I helped a bit in the cross or headwind and I arrived at the Lindow town sign, Alexander was already standing there announcing that he had arrived five minutes ago. It is quite a lot as he had the lead for only ten kilometres. Alexander's food depots are clearly larger than Simon's. At least he exploits them more effectively. Now we just wanted to find a supermarket for food shopping and then rolling down to the campsite. A ferocious hunger had spread among us.

For the most part, cycling holidays are fun and enriching and fatigue and hunger just belong to them and are again fun to fight with food on the cooker and sleep in one's cozy tent. But right here in Lindow things were not on top. First it was difficult to contact the camping warden, and then we were told to pitch the tents down by the lake, and he would show up later. The problem was, however, a stiff breeze from the west across the lake. Thus, Alexander wanted to pitch his tent further inland, but as soon as he had found it, an old hag came out of her large caravan and taught him to pitch it farther away. That shattered his mood. So was mine when I was asked to attend the reception, where a very bureaucratic check-in procedure was about to take place. As a result we had to pay 42 € for one night, far more than at the other sites. "In return" the site's service was quite poor, and the cleanliness also left a lot to be desired, although we are by no means sipped. The bad mood at this campsite we felt the next morning, when there was almost a stir among the women over the deficient cleaning in the bath and toilet room. The warden made a lot of condescending comments about women's cleanliness fanaticism towards us men, but basically I agreed with the women. It was too dirty. In addition, they had put up a long blemish poem in the gent's about men's foul toilet habits forgetting to clean up after them. Well, then the camping management had done something. Just the wrong thing. There was no indoor kitchen or dining room either, but very lucky for me, Alexander and Simon offered to cook dinner if I washed up afterwards. So I allowed myself the luxury of taking a hot bath and then sat down at a laid table on the patio. It wasn't very windy here, and it was dry albeit a bit chill. We all ate with enourmous appetite and the spaghhetti carbonara tasted absolutely wonderful. Afterwards, the boys showered while I dod the dishes. My gas cooker had sooted badly and the pots were all black  I had to have it repaired. After dinner we sat on the terrace for some time drinking beer and talking. But the mood was not top either. Simon believed that the most expensive campground on a cycling holiday always is the poorest and vice versa. Fortunately, the wind settled somewhat at night. Not bad, as our tents were very exposed without shelter, so I slept very well, but the next morning it was blowing crazy again.