Walking the Berlin Wall, Continued

Equipped with facemasks, I am taking up where I left off here: https://www.hellemoller.eu/2020/02/09/walking-the-berlin-wall-starting-february-2020/. I will no longer follow the book meticulously but rather choose routes where I can get to the starting point and return from the end point using as little public transport as possible, and especially avoid the U-Bahn which is probably a virtual cesspool at the best of times.

23 February – Tour Number 23 in the book – from Schillingbrücke to Checkpoint Charlie

Photos from the (now invisible) border on the Spree to be added later.

Affordable accommodation, green surroundings, yet central, proximity to water, pets allowed.PS: Shame on you, Berlin. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just ask Finland. The first step is to summon the political will.

18 June – Tour Number 13 in the book – from Groß Glienicker See to Sacrow

The walk started at the northern end of Groß Glienicker See where some remnants of the wall can be seen.

Not very far along is the Alexander Haus.

Onwards along the western shore of the lake, where it soon became apparent that blocking access to Berlin’s waterways is legal – to my surprise.

I therefore had to make a slight detour through streets with lovely villas in Groß Glienicke, before reaching the southern end of the lake and turning towards the Havel, through forest empty of other droplet-spewing humans.

Wooden houses seem to be coming back in fashion.

There is also, supposedly, a “Skulpturenpfad”, but I only came across two sculptures.

Almost at the Havel, I came across this confusion. I have seen several examples of this, and I hope some day to discover what the secret is. Perhaps something to do with the original “Hinterland Mauer”? I don’t know.

After that, what followed was a long, rather uninteresting walk along the road (which runs along the Havel, more or less, to Sacrow, except you cannot actually see the waterway from the road). There were, however, some points of interest: Memorials for people who died trying to escape from the GDR. The first one you get to is for Rainer Liebeke.

The next one is for Lothar Hennig.

And the third one, right by the so-called Potsdamer Wassertaxi – and I will get back to that, and not in a good way – is for Erna Kelm and Lothar Lehmann.

Before getting to that last stop, a visit to the Heilandskirche which I had previously only seen from the world heritage cruise.

I had decided to walk the first bit of the next tour in the book as well, and finish with the water taxi (which turned out to be a joke) from near Heilandskirche to the Wannsee side. At the Heilandskirche stop, there is a time-table indicating the Potsdamer Wassertaxi runs daily, but it turns out that it only runs on weekend. A fact I realised when calling them and getting a voice-mail message after having waited for half an hour. Therefore, do not plan on using them during the week. You might get horribly stuck. Potsdamer Wassertaxi is totally unreliable.

For the continuation, I will skip this experience altogether and pick up on the Wannsee side.