Page 9 - Allisons Newsletter, Lakewood Edge - Nov 2018 Issue

the waters of germany TRAVEL

SPLASHDOWN IN BERLIN:

EXPLORING THE WATERWAYS OF GERMANY’S CAPITAL

by Matt McKinney you can drive there in a boat. The city currywurst and radler beer (regular old once existed there. a steering wheel, and a simple map
is landlocked, but coursing through beer, but with lemon) that we got from Swimming was on our minds the showing us a route we could take around
t was only after my son turned its center and spiraling away from the Strandbad cafe. The cafe’s simple day of the boat tour, mostly because a large island.
his back to the water and jumped it are waterways that carry freight, menu—you’d better be hungry for one it was another scorcher. We sat under It was early evening when we
I off the 5-meter platform, his arms passengers, tourists like us and all of three types of sausage, French fries or umbrellas on the deck while our tour started out, a bit cooler than midday,
reaching into space, his legs flying up manner of watercraft. Berlin contains a drink—belied how accommodating operator switched from German to and the light was just beginning to turn
and over in an inversion that rang more bridges than Venice, about 120 this simple beach was. English to talk about the buildings a golden hue as we approached the first
alarm bells deep in my Dad brain, that miles of canals and rivers and a vibrant Everything needed for a day of easing by, sometimes throwing in real sight on our boat tour: Pfaueninsel,
I realized he was attempting a backflip boating scene. The canals that crisscross swimming was here: an outdoor shower, jokes that had a well-worn feel. (He or Peacock Island. Today it’s a nature
from high above the Muggelsee, the German capital eventually link up bathrooms and changing rooms, picnic explained that a church’s spire was reserve and park accessible by ferry,
Berlin’s largest lake. to the country’s major rivers: the Rhine, tables, some taller tables with umbrellas, topped by an antenna: “That’s because but it was once a private playground
This was a new trick—we’re not Elbe, Danube and Main. Thousands a grass patch where families with babies God has internet.”) for kings who built a castle and then
really a backflipping kind of family— more miles of canals and rivers connect stretched out on blankets, and more The boys liked the comfortable stocked the island with a menagerie that
and there was just enough time for me from neighboring countries, making sand. A nice-looking bar next to the cafe chairs, and a waiter swept past several included kangaroos, bears, alligators,
to think about travel insurance and why it possible to spend weeks exploring wasn’t open yet. Tied up to the dock times with cool drinks, but even the chameleons and peacocks. Peacocks
13-year-old boys seem drawn to risk Europe by water or venture to the was a rentable houseboat. Every few city’s magnificent architecture wasn’t still wander the interior, hence the
like moths to a blowtorch before he North Sea. minutes, another shaky customer of the enough to win me over. We needed a name, but the animals long ago became
splashed into the lake, mostly upright. We weren’t planning a voyage of paddleboard rental business voyaged out boat—without a tour guide, one that the first inhabitants of the Berlin Zoo.
Emergency averted, I took the long that magnitude, not this time anyway. onto the lake. would stop long enough for a swim. It was while passing the island that
view: As long as no one ends up in The city was our destination., and we The whole scene was so inviting We needed our own boat. we encountered a German tradition
a body cast, throwing ourselves into started at a beach. that we weren’t too surprised when a We headed to the Wannsee, in the unlike any American custom. A sailboat,
summer is why we’re here, right? The Strandbad (literal translation: wedding party set up on half of the southwest corner of Berlin. The lake is maybe 200 yards away, glided by with
My wife and I took our two sons to “beach bath”) Friedrichshagen sits on beach, the bride and groom decked out home to sandy beaches, rowing clubs, an elderly man at the helm. It wasn’t
Berlin in early August hoping to catch the north edge of the Muggelsee, not in formalwear as their guests lingered marinas stocked with sailboats and until he passed that we realized he was
some of the city’s summertime vibe. far from the apartment we rented while under a party tent. In a city flush with lakeside homes for the wealthy, with sailing naked, a fact that brought hoots
During the fall of 2016, we’d spent living here that gray autumn of 2016. historic churches, castles and parks, boathouses the size of Minneapolis of laughter from our sons. He wouldn’t
part of a sabbatical in the city. The The beach couldn’t have been a they chose this, I thought. Well played. bungalows. be the last naked boat operator we
beaches were closed for the season more apt choice for our tale-of-two- Something clicked as we watched If the Wannsee sounds familiar, saw that day; to the Germans this is a
by the time we showed up, the seasons view of Berlin. The last time boats make their way across the water however, it’s likely for its dark past. natural way to experience the outdoors.
paddleboards slid up into the rafters we had been there, it was winter. An that day at the beach. The next day we It was in this privileged and beautiful We were halfway around the island
and pleasure boats marooned in winter ice rink covered the sand. Our hockey- headed to Berlin’s center, hoping to environment that leaders of Nazi when we passed under the Glienicke
storage. The feeling that we had missed loving sons skated quick laps before find a tour boat. Germany met to lay their plans for Bridge, connecting Potsdam and
something became more evident as we retreated to a nearby cafe for hot This is about the most touristy genocide. The lakeside villa where they Berlin. During the Cold War, this
weeks passed. drinks. thing you can do in Berlin, other than held their Wannsee Conference is a bridge was a key link between East
That autumn was blustery, and This time, temperatures soared past wander under the Brandenburg Gate, memorial and museum, one of the Germany and West Berlin and became
yet whenever we researched our Berlin 90 degrees as we staked out a shady but it’s a simple way to see some of the many ways that modern-day Germany a preferred spot for the exchange of
neighborhood online, images popped spot near the water. A few minutes later city’s iconic architecture. ensures that people don’t forget the past. captured spies. The “Bridge of Spies”
up of sandy beaches, lakeside resorts we had a happy surprise: A boy who The one-hour-or-so tour journeyed We had come to enjoy ourselves on was dramatized in the 2015 Steven
and people lounging in swimsuits or recognized our sons from their time at up and back on the Spree, the river the lake, but we first spent a quiet hour Spielberg movie starring Tom Hanks
skipping across the Muggelsee on a the public school in Friedrichshagen that passes through Berlin’s heart. sitting at a picnic table overlooking the and is perhaps best known as the spot
windsurfer. “Next time,” we began two years ago introduced himself. They It has an industrial feel, but that’s water near the villa and its memorial. where U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers
saying. swam out to the high-dive platforms changing. City residents have pushed Then we went to the rental boat was released by his Soviet captors in
That turned out to be this August, at the end of a dock extending from the local government to clean up a office nearby, and after brief instructions, exchange for an East German spy. n
and by then we had a shortlist of the beach. The backflipping soon got portion of the river for swimming. The we hopped aboard our vessel. Anyone
beaches, lakes and rivers to see. underway. Flussbad (“river bath”) project would who’s spent time in a Lund fishing boat ©2018 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Like Duluth, you can’t see the We watched from the shore mostly, use natural filtration to clean the water would have felt at home. Our “cruiser” Distributed by Tribune
ocean from the German capital, but lulled into complacency by our order of and re-create the swimming areas that came with a 9.8-horsepower outboard, Content Agency, LLC

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