Photos, captions, text ... all under construction right now!
Our free camping spot worked out really well. We had access to the nice washrooms and drinking water at the swimming beach, and except for the strange man in the other tent, had it to ourselves.
We were curious, as we rolled into the adjacent town of Zehdenick, to see what our gasthaus would have been, had we not found the Wald Bad. As far as we could see, there were no places to stay in town. So we were lucky!
The town was a revelation in another way. Now there was no doubt about the difference between west and east Germany. Many, many houses were in a state of moderate to advanced decay, and the town overall was noticeably shabby. Even close to the centre, where there was an eis cafe, it was a relatively drab affair. But again, it is not a uniform picture. Some places were really, really nice, and most streets had far more charm than those in Duncan B.C., the nearest town to where we live.
Later we ran into a 69 year old fellow out for a quick 60 km spin from his small town. His name was Gunther, and he cycled along with us for a while. He spoke English very well, but to my dismay said he could understand Dodie far better than I, It meant I had to use Dodie as the middle lady, in order to pepper him with questions. Here is what we learned:
Many of the properties that are unrestored and now crumbling belong(ed) to people who walked away from them in order to move to the West (presumably before the Wall: 1961). Before reunification, his village of about 1200-1500 people had just a dozen telephones. After reunification things improved, but it took 2 1/2 years for him to then get his first phone.
The transition of power after the wall came down was actually orderly. A few months after, there were elections, which the communists lost. Then they walked away in the "normal" fashion when a government loses an election.
Grampies often get lost, and seldom go back to figure out why. Once you are through whatever the problem area was, you just want to get on with it. But this time we backtracked, and found this. Found what? Here, dodie will prune the tree so you can see...
We soon realized that the Havel River continues all the way to Berlin, and our route often followed it, or some related canal. So the watery play land that began at Muritz park goes all the way to the city. That means there is boating, swimming, and summer cottages all along.
Passing through this water land, we continued to think about Walter, and the fold boating that he often talked about. Looking out at the waters, we fantasized some Star Trek like scenario where we would actually see him paddling along. If so, would he see us? Sadly, Dodie observed that he would not recognize her, for she would not have been born yet.
As has often happened with the naive Grampies, we came to some serious historical stuff just by stumbling on it. In this case, it was the Wall. Yes, the Wall - we were cycling over/along it when Dodie said "Say, doesn't Mauer mean Wall - we are on the Mauer Weg!". Well, duh!
The truth of this realization was hammered home as we came to a number of memorials and explanations. You shoould find them in photos either just below or (if I have yet to move them) and the end of this page. Try zooming to read the placques - you will then be seeing exactly what we saw.
A little further (for our route exactly follows the wall) we came to a guard tower. In front of it ran the death zone, corresponding to the actual boundary. We were cycling exactly in this zone. How things have changed in under 25 years!
We found camping within 15 km of Berlin centre. It was reasonably priced at about 15 euros, and for some reason We were able to buy a steak dinner here for 3.70 in the bier garten. It was really good too, and with lots of potato salad.
Tomorrow we will try out their breakfast buffet, and head into the city. We are quite focussed - we just want to see Walter's old house, and maybe check if there is any record of the family locally. Beyond that, we will just rely on our famous stumbling ability and see what turns up!
The red line, our cycle route, is also the east/west Berlin boundary. duh!
