The Great Tour of Brandenburg Part 3: Yet More Sand

Sunday, June 13, 1999

Philipp Canzler joined me on Round 3 of the Great Brandenburg Ride. We took the RE4 train to Neustadt (Dosse) and headed off toward Kyritz, looking for the small road that my book said would take us along the little Jäglitz river valley. We turned left on a road that looked promising but eventually it dumped us into the middle of some farm fields. Unwilling to restart, we ended up pushing our bikes through the fields until we came to a passable farm path that headed in the right general direction. There was not too much sand this time, so while we were not making the kind of speed our bicycles were capable of on real roads, we did have a pleasant diversion. It was a beautiful day and we saw some sailplanes flying around the local airport between Holzhausen and Kyritz, so we knew that we were heading the right way.

Just outside of Kyritz on a hard-surfaced road again, we stopped to check the map. Philipp’s computer decided to stop working. This sometimes happens if the unit gets wet or the sensor is out of alignment. Anyway, Philipp is a calm and quiet person normally, but I guess when you take away a German’s capacity for record keeping, things go badly. He became extremely upset and hurled imprecations everywhere. He stopped short of heaving his bicycle into the ditch, but just short. Then the computer began to work again. So, numbers and Philipp restored, we went back to our ride.

We looked around the Marktplatz in Kyritz. The town was found in 1237 and still looks like a little medieval country town. Of course, this being Sunday, absolutely nothing was open. From Kyritz, we headed west through the little towns of Rehfeld, Barenthin and then turned onto a cobbled road from Kötzlin to Bendelin. It was made of enormous, uneven stones, so there was a whole lot of shaking to get us the 2-3 kms to Bendelin. We stopped for a brief rest (and so that the vibrations in our elbows and legs would stop!) and chatted with a local man who seemed surprised to see us. Of course, he said that nobody uses that old road anymore. Both Philipp and I were impressed by the region, which was well kept and prosperous. Its income clearly derived entirely from agriculture and the fields were of an impressive size. The man told us that unemployment was at very high levels.

Going west through Netzow and then north to Söllenthin and Klein Leppin along a beautifully-maintained Landstrasse, or country road, we checked the map which showed a fairly direct route to Bad Wilsnack, our goal for the day, but the route looked like it went over cobblestones for about five kilometers. Between the farm fields and the cobbles we had already done, we agreed that there was nothing wrong with taking a little detour to ensure that we would continue along good roads. We turned left and rode along a regional road, the B-107, for five kilometers, taking turns in a nice drafting formation at 35 km/h since we wanted to minimize our exposure to what is normally a busy road. We turned left onto the B-5, following it for a short distance and then turning off at Kletzke. More cobblestones! But only through the village itself and then a nice, smooth road that brought us to Bad Wilsnack.

Bad Wilsnack, as the name suggests, is a spa town. It received the “Bad” title only in 1927, after a forester had discovered the healing properties of the local mud. The town is quite old, however, and has many lovely half-timbered buildings. It had once been an object of travel for pilgrims after some sort of miracle happened in the local church in the 14th Century. Of course, the Reformation ended all that, and Wilsnack was just an agricultural town until that mud was discovered. As we rode into town, it was clear that things were looking up. There were several hotels that had been recently renovated and there are three clinics in the area.

We stopped for lunch in a big park and discussed what to do while eating our sandwiches. We had ridden about 65 kms and the question was whether to continue or call it a day and take the train back to Berlin. The trains run only every two hours, so we tried to calculate the most logical thing to do. In the end, we voted to go back into town for a beer and take the next train. Once you stop riding, your ambition tends to desert you and we were both feeling a little tired. Wilsnack was on the original 1846 railway line from Berlin to Hamburg and, after our beers, we hopped on the RE4 and returned to the Big City. Philipp had enjoyed the ride very much and we are both looking forward to the next stage.

The Great Tour of Brandenburg Part 2: Fontane's Country

Monday, May 24, 1999

I was determined to make use of the fine weather on the long weekend, going forward for Round 2 of the Great Brandenburg Ride: Neuruppiner Land. An early departure from Bahnhof Zoo on the RE4 regional train took me back to Friesack, my last point on the trip.

This time I was determined to avoid the bad stretches of sand and cobblestone, so had looked over the map quite carefully. The weather was good and I had an excellent fast trip north from Friesack along a very good Landstrasse with no traffic. The towns had interesting names: Zootzen, Wutzetz, Vichel, Garz, Manker and Protzen. They were all in good condition although the scenery was a bit flat. Crossing over the E55 Autobahn, the road took me towards Altfriesack and a small bridge that marked the southern end of a long, narrow lake, the Neuruppinersee and, to the south, the much smaller Bützsee. I stopped for a few minutes on the bridge and watched some kayakers loading their boats. There are many waterways in Brandenburg and they seem to be used heavily for recreational purposes.

Crossing to Altfriesack, I turned left on a road running parallel to the Neuruppinersee. It was smooth asphalt with trees on the left and a view of the lake on the right. After Karwe the road was less fun, however, as it turned into enormous crooked cobblestones. Luckily, there was no traffic of any kind as I wandered from side to side, trying to find the smoothest way. I had to stop once to rearrange my handlebar bag, whose support bracket was shaken loose. After bouncing around for about 5 kms, I reached the charming village of Gnewikow.

I saw a little road going down to a park on the lakeshore, so as it was lunchtime, I decided to take advantage of the amenities. The little road led past a series of impressive, but abandoned, buildings. In the DDR period, these seem to have been used for breeding and raising agricultural animals, although the buildings looked pre-1947. In the little park, I took off my jersey and sat on a conveniently-located bench to enjoy the sunshine. I had my sandwiches while looking out onto the lake and seeing the sailboats drift by. The wind was light and there were swans and ducks about, none of whom were very interested in my offerings, preferring to root around in the bullrushes. Children were jumping off a little dock and it was very relaxing.

Before departing, I checked the bicycle over. Of course, the cobblestones had done their work and I had to take out my screwdriver and tighten up various parts. The water bottle holders were really loose but after a few minutes, everything was right and I was going up the little road in low gear back into the centre of Gnewikow.

There was a very attractive church, with a little round tower, completely covered by flowers. Most of the houses were very well kept, much more so than I had noticed in my first trip in Brandenburg. I also noticed the election signs, which were almost all for the extreme-right National Party (NPD). The slogans were interesting; one read “Foreigners Out” and the second was “Jobs instead of Profit,” an unlikely economic concept. I have been told that the right-radicals have a significant presence in Brandenburg and I found it ironic that this wealthy and attractive farming area’s citizens (almost none of whom would have had any contact with foreigners) saw neo-Nazism as an acceptable political alternative. And I cannot see the investors that the region needs being too excited by “Jobs instead of Profit.”

In trepidation of more cobblestones, I turned left but discovered only smooth pavement. Although the road now moved away from the scenic lake, it was a good road with gentle hills, taking me through Wuthenow’s farm fields and across a bridge to charming Neuruppin. Neuruppin was the birthplace of my Lieblingsarchitekt, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, but is much more famous as the birthplace of the writer Theodor Fontane. Last year was the 100th anniversary of Fontane’s death, so there was a lot going on related to him, including readings, walking tours and new editions of his works. He was successful only very late in life, having been a bit of a dud newspaperman before. There is a very nice statue of him in Neuruppin.

Neuruppin itself has many attractive old buildings, most of which have clearly been restored since unification in 1989. Like many German towns and cities, the central square is a pedestrian mall. On this day, like all German holidays, everything was closed as tight as a drum, with the exception of a few café. Both the houses where Schinkel and Fontane were born are marked, but are not museums.

Leaving Neuruppin, I headed through some pretty suburbs, turning at a set of railroad tracks. These tracks, it transpired, were the right-of-way for a strange little railway, the Prignitz Eisenbahn. As I rode alongside the tracks on a very good bicycle path, I was overtaken by what looked like a streetcar, honking and beeping as it went past the level crossings not much faster than my own speed. This was the Prignitz Eisenbahn, a privately-operated train system that came into existence when Deutsche Bahn, having taken over the old East German railways, planned to close a stretch of narrow-gauge line in Northwestern Brandenburg. The little trains run a comprehensive schedule in the area and, apparently, turn a profit.

Passing through Darritz-Wahlendorf, my guidebook suggested heading east and going around the shore of the tiny Katerbower See. Before I knew what happened, I found myself on a sandy track in a forest, outback of the beyond. On several stretches, it was difficult to ride through the sand and I had to walk. Alone among the pines, I found it hard to believe that I was only an hour by train from Berlin. I just wished the road was better!

Fields of rapeseed flowers, a typical Brandenburg view

And then it got much, much worse. I was now attempting to ride a wide, sandy, rutted path through farm fields. The cows looked at me in stupefaction as I finally gave up attempting to ride what was marked as the National Bicycle Route N1 as my bike sank into the sand underneath me. Pushing and occasionally (well, regularly) cursing, I made my way between the cornfields. Suddenly, something big rustled next to me and I was so startled I almost dropped the bike. A young deer jumped up and ran off. It looked like a doe and was probably hiding in the corn. As well, I saw a hare running through a field at an amazing pace. If you also consider the extraordinary prevalence of hawks that always strikes me when riding through Brandenburg, the Mark is alive with wildlife.

Finally emerging from the sandtrap, I found another paved road near Katerbow and headed toward my next check point, Netzeband. I was a little concerned about Netzeband, since the road heading out of it did not look very impressive on my map, but was the only way to get to Schönberg, my next checkpoint, without 30 kms of backtracking.

Netzeband was a little strange as well. It seems to be completely devoted to horsemanship, with every farmyard actually housing stables and riding schools. The cars in the streets were not the little Opels and Hondas you normally see in Brandenburg, but big Audis and Mercedeses. Needless to say, everything looked restored and in good condition, obviously appealing to these well-heeled specialized customers. I am not sure for the reason behind all this horsiness in Deepest, Darkest Ex-DDR, but many of the stables looked as if they had existed in Prussian times as well.

The road was excellent and I crossed the railway tracks and the Autobahn. Then the road pretty well disappeared as a paved surface, turning once again into lovely Brandenburg sugar-sand. Riding the Marinoni became more like skiing, as with each pedal-stroke the bike sank and turned one way or the other. I knew that there would only be about 3 kms of this bad road through the woods. Unfortunately, it had become quite hot and I was constantly harassed by swarms of annoying flies every time I slowed down. To make matters even worse, I was passed by a middle-aged couple on sturdy commuter bikes who commented about the inappropriateness of my tires. Thanks.

Eventually the road solidified a bit and then outside Schönberg turned into decent asphalt again. I cranked up a few gears to make up for all that lost time (and to really lose the flies) and passed the couple at 45 km/h on a nice straight stretch. Childish, maybe, but I needed some kind of morale booster.

The road past Tramnitz was new and great to ride on, although I missed my turning point. I had planned to head a bit to the east and ride alongside another lake, but ended up taking a slightly shorter inland route. This took me to the town of Wusterhausen and then on to my destination for the day of Neustadt.

Between these two larger towns in the village of Kampehl is a genuine oddity. A knight, Ritter Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz was accused of killing a shepherd from nearby Bückwitz when the shepherd refused him the “Droit de Seigneur,” or the feudal right to the first night with a new bride. The Knight was not convicted due to a lack of evidence, the story goes, but he swore an oath as to his innocence. In his affidavit, he stated that if he was in fact guilty, his body would neither find rest in any grave nor decompose. The guilt or innocence was never determined, but his mummy (in fine fettle) has been on display in a vault in the village church for the last three centuries. Described by locals as One of the World’s Wonders (well, perhaps, if you are from Leddin or Metzelthin or Bückwitz, I guess), Ritter Kahlbutz can be viewed every day but Monday from 10 until 12 and again after lunch, from 1 to 5 pm. I passed on this big attraction, although I rode beside the church and saw the entrance sign, but felt the story was worth noting.

Neustadt, although a smallish town on the Dosse River, is a junction for several rail lines. The main line has been torn up and there is a huge construction mess around the platforms. It is one of the primary reasons for delays on the RE4, which continues through to Wittenberge. The station, like many in the former East Germany, is derelict although it was once a fine building and probably the pride of the town.

As I was standing with the Marinoni on the makeshift platform, guzzling the last of my Gatorade, a huge crowd of elderly people showed up with their bicycles. They had obviously been on a tour somewhere in Brandenburg, probably for the whole long weekend and looked very enthusiastic and in good health. They had to be, since they were riding huge, heavy bicycles (Hercules, a famous old German brand, was prevalent) with lots and lots of baggage. I could see we were going to have a problem, since the RE4 only has room for 20 bicycles and the group had about 30 already. They probably had reservations, which I usually do not bother with. After riding 88 kms and who knows how much pushing through the sand, I was in no mood to be left behind.

The train came and everyone got on in an orderly fashion. The oldies all headed to the bicycle storage areas, while I popped up the first half-set of stairs on these double-decker cars. The Marinoni is light enough that I can lift it easily, although it is a bit hard to walk in the darn cleated shoes and I knew that on this sort-of-landing, there are several seats and enough space for a single bicycle. My plan worked quite well until we came to stations near Berlin and more passengers got on, meaning I had to hold my bicycle and give up the extra seats, but at least there were no fearsome Hercules scratches on the still-pristine green paint. Except for the sand bits, it had been a very enjoyable day. But I will never ride a National Bike Route again.

The Great Tour of Brandenburg: Part 1

Coat of Arms of Brandenburg

I lived in Berlin, Germany from August 1998 to September 2002. Soon after my arrival, I purchased a book "The Great Bicycle Tour Around Berlin, in 40 Stages" and determined to ride the whole thing. The route described were all around 40 kms each and took the cyclists in a huge circle around the city. It was organized around train stations, with the idea that you could take the train to the start of the stage, do your ride and then come back from the next train station and then start again the following week from where you left off.

The Great Tour was enormous fun and gave me the opportunity to see Eastern Germany up close and personal.

Saturday, April 3, 1999: The Great Tour of Brandenburg Begins

After a Good Friday of perfect weather spent doing housework, I was resolved to get out and start my first leg of the Great Big Bike Ride around Brandenburg. Of course, on the Saturday, the weather was not quite as good as the house-cleaning day, with overcast skies, but with no rain in the forecast, I thought it would be okay even if not very photogenic.

I got to the train station in plenty of time to get my “Regio”, as they call regional commuter trains here, but in the best tradition of bureaucracy, I could not figure out how to buy a ticket for me and Mr. Bicycle. The vending machines were only for local traffic and the other machines did not cover Regios, but only long-distance traffic, so I decided to just buy the ticket on the train, which is allowed but usually costs somewhat more. There were several other cyclists waiting and they said I could do this. They were probably scandalized by my non-German lack of preparation, but the train was about to come in and we had to get ready to drag things on board.

The Regios are nifty red doubledecker trains, with special sections for bicycles. Unlike Switzerland, where local trains use hooks to let you hang up your bikes, the German system lets you sit next to the bike, but wastes huge amounts of space since the bicycles are just upright. There is an elastic cord you can wrap around several frames, but the whole thing is not very efficient and bikes fall over easily. Unlike hooks, other people’s bikes are near yours, which is a bad, bad thing for owners of brand-new, super-expensive custom-built English Racing Green sport-touring bikes who live in complete terror of having their babies scratched. Luckily, the train was not crowded so the danger was minimal.

Sitting next to me was a young man with a pretty short haircut and wearing camouflage motif clothing. He had a duffel bag and was listening to a really loud Walkman, which I could hear from about 3 meters away, although I could not make out the music but only the thumping bass. At 0 meters, I would have thought early-morning deafness was guaranteed.

Off we huffed and puffed and before I knew it, we were at my stop, Brieselang on the outskirts of the Berlin urban area, about an hour from Bahnhof Zoo. No conductor had appeared to take my money, so my introduction to the Regio was a freebie. My camouflaged friend got off as well and as I rode away, he was standing on the platform for the train heading back to Berlin, singing to the tunes on his Walkman (“Jawohl!”). Of course, Mr. Innocent Canadian suddenly realized this was one of those Neo-Nazi thugs we read about in the papers at home.

Not much to see in Brieselang, so off to the west towards Zeestow, a charming little village where I stopped to take a few photographs of the Real Brandenburg. As I was to discover subsequently, all towns in the Land are somewhat similar in layout, grouped around the village church. The area was historically staunchly Lutheran and it was remarkable to see just how many churches there were. They survived East German times but some of them did not appear to make the transition into the post-1989 Germany and were derelict. It seemed to depend on the size of the town or village involved.

Following the directions in my guidebook, I turned right off the main road and onto a country pathway lined with cherry trees in blossom. Although the cherry trees cheered me up, the road surface did not. It quickly dwindled from a hard-packed pathway to what appeared to be tractor ruts in the sand. And what sand! Brandenburg is famous/infamous for its sand, which is as fine as sugar. Good for white asparagus, perhaps, but this is not the ideal surface for a custom-built English Racing Green sports-touring bicycle with darn narrow, 145 psi-inflated tires. I did learn that you can push a bicycle in the sand even if you have cleated racing shoes since the cleats sink too. This went on for about 2 kms until I crossed some railroad tracks and came once again onto a hard-surfaced road that took me through a little industrial park.

After getting mildly lost, I found the right road towards my next goal, Tremmen. The road was now quite good and I was cruising nicely through a flattish agricultural region at a good clip. The guidebook warned me that the untrained would suffer going up the hill to Tremmen, but I did not even notice it. This meant that I was either well-trained, thanks to Mallorca, or I was going the wrong way. Luckily, I was going the right way, but the guidebook, which was accurate in saying that Tremmen had perhaps seen better days, was coy about the next stretch of road towards Wachow. Here I was to really discover the cobblestones of Brandenburg.

Tremmen is a typical Brandenburg town, with a main street of cobbles leading past the church. The houses are well-constructed and quite substantial although there is a bit of monotony since there were not a lot of colour varieties of brick used. Most are a brownish tone.

The cobblestones deserve some mention, and will get a lot during the entire ride. They come in several different flavours: the Yellow Brick Road, which is yellow bricks in a herringbone pattern, tightly-laid and somewhat smooth; the Small Cobblestones, which are not so tightly-laid and give a jarring ride; the Cyclist Smashers, which are gigantic rocks with arched tops that make you feel as if you are being hit with a great flat object as you ride. The Smashers really cut down your speed, not only because you cannot ride fast, but because after you pass over them you have to stop and tighten up all the bolts and screws on the bicycle or things will fall off. Riding on the shoulders does not work very well, since they are the already-noted sugar sand and bring you to a complete stop immediately.

The main street in Tremmen was composed of Cyclist Smashers, but I was fortunately able to ride on the sidewalks, which are just smooth brick, like the ones in Berlin. After Tremmen, there was an ordeal of Small Cobblestones partway to Wachow, but then things improved to an excellent regional road. This road had a first-rate bicycle path running alongside of it. I am not sure of the need for such a path, since the road is not heavily travelled and paths are expensive to maintain. I noted these unnecessary paths in a number of other sections of my ride.

Wachow was small and charming and, following an alley of chestnut trees, I was soon riding along a smooth road through an extensive marshland. Off to one side was a large field with a gigantic flock of large white birds. I stopped to look at them, thinking they might be the famous Brandenburg storks, but the more than fifty birds I looked at were surely a type of egret, a member of the heron family and quite common in the American South. I have seen lots of them in the Carolinas, in particular. In the USA, they were heavily hunted in the early years of the century nearly to extinction to meet the demands of the women’s hat industry and this ridiculous slaughter resulted in establishment of the Audubon Society on a national basis to successfully combat the hunt. These now-German egrets (from Africa, I guess) looked very happy standing around in the fields.

But better was to come. I stopped in the tiny town of Päwesin, on the east bank of the Beetzsee, to look at an enormous tripod between two houses on the main street. This structure was about 15 meters tall and my suspicion that it was a stork’s nest was happily confirmed when a tall, white bird with black wing patches looked down at me. I observed the stork for a few minutes and was delighted when the stork changed position and I had the chance to see another one beside the first. A nesting pair! This was very exciting to a Canadian who is not used to such large birds calmly sitting in an urban environment, although perhaps Päwesin might not be considered urban. But there they were, right on Main Street.

Heading now in a southerly direction, I passed quickly through the villages of Weseram and Klein Kreutz, arriving in Brandenburg am Havel (Brandenburg on the Havel River, as opposed to the Land of the same name) just before lunchtime.

Brandenburg/H., as they write it, is an old cathedral town, founded in 928 AD, but I did not find it terribly interesting. I spent no time exploring it because the traffic around it was terrible. Everybody was doing their Easter shopping before the stores closed and they would all starve on the weekend. Getting only moderately lost, I went up a very busy street on the west side of the Beetzsee, looking for a bicycle path that my guidebook claimed existed. Since the path was supposed to run alongside the lake, I turned right to go towards the Hotel Seeblick, or Lakeview, which I cunningly calculated must also be on the lake. Luckily, the hotel had a large map of the area outside and I discovered I had ridden right past the bikepath. Retracing my steps, I found a quite good bikepath, marked by a sign slightly larger than my hand. The Germans could certainly take another lesson from the Swiss, who use great, big signs that you cannot overlook and then show you are on the right path with regular confirming signs.

I stopped for my sandwich lunch on the shores of the Beetzsee at Brielow. Brielow had a nice big sign dedicated to its stork population, showing how many young had been hatched and where they lived. The bicycle/walking path was called the “Storchwander-weg” and I hope that they are successful in attracting visitors because of the storks.

The lake is fairly narrow and was very calm. There were plenty of bulrushes and although it was overcast, the whole scene was very peaceful and pretty. Compared to Ontario lakes, though, Brandenburg ones feel more like large ponds.

At this point, I had a slightly annoying equipment failure. My handlebar bag, which is supported by an odd bracket-and-string arrangement, chose this time to start flopping down onto the front wheel. After struggling for some time, I realized that I was using the wrong-sized screwdriver head to tighten up the bracket screws. As someone who always begins a project by reading the instructions and assembling it backwards, this did not come as a big surprise. Since the ride was meant as a test run for the new equipment, I was not overly concerned and everything functioned properly after this brief fuss. I suspect that when the people at Mountain Equipment designed the bag holder, they did not include the loosening effects of cobblestones in their calculations.

Refreshed, I returned to the road, a lovely stretch through Radewege, Butzow, Ketzür, Gortz and Bagow where I easily maintained a 35 km/h pace. There were some nice little hills and some gentle curves to enjoy and even a nice downhill stretch through dense forest. At the crossroads in Bagow, there is a very attractive Jugendstil/Art Nouveau church, highly unusual for the region, which was constructed in 1906. It was a most unlikely coral sort of colour, with brown half-timbering. It still seems to be active as a church.

On to Riewend, on the Riewendsee, which I could not see from the road. Then, without warning, began an astonishing stretch of Yellow Brick Road cobble, running for more than 5 kms. This looked as if it had been designed to last an eternity and it also felt as if it would take that long to ride it. After seeing my average speed plunge, and after losing a lot of the feeling in my hands and wrists, the village of Klein Behnitz was reached.

Consisting of the usual church and cobblestone main street, Klein Behnitz looked as if it was in an amazing state of preservation. If you would take the cars away, it would not have been out of place to see Frederick the Great to ride through, or watch the stage coach to Potsdam bounce over the cobbles. There were no new structures of any kind that I could see. The place would make an excellent location for any film on 19th Century Brandenburg village life. Or 18th Century even.

To make up for the bone-jarring cobblestones, the next stretch of road to Groß Behnitz was beautifully and smoothly paved. It is a mark of pride in Brandenburg to have cobblestones in your town. After reunification, many Eastern towns sold their cobblestones to wealthy Wessies who used them for paving their driveways. As a cyclist, I cannot help but think this was an excellent practice since it led to smooth asphalt, but now some towns are re-cobbling.

The Borsig family, famous locomotive builders in Berlin, had a Renaissance-style chateau in Groß Behnitz, constructed in the 1870s. Ernst von Borsig used the house as a base for the German Resistance and meetings with members of the old Prussian aristocracy, a number of whom were implicated in the July 20, 1944 plot, were held in 1942 and 1943, unnoticed by the Nazis since von Borsig often held hunting parties in his forests. The house burned down in 1947.

A little way further and I found myself in the large town of Nauen. An attractive cathedral, an old Rathaus and an important train station (for the region) later, and I was off on a so-called Landstrasse in the direction of Fehrbellin.

The Landstrasse is an East German thing. An agricutural road, clearly similar to those in France that I have ridden, these streets are look smooth but the asphalt is quite rough. As cars approached from the other direction, I also quickly realized that Landstrassen are very, very narrow, about the width of one car and one bicycle. This is not so good when the cars insist on taking the centre of the road. I had been warned often about the quality of driving in Brandenburg, where people are unaware that drinking and driving together constitute bad policy, but part of the bad accident rate must be due to these surprisingly narrow streets. Luckily, everyone seemed sober and the traffic was light. After all, who wanted to go to Utershorst or Hertefeld or Dreibrück or Hakenberg on a Saturday afternoon anyway? Hakenberg was actually a place people had once wanted to go, but first a description of the area.

Looking at the map, one is impressed by the number of rivers and canals in this region. Also, the towns all seem to be exactly 3 or 4 kilometres apart and constructed to an identical plan (yes, a cobbled main street and a church alongside). Apparently, the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm Frederick the Great’s great-grandfather, encouraged French Huguenots to settle in Brandenburg after their civil rights were reduced after the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It seems that a number of these were clever engineers who were able to drain the marshlands and turn them into productive farmlands. More than 20,000 Huguenot families came to Prussia and more than a few of them settled in the little towns through which I was riding. At one point, one-third of the population of Berlin itself was actually French!

It was tiring riding the rough asphalt and cobbles through Deutschhof and Sandhorst and Königshorst and Dechtow (incidentally, all the names ending in “ow” are actually Slavic in origin rather than German and are pronounced “oh” rather than “off”). But up ahead in Hakenberg I could see something unusual: a monument. Just off the road stands a Siegessäule, a Column of Victory marking the defeat of the Swedes at the hands of the Great Elector’s army on June 28, 1675.

The Great Elector had a tendency to forget with whom he had forged alliances. With Prussia in the centre of Europe, this was a Bad Thing. An alliance with the Netherlands had flopped and ended up with Louis XIV taking pieces of Prussian territory on the Rhine. These were given back but Francophobia reined. Then Prussia joined an alliance against France headed by Austria, with Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark. This did not work out well as the Alliance suffered bad military defeats in France. While the army was camped for the winter in Franconia, far away in the South, the Swedes invaded Prussia in December 1674 and were making a mess of Brandenburg. No alliance troops were coming to the Great Elector’s rescue and his general, the 70 year old Derfflinger, had to move the 7,000 man army right across central Germany, with all the baggage and the soldiers’ 3,000 dependents. Within two weeks, the army was back and Derfflinger chased the Swedes out of the fortress at Rathenow and caught up with them at Hakenberg. The Swedes outnumbered the Prussians but did not realize it. Derfflinger was able to position his 13 artillery pieces to command the field, while the Swedes could only get 7 of their 38 guns to fire. The Swedes lost 2,000 men to 500 Prussian casualties and the Battle of Fehrbellin, although minor in European terms, marked the establishment of the fame of the Prussian army and the Great Elector received that nickname due to this success. General Derfflinger, anxious to boot the Swedes right out of Prussia, took a cavalry force and covered 500 kms in 10 days and inflicted another defeat on the Swedes in Tilsit. Considering that 17th Century cavalry mounts were more like draft horses, this was a remarkable feat.

Fehrbellin, centre of the regional peat industry, is an attractive and active old town. It is linked to Berlin by the A24 autobahn and judging from its prosperity, is probably used as home base for commuters. There is a lot of residential construction going on, but the old part of the town remains intact and is quite charming. Unfortunately, Fehrbellin does not have a railway station, so I was going to have to figure out how to get to Friesack, where there was one.

My guidebook suggested going from Fehrbellin to Brunne and then by a path to Vietznitz and on to Friesack, a trip of about 12 kms. When I reached Brunne, nobody could explain how to reach Vietznitz. In fact, locals suggested that the route, wherever it was, would be quite unsuited to anything but a mountain bike. I took an alternative route that was closer to 25 kms. Unfortunately, 6 kms of it was over really terrible road. This consists of two parallel paths of concrete plaques, each about 1.5 metres in length. It was like riding over endless expansion joints and one had to keep looking for traffic as the whole road was only one lane wide. I would have thought that it would have been easier just to lay down a simple asphalt road through the countryside instead of going to all the trouble of these concrete things, but perhaps they needed them for moving tanks around or something.

Exhausted as I was by this “road,” the last ten kilometres from Warsow to Friesack went very well. The road was superb and interesting, with little hills and no traffic and, as always at the end of a long bike ride, the closer the destination the greater the magnetic pull it exerts. The train station is beyond Friesack itself, in the middle of a field. The station has seen better days as well and although there was a snack bar/pub, the rest of the station was boarded up. Switching from my racing shoes to sandals and finishing up the last of my Gatorade, I rested on the platform and twenty minutes later the hourly train to Berlin pulled in.

This time the conductor collected some money from me. I had had a whole day of adventure in the Prussian heartland, covering 156 kilometres, for a total cost of DM 11, or less than C$ 10. And probably 3500 calories! And I had learned that my bicycle, which I had only ridden 200 kms total in Canada, was superbly comfortable over a long day of riding. I had no stiffness anywhere the next day, to my amazement. I had also learned that the plan of taking the train to a jump-off point and coming back from another worked very well. And I had learned not to trust the guidebook, whose authors have a rather different idea of what constitutes a rideable surface for a bicycle than I do.