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Luebbenau, Germany

We took the subway from Spittlemart to Alexander Plaz and went to purchase our ticket for Lubbenau on the Regional train but the ticket machine didn’t seem to come up with Lubbenau and later I worked out why – it has an umlaut (little dots on top of U, and if no umlaut is on key board you spell it differently with a ‘ue’ instead. I think the same applies to other places like Fuessen. So that is a good tip for German rail travellers. Anyway we had to que for a ticket and that took ages so we had to wait nearly an hour for the next train. Bummer. There are plenty of shops around the station so we got a coffee and I browsed the sales in the Yves Roche shop (French natural skin care and cosmetics).

As it happened the train was 15 minutes late – not so sure about the supposed punctuallity of German trains – I think its a myth as we have had quite a few late ones. Whilst we were waiting we watched a group of young people in the square dancing with a boom box. They were a little odd to say the least. I wondered if they were drugged but maybe not. It started with big dramatics trying to get the crowd engaged with one of them walking around with hands raised clapping whilst the main dancer was sitting on the ground doing big stretches and then slowly walked around doing a shake out, hands laced together and arms stretch etc and then finally he danced – kind of like a running man on the spot?

Not sure what style this is but his mate joined in too. It was ok, but I thought they were trying to be a bit cool or ‘black’ until the main man did a stint of spinning around fast on one arm, first with elbow bent then fully extended – increasing in speed all the time. To get the picture his body was like a plank horizontal to the ground and all his weight on the hand and arm. Of course a lot of muscle control to hold his body horizontal off the ground too. Wow, very impressive and I don’t think you could be too much of a druggy to have that muscle tone and control. Interesting to note they were not doing it for money – just free entertainment.

The train trip to Lubbenau is an hour south east of Berlin. The scenery was a mixture of forest and agricultural paddocks – including one which had about 100 life size kangaroos in different poses! Not sure what they were made of, and why they were there but it was funny to see them out of place/country. Maybe an ex pat Aussie owned the land and is homesick? We also passed some small towns but they are not as scenic as the ones on the way to Potsdam. The style here is red brick rectangles with a pointy roof. One town had about 50 of these houses – identical with tiny little front lawns – looked horrible actually all the same, perhaps it was a retirement village or similar?

Lubbenau was fairly quiet around the streets, but it was Sunday and its a regular rural town. It has the feel of having a good amount of retirees and was quite pretty with large gardens and lots of flowers, including a centre strip in the middle of the road full of ‘carpet’ roses. Houses are varied German style with mixes of bricks and other. We made our way to the tourist centre of old town and got directions to the ‘port’ (inland) to catch a cruise to the interior forest.

The town square was a bustle of tourists and Gherkin stands – sour, garlic, salted, and everything inbetween! They are famous for their pickles here, and I made sure I grazed the sample stands. I like the salted ones best, and regret that I can’t manage the weight in my bag to bring some home. We saw a punt boat nearly full and the punter asked if we wanted to hop in, we needed a rest room break and were really hungry for a late lunch (2pm) so we asked when he was leaving and he said about 5 minutes, we replied that we would think about it and would be ready in about 10 minutes meaning that we would probably miss his and get another.

So off we went to the pay toilet and then a shop where I got a herring, sauerkraut, onion, pickle and horseradish roll. OMG talk about sinus blow out, Vern had a bockwurst in roll. Then as we turned around to survey the market scene we saw the punter smiling and waiting and some of his passengers not smiling! Ruh roo, we raced over and jumped in rolls and all. Ah you do loose some things in translation.

The punter and the punt were great – only 10 euro each for a 2 hour trip with a short stop at the deep-in-the-forest town of Lehde. For experience, value for money, and romance it was better than our Venice gondola ride (not Venice per see). The river is not crystal clear, but gave nice reflections and the forest had lots of bird life. Apparently there are many species of flora and fauna that are extinct elsewhere but still good numbers here due to the protection and harmonious lifestyle of the inhabitants. Pretty touches of water lillies were in the water and you felt like you were gliding along in an elfen forest.

Our punter stopped at a sales stand along the way where they serve you boat side, so I got a plate of Gherkin tasters and some ‘Smaltz’ (seasoned pork fat) on delicious bread. It was so good, with crunchy bits and even Vernon who has not experienced this before loved it. I got to eat all the Gherkins by myself so that was a bonus I think, as about an hour later I had a slightly sore tummy for a bit so I might have eaten too much vinegar! Either that or the wicked horseradish in my roll kicked in.

It is a really beautiful place which both of us could live in – it reminded us of some canal homes in Holland, although they did not have an enchanting forest. The Spree river is shallow here (1-3 meteres) and winds through meadows and forests with 260km of navigational flow. It is the home of one of two minorities in Germany – the Sorbs which have Russian origins.

The people that live in the Forest have been doing it for generations and continue a similar lifestyle with small farms and still use punts and boats over cars (few roads linking the islands etc). Much farming is done without motorised machinery to this day.

As well as similar tourist boats we passed a lot of private kayakers as it is a popular spot for for this and biking holidays – much like a national park. I think it would be a lovely escape from urban life. In winter I think you can ice skate!

When we got back to shore a brass band had started up in the square and it was very funny to us to see a good sized group of middle aged to senior Germans up dancing. I say funny as they are such a serious lot that to see them up ‘tanzen” was odd – some even had smiles – some mind you! So there you go, how to get Germans happy; alcohol and brass band.

We caught the hourly train which would get us to the central station in Berlin with only 7 minutes spare to reach our pre booked access to the Bundestag. We had tried to change our booking but this was the only time in 4 days that was available. Feeling a little anxious because it was about 15 minute walk to the Bundestag from the station, we went anyway hoping they would still let us in. Luckily they did and we went through the very serious triple security checks to the ‘Dome’.

It is a really clever and appealing structure – built very green so that it uses heat retention, natural air venting (big hole in top like the pantheon) and on top of all of that you can look down at parliament sitting – the idea of transparency being important. It is free to go, but you have to book and have passports and can only do it at certain times and days depending on what else is going on. They provide a good audio guide which encompasses all sorts of information from the views to the structure and political history.

When we walked back to the Hauptbahnhof we spent about 20 minutes at least wandering around trying to find the U Bahn platform. Its HUGE and we got lost, fortunately a young skater man offered us help and we had to infact get an S bahn first then change to a U bahn. Confusing as they had U bahn signs near the S bahn, but no explanation. There you go another tip.

We really enjoyed that visit as well, a
nd finished the evening at a nice Vietnamese place close to home as it was after 9pm and the supermarket was shut (had hoped to self cater) …… Sunday of course!

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