It's Sunday September 25th, a lovely Indian summer day with sunshine and a gentle breeze. I had planned leftover sloppy joes tonight for dinner, but discovered at lunchtime that Haley and the babysitter, plus an unexpected neighbor guest, had eaten all but one of the hamburger buns last night. In Germany almost everything is closed on Sundays, including grocery stores. But there is a bakery near us that opens on Sundays, so I sent Haley there to buy some rolls. She returned a little while later to say that they had no bread of any kind, only pastries. Hmmmm, time for plan B.
Enter Google maps. I love Google maps. I don't know how anyone can live without the information it provides. I typed "bakery" to get a list of bakeries near me. I knew there was one in the middle of Zehlendorf (our area of town), but I wasn't sure how long it would be open today. Lovely Google brought up a list of bakeries in a 5km radius, and showed me whether and for how long each one was open today. It turns out there was a French bakery open today, 3km away in a part of town I have driven by many times but never stopped in. I decided to ride my bike there to buy rolls.
After clicking the bakery, Google maps gave me directions. The straightest path is one I know well and have driven and biked over and over - past the John F Kennedy School, through the center of Zehlendorf with all its shops, and up to the corner of a major road, turn right and the bakery is a little way down. This route is boring since I know it by heart, and it's always crowded with cars and pedestrians. I decided to take one of the alternate routes that was marked as a few minutes slower.
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| The path between the kleingartens |
What a treat! I followed roads I knew for the first few minutes but then was directed to turn off onto a small path that I had never noticed before because it's only for foot and bicycle traffic. This path runs in between kleingartens (small gardens) on both sides. Since many Berliners don't have their own yard, many of them rent space in an area that consists just of gardens. You can rent your own plot and do whatever you want with it: plant a vegetable garden, grow flowers, furnish it with outdoor furniture, keep a trampoline or small pool there, or some combination of all the above. As I biked on the garden path I got to enjoy everyone's late summer/early fall flowers. I saw almost-ripe apples on apple trees, people lazily reading on their lawn chairs, and others busily at work in the garden. The garden pathway led to a large open space with grass and trees and dappled sunshine. I rode through this and then came to an S-bahn station. The path led under the overpass past walls covered in typical graffiti. It then followed the train tracks for a little ways until it came to a large pedestrian walkway, painted bright green and covered with graffiti, that spiraled up and over the train tracks and then back down the other side. Once across I passed some quiet apartment buildings with their windows tilted open to enjoy the fresh fall air, before finally reaching the busy street where the bakery is.
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| By the apartments |
I'm so glad I discovered the existence of this lovely path! It's so fun to be surprised to find something new in a place you thought you knew well. And the whole thing was so typically
Berlin - the kleingartens, the dirt path, the cobblestone streets I crossed over, the minimalism of the wooded park, the abandoned buildings by the S-bahn station, the graffiti on every manmade structure. It's not necessarily beautiful by American standards, but there's a charm to it that I appreciate.
When I got to the bakery I celebrated by buying some apricot streusel and a bottle of Bordeaux in addition to the rolls. Then I stopped at a roadside produce stand and bought strawberries and a carton of Bio eggs. It felt very
local. And then I returned the way I came.
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| The spiral ramp to the pedestrian crossing |
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| Sunflowers in a kleingarten |
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| No shadows on a cloudy day, so shadow = sun! |
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| Dappled sun and woods on the way home |
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My haul! Not the greatest photo because I couldn't be bothered
to stage the picture somewhere where the bright sunlight
through the windows wouldn't blow out the exposure. But
you get the idea. |
