Adventures beyond the front door
In the car park at Heimbach, as the river waters ran fast beneath the castle walls, we peered through the windscreen as the rain beat down on the car and puddles formed where the asphalt had been misshapen by time and the long reach of thick tree roots beneath the surface. We had known, before… Continue reading Walking in the rain – Heimbach, Eifel
Even paths we have walked many times can be made anew. The walk was a familiar one, out from our little yellow house on the edge of a Brandenburg village, following a rutted, sandy trail where the houses meet the fields to the water tower. From there, we would walk the track along the forest,… Continue reading Miles to go before we sleep – Fläming in the snow
From the top of the Wilseder Berg, the highest point of the Lüneburg Heath (Lüneburger Heide), we looked out across the rolling landscape that has long been a draw to visitors of northern Germany that has long been an attraction for visitors – and especially nature lovers. Unfortunately it was too early in the summer… Continue reading Rolling country – the Lüneburg Heath by bike
The new year begins as the leaves begin to turn, and those last warm summer evenings switch to an autumn chill, the smell of wood stoves in the village or small bonfires in the allotments of the city. We call it a new year because autumn is a time of beginnings as well as the… Continue reading Walking in Autumn – Berlin & Brandenburg
We had arrived in Bochum to visit friends, approaching this city in the industrial heartland of Germany known as the Ruhrgebiet in torrential summer rain. Somehow it fit the city that we explored that afternoon on foot – a no-nonsense, postwar urban landscape similar to many of the towns that were heavily bombed during World… Continue reading Riding the rails – the Erzbahntrasse, Bochum
The metal staircase starts at the bottom of the tower, and with each step we were climbing ever closer to the top of the trees. We were in the grounds of the old Beelitz Heilstätten, a sanatorium set among the pine forests south of Berlin. Looking up we could see the walkway stretching out from… Continue reading Above the treetops – the Beelitz Sanatorium
It was Friday evening when we caught the train from Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof. Two dads, two daughters, heading south beyond Dresden and towards the Czech border, climbing down from the train in darkness on the banks of the Elbe. Across the river from the station, the lights of Bad Schandau shone against the dark hills that… Continue reading A place like no other – the Schrammsteine of Saxon Switzerland
From the street, which runs in a straight line through the Jungfernheide forest in the north of Berlin, circling around the old Tegel airfield, it is a short walk through the trees to the lake. The path, which follows the water’s edge from the Greenwich Promenade south towards Saatwinkel and Spandau, passes by sailing and… Continue reading Our lake – Tegel, Berlin
The ferry had been sailing for more than an hour before the island came into sight. Ever since we’d left the harbour at Stralsund we’d been looking out for it. We knew it was there, across the straits and between the headlands of Rügen island on one side and the mainland of Germany on the… Continue reading Out of Sight – Hiddensee
It was a moment last summer, when the calendar clicked over to 20 months since our last trip to the sea, that we finally snapped. We had stood on the Baltic shore in the December before the pandemic struck, and for more than fifteen years before that we had managed to make it north at… Continue reading Escape to the seaside – Warnemünde
The Winding Trail 