Schlachtensee, Krume Lanke and the lakes along the east side of Grunewald have been my favourite walks around Berlin since soon after I first came here. There not so long ago with Gala and again with Dy, I discovered new parts; further west but still bounded in that direction by the S-Bahn and highway.
Rainy, cold, grey and peopleless, today was a typically perfect day for me to go further that way, cross over the dividing rails to see what the great body of Grunewald might have. My method of navigation, which often I find eerily accurate in a I’m-not-paying-attention kind of way, still got me going in an approximately desired direction as opposed to mired in a hopeless gyre; in this case mostly south-ish with west-ish tendencies.
It is mushroom season and the last few warm days met at their end with today’s rain found the forest erupting from all damp, moist, earthy orifices in a beautiful diversity of fungi. I was hoping the path I planned to wander wouldn’t be either too occupied by others nor too obviously a path, so I could feel at least a little as though I wasn’t surrounded by a city and it’s periphery. Lucky then my crypto-navigation also is accompanied by, “That path is sort-of in the direction I think I am to go, furthermore it is small, mostly overgrown and unused. Also wet. Perfect!”
After some time where I felt much the same as I did on my cold and wet circumnavigation of Lainzer Tiergarten in Wien, I found myself on a small bluff overlooking Havelsee. Much walking later, now thinking I needed to continue south-ish but east-ish also, I fell out at the furthest south-east corner possible, by S-Bahn Nicolaisee; just where I’d hoped.
Some photos of mushrooms and trees…
