Buckow tends to be remembered for one house. In 1952 the playwright Bertolt Brecht and the actress Helene Weigel acquired a modest villa on the shore of the Schermützelsee, with a garden running down to the water, and used it as a summer retreat until Brecht's death in 1956. It is now a small museum, set among old trees, and the rooms keep a sense of the plain, slightly austere taste of its owners. Brecht wrote the Buckow Elegies here, short poems of great simplicity, looking at the lake and the trees.
The town is a small resort in the Märkische Schweiz nature park, with sixteen hundred residents and an old-fashioned air. Villas from the late nineteenth century line the roads, built when Berliners began to treat the lake and its hills as their own Swiss holiday. There is a spa park, a clutch of cafes and a boardwalk along part of the shore. In summer, the town fills up with visitors, and the smell of grilled sausages and smoked fish drifts through the streets.
The lake itself is the draw for swimming and walking, and you can circle it on foot in a few hours. The woods on the slopes are mostly beech, with oak and pine on the drier ground, and in spring the forest floor is covered with wood anemones. Buckow's position in a hollow between wooded hills makes it feel sheltered, and the air is noticeably fresher than in Berlin.
Riding into Buckow from the west gives you a descent through the beech woods, with the lake appearing suddenly between the trees. Roads are generally good, with some tight bends and occasional patches of gravel or leaves. Fuel is in Müncheberg, eight kilometres away, and should be bought before you arrive. In the town, a handful of bakeries and cafes provide the basics.
Early mornings and weekdays are quiet, and the lake is a mirror. It is a pleasant place for a slow lunch and a swim, and a reminder that even a modest landscape can inspire a lot of poetry.