Buch, on the far northern edge of Berlin, is a district shaped by medicine. In the early twentieth century, the city architect Ludwig Hoffmann built a series of large hospital complexes here, in a park-like setting outside the crowded city, and Buch has been a centre of hospitals and medical research ever since. Today it is home to the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and a cluster of biotech companies, as well as a large hospital campus, and the old Hoffmann buildings, with their red-brick and stone façades, are still impressive.
Around the institutes, Buch has a surprisingly rural feel, with forests, fields and lakes stretching north into Brandenburg. The Bucher Forst is a large wooded area crossed by walking and cycling paths, and the Karower Teiche, a series of ponds, are a nature reserve, home to many birds. The Panke, a small river, flows south from here through the city to the Spree. In the old village centre, a Baroque church stands next to the park of a castle that was demolished in the 1960s.
As a finish point for rides back from Lusatia, with its lakes formed from old open-cast mines and its strange, scarred landscapes, Buch offers a quiet end to the day. The ride back into Berlin from the south and east involves crossing the city or using the motorway ring, and weekday evenings are the slowest time to try it. Once in the northern suburbs, the roads become quieter, lined with trees and houses.
There are fuel stations and supermarkets in Buch and the neighbouring districts, and a few restaurants and cafés. The Barnim plateau to the north, with its forests and lakes, is a pleasant area for short rides, with quiet roads and cobbled villages. Berlin's weather is continental, with warm summers and cold winters, and the north-east of the city often feels a little breezier and cooler than the centre.