The Elbe-Elster district, in the far south of Brandenburg, is a quiet, sparsely populated land of forests, heath, farmland and small towns, between the Elbe and the Black Elster rivers. Schlieben, a small town on a low hill, stands in the middle of this landscape, and the countryside near it is a place to pause on the way back towards Berlin, especially on a hot day.
To the east lies the former lignite mining area of Lusatia, where decades of open-cast mining left vast craters that are now being flooded to create new lakes. At Lichterfeld, near Finsterwalde, the Bergheider See was formed from one of these mines, and on its shore stands the F60, a gigantic overburden conveyor bridge, more than five hundred metres long, which has been preserved as a visitor attraction and is sometimes called the lying Eiffel Tower. The lake has bathing spots, and the contrast between the clean water and the massive steel structure is surreal. Other former mining lakes in the area have also been opened for swimming, though some are still off-limits because the banks are unstable, so always obey the signs.
To the south-west, Doberlug-Kirchhain has a Cistercian monastery church founded in the twelfth century and a Renaissance castle, both beautifully restored, and they make a worthwhile stop if you have time. The forests around Schlieben are mostly pine, on sandy soils, with heathland in places, and they smell of resin in the heat.
The roads here are quiet and flat to gently rolling, often lined with trees, with long, straight stretches through the forests and cobbled sections in some villages. Schlieben itself is small, so services are limited; fuel and supermarkets are easier to find in Doberlug-Kirchhain, Herzberg or Finsterwalde. The ride back to Berlin is long but easy, through the forests of the Dahme-Spreewald region, with little traffic outside the main roads.