South of Lieberose, a wide expanse of open sand and heath stretches away under the sky, so bare in places that it has been nicknamed the Lieberose desert. For decades, this was a Soviet military training area, where tanks churned the ground and fires burned the forest. After the troops left in the 1990s, the land was left to nature, and it has become a refuge for wildlife, including wolves, which returned to Germany around the turn of the millennium and have established packs in the region.
The area has a darker history too. At Jamlitz, near Lieberose, a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp held thousands of Jewish prisoners in the last years of the war, many of whom were murdered or died in the camp. After the war, the Soviets used the site as a special camp for prisoners. A memorial and a small exhibition remember the victims.
Lieberose itself is a small town with a castle and a ruined church, set in a landscape of forests, heaths and lakes on the edge of the Spreewald. The riding here is relaxed and quiet, with long straight roads through the forests and gentle curves through the villages. Traffic is very light, and the landscape is wild and empty. Sand drifts onto the asphalt where forest meets field, deer and boar keep their own timetable, and village cobbles get greasy in the wet. Some areas of the former training ground remain closed due to unexploded munitions, so stick to the marked roads.
Lieberose has next to nothing for travellers; fuel, groceries and restaurants wait in Lübben, Beeskow or Cottbus. Lübben, at the edge of the Spreewald, is a good place for lunch, with its canals and boats. The Dahme lakes lie to the west, with forests and quiet roads.