Strausberg is a lakeside town at the eastern edge of Berlin's commuter belt, and the last stop on one of the city's suburban railway lines. It is set on the Straussee, a long, narrow lake that bends through the middle of the old town, and its medieval centre keeps some stretches of town wall and a church, with a pleasant promenade on the waterfront. A little ferry in summer crosses the lake, a pleasant way to see the town from the water. Rehfelde, a smaller village nearby, and Petershagen add a few pretty corners.
The ride that finishes here is named after Rheinsberg, a lake-studded town about ninety kilometres to the north-west, in the Ruppin country. Rheinsberg is where the young Frederick the Great, then crown prince, spent some of the happiest years of his life in the 1730s, playing the flute, reading philosophy and writing letters to Voltaire. The pink palace on the lake is a lovely sight, and the writer Kurt Tucholsky made the town the setting of a light novel in 1912. Reaching it from Berlin means long roads through pine forest and lake country, with lines of old trees along the road.
The country around Strausberg is easy and quiet. Flat and rolling roads run through fields of rye and sunflowers, with lakes and forest glimpsed between the trees, and the Märkische Schweiz, a low hilly nature park with beech woods, begins a short ride to the north-east. Roads are generally smooth, with cobbled stretches in some villages and tree-lined avenues. Deer cross at dusk, and in summer, the roadside is bright with poppies and cornflowers.
Strausberg has about twenty-seven thousand people, and fuel, food and rooms are easy to find. The town has cafes by the lake, and a plate of smoked fish with a cold beer on the shore is a good ending. Traffic into Berlin is heavy at rush hour, so a late start suits the city better.