Siedlung Schillerpark is a block of red-brick housing in Berlin's Wedding district, and it is easy to ride straight past without grasping what it is. It was designed by Bruno Taut, one of the great figures of German modernism, and built in the later 1920s as the first of the new housing estates that Berlin's reform-minded councils and cooperatives raised to give working families light, air and a balcony. Today it sits among the six Berlin Modernism Housing Estates on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It is modest in scale, with long brick walls, rounded corners, small balconies and clear colour, and its calm is the point.
The estate takes its name from the Schillerpark next door, a green square of old trees and lawns, named after the poet Friedrich Schiller. Wedding itself is a district with a working-class history, once a heartland of the German left, and still lively, multicultural and a bit rough around the edges, with a food scene that ranges from currywurst to Turkish bakeries. It is a good place for a quick lunch, and the nearby streets are full of the sort of cafes where nobody will mind boots and a helmet.
Riding in Berlin is mostly about patience. The roads are wide, but traffic and tram tracks demand attention, especially in wet weather when the rails get slick. Cobbled sections are still around in the older streets. Berlin is a city of cyclists, and bike lanes sometimes appear without warning at the edge of your lane. Parking a motorbike is easy and often free on the pavement edges, as long as you leave room for pedestrians. Fuel is no problem anywhere in the city.
Allow time to walk around the buildings rather than just look from the saddle. The details are in the stairwells, the doors and the colour accents, which Taut chose with care. This is one of those places where the idea matters more than the monument: decent homes, for ordinary people, done beautifully.