Why this ride
A one-way ride of 864 km, Lübbenau to Storkow - roughly 12 h 58 in the saddle. On the way it passes Burg Spreewald canal core, Straupitz windmill sight, Schwielochsee water stop and near Storkow. near Dahme is the high point.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Berlin · Spreewald Forest and Canal Sweep + Fläming Skate Villages and Forest
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 864 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 12 h 58
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Lübbenau fuel and food → Burg Spreewald canal core
21 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 20 km
Straupitz windmill sight → Schwielochsee water stop
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 24 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 23 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Lübbenau fuel and food
Lübbenau is the front door to the Spreewald, and the first thing it will tell you is that this is a landscape of water. The Spree breaks up here into hundreds of small channels, called Fließe, that wind between meadows and alder woods, and for centuries the only way to reach many farms was by flat-bottomed punt. Tourists still glide through on long wooden boats pushed with poles, and the postman used to deliver by boat in the old days.
Read the complete Lübbenau fuel and food write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lübbenau fuel and food is where the day begins. Next is Burg Spreewald canal core.
2. Burg Spreewald canal core
Burg is the heart of the Upper Spreewald and one of the most Sorbian places you will find in Brandenburg. The village, with about four and a half thousand people, goes by its Sorbian name, Borkowy, on bilingual signs, and the wooden houses with their carved gables and steeply thatched roofs stand beside canals that serve as streets. Here the water is the main road. Punts carry visitors between farms, and a surprising number of locals still keep their own boats.
Read the complete Burg Spreewald canal core write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Burg Spreewald canal core comes up 78 km in. Next is Straupitz windmill sight.
3. Straupitz windmill sight
The windmill at Straupitz is a Dutch-style tower mill, a plump, whitewashed thing with a turning cap and four long sails, standing at the edge of a Spreewald village that otherwise looks as if it belongs in an illustrated children's book. It is a working museum these days, and the sails creak in a good breeze. It is only part of the reason to stop. A few hundred metres away stands the village church, built in the 1820s and 1830s to a design of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a big, round-arched brick building with a surprising grandeur, sometimes called the cathedral of the Spreewald.
Read the complete Straupitz windmill sight write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
156 km in you reach Straupitz windmill sight. Next is Schwielochsee water stop.
4. Schwielochsee water stop
Schwielochsee is a broad, shallow lake south-east of Berlin, where the Spree widens out before continuing north, and it is among the larger natural lakes in Brandenburg. The shoreline is a mix of reeds, pine woods and small villages with sandy beaches, and the water is warm enough in summer for easy swimming. It is a lake for holidays rather than drama, and none the worse for that.
Read the complete Schwielochsee water stop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Schwielochsee water stop, early in the day. Next is Back to Lübbenau.
5. Back to Lübbenau
Lübbenau is the gateway to the Spreewald, and the first thing you notice is the quiet that comes from a town where half the traffic moves by punt. The Spree breaks into a lace of channels here, called Fließe, with flat-bottomed boats, the Kähne, gliding between banks of alder and willow, and the old harbour in the centre is the place where visitors board. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, farmers poled their vegetables and mail along these waterways, and some villages were only accessible by water. The rich soils grow cucumbers, horseradish and onions, and the gherkins have become a regional symbol.
Read the complete Lübbenau write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Back to Lübbenau. That is the ride. Next is Fläming Skate Villages and Forest.
6. Fuel stop near Storkow
Storkow's castle, rebuilt after years of decay, stands by a canal that links the Storkower See with the waterways towards Berlin and the Scharmützelsee. The town is small and quiet, with a church, a market square and a lock where boats wait to pass. It is a gateway to the Dahme-Heideseen nature park, a region of lakes, forests and heathland south-east of Berlin.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Storkow write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Fläming Skate Villages and Forest is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is High point near Dahme.
7. High point near Dahme
Dahme/Mark sits at the eastern end of the Fläming, where the low hills meet the lowlands of Lusatia, and its castle ruins and old town walls hint at a more important past. The town is small and quiet, with a church, a market square and a park around the ruins of the castle, which burned in the early twentieth century. The surrounding landscape is a mix of forests, fields and small villages, with gentle hills that offer views over the plain.
Read the complete High point near Dahme write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Brück.
8. Scenic stretch near Brück
The wet meadows west of Brück are one of the last places in Germany where the great bustard still lives. These heavy, turkey-sized birds, among the heaviest flying birds in the world, strut across the fields of the Belziger Landschaftswiesen, and conservationists have worked for decades to protect them, with observation towers where visitors can watch them display in spring. Even if you do not see one, the meadows, with their big skies and wide horizons, are worth a pause.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Brück write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Scenic stretch near Brück, about halfway. Next is Photo stop near Rhinow.
9. Photo stop near Rhinow
Human flight has a claim to begin in the hills above Rhinow. On the Gollenberg near Stölln, Otto Lilienthal made many of his glider flights in the 1890s, launching himself from the slope in his bat-winged contraptions, and it was here in 1896 that he crashed and died of his injuries. The hill is now a memorial and a popular site for paragliders, and in a nice twist, in 1989 a large Interflug Ilyushin airliner was landed on the grass airfield at its foot, where it now stands as a museum and wedding venue.
Read the complete Photo stop near Rhinow write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Photo stop near Rhinow sits at 623 km, about halfway. Next is Food stop near Gramzow.
10. Food stop near Gramzow
A ruined gable of red brick is all that remains of the church of the Premonstratensian monastery at Gramzow, founded in the twelfth century and one of the oldest in the Uckermark. It stands alone on a rise, framed by trees and sky, a striking reminder of the medieval colonisation of this land. The village around it is small and quiet, and it also houses a museum devoted to the small private railways that once crisscrossed the region.
Read the complete Food stop near Gramzow write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Food stop near Gramzow is where this day stops to eat. Next is Berlin motorcycle escapes return.
11. Near Widuchowa, on the way back
This is the Lower Oder Valley National Park, the only floodplain national park in Germany, and one of the wildest corners of the country. In spring the river floods the meadows, turning them into a shallow, glittering lake, and the dykes become islands. Birds arrive in huge numbers: cranes, geese, white-tailed eagles, black storks and corncrakes, whose rasping call is heard on summer nights, and beavers have returned to the channels.
Read the complete Berlin motorcycle escapes write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
779 km in you reach Berlin motorcycle escapes return. Next is Fläming Skate Villages and Forest checkpoint 8.
12. Zehlendorf
Before it was a motorway, the A115 that runs past Zehlendorf was the AVUS, a dead-straight test and racing road opened in 1921, where Mercedes and Auto Union raced in the 1930s on a steeply banked curve that terrified drivers. The banking is gone, and the road is just a busy stretch of the Berlin motorway network, but its history adds a little spice to finishing a ride here.
Read the complete Zehlendorf write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 935 km. Next is Back to Fläming Skate.
13. Back to Fläming Skate
Storkow is a small town on a lake in the Dahme-Seenland, south-east of Berlin, with a castle at its heart. Burg Storkow, a medieval fortress first recorded in the thirteenth century and rebuilt over time, stands beside the water, with towers and a gate, and the old town around it is a neat cluster of brick houses and a church. The Storkower See, with reeds and a swimming beach, lies right beside, and to the south, the huge lake called Scharmützelsee, the second-largest in the region, is only a few kilometres away.
Read the complete Fläming Skate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back to Fläming Skate closes the day.
Leg by leg
Lübbenau fuel and food to Burg Spreewald canal core
Lübbenau fuel and food → Burg Spreewald canal core is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Burg Spreewald canal core to Straupitz windmill sight
Burg Spreewald canal core → Straupitz windmill sight is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Straupitz windmill sight to Schwielochsee water stop
Straupitz windmill sight → Schwielochsee water stop is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schwielochsee water stop to Back to Lübbenau
Schwielochsee water stop → Back to Lübbenau is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Lübbenau to Fuel stop near Storkow
Back to Lübbenau → Fuel stop near Storkow is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop near Storkow to High point near Dahme
Fuel stop near Storkow → High point near Dahme is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Dahme to Scenic stretch near Brück
High point near Dahme → Scenic stretch near Brück is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Brück to Photo stop near Rhinow
Scenic stretch near Brück → Photo stop near Rhinow is 104 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Photo stop near Rhinow to Food stop near Gramzow
Photo stop near Rhinow → Food stop near Gramzow is 196 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Gramzow to Near Widuchowa, on the way back
Food stop near Gramzow → Near Widuchowa, on the way back is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.