Siedlung Schillerpark and Serrahn starting at Reinickendorf

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Siedlung Schillerpark

   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.

   Read the complete Siedlung Schillerpark write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Siedlung Schillerpark is where the day begins. Next is Grumsin.

2. 2. Grumsin

   North-east of Berlin, the last ice age left behind a landscape of hills, hollows and lakes, shaped by glaciers that advanced and melted back again. In one corner of it, between Angermünde and Joachimsthal, lies the Grumsin forest, a beech wood that has been left largely undisturbed for a long time. It is part of the UNESCO site of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, inscribed as one of Germany's contributions in 2011. Old beeches tower above a forest floor scattered with fallen trunks, small ponds and bogs, and in spring the canopy glows a fresh, translucent green.

   Read the complete Grumsin write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Grumsin comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Serrahn.

3. 3. Serrahn

   Between the lakes of Mecklenburg, north of Berlin, a pocket of old beech forest has been left to grow for the better part of a century, and it is now one of the most unusual places in Germany. Serrahn is a part of the Müritz National Park, a few kilometres from Carpin, and its beeches were once part of a ducal hunting reserve that was protected from logging, so some trees are two hundred years old and more. The Serrahn woods are part of the UNESCO listing of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a serial site that protects the finest remaining beech forests, from Ukraine and Slovakia to Germany, Spain and Italy.

   Read the complete Serrahn write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 173 km into the recorded legs you reach Serrahn. Next is back through Grumsin.

4. 4. back through Grumsin

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Grumsin write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Grumsin, late in the day. Next is Siedlung Schillerpark.

5. 5. Siedlung Schillerpark

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Siedlung Schillerpark write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Siedlung Schillerpark. That is the ride.