Field-Trip Fridays (actually Saturday and Sunday): Spreewald

My friend and colleague here Birgit had a delayed 50th-birthday celebration with a group of friends out in the Spreewald (delayed because she got omicron right before her birthday! She was boosted and thus had a typically mild infection, but of course she was terribly disappointed). The Spreewald is a marshy oak, alder, and birch forest that grows in and around the source of the Spree River. Enterprising Zorbish/Wendish inhabitants drained the marsh in the 18th and 19th centuries by building a network of canals that allowed them to build small crofts on what are essentially islands. Today, the Spreewald, particularly Lübbenau, is a destination for Berliners seeking a weekend of canoeing or biking through peaceful groves past fairytale cottages and then stopping off for a beer or cucumber schnapps and pickles (in fine German style, there is even a pickle museum).

It was still winter, so the boat companies weren’t renting, but we had a lovely time hiking around the paths, visiting the Freilands Museum with its collection of traditional farm buildings, and eating delicious local food, including pickles of various kinds (of course) but also wild game, fresh-water fish, whole-grain bread spread with schmaltz and cracklings, pflins (which are like thick, yeasted crepes), and quarkkeulchen, which are delightful little farmer-cheese beignets. Birgit and I are headed back there for a retreat at the end of March, so I’ll post more pictures of the boats and the food next time (I forgot my charging cable for my phone, so I didn’t get too many pics).