We finished up our retreat in Spreewald yesterday, so I’m at last posting the pics I took with my real camera.
Friday night we paid a final visit to Schloss Lübbenau, built in the 19th century on the site of the family seat of one Count von Lynar or another since the 17th century. Most dramatically, it was home to Friedrich Wilhelm Graf von Lynar, a co-conspirator in one of the assassination plots against Hitler; he was executed in 1944, and his family only recently had the property restored to them after the fall of the Wall. It’s now a luxury hotel with a very nice park and orangerie and a clubby bar, where we had a drink before heading to a dinner of venison goulasch and kartoffelklöße (potato dumplings) at Restaurant Suez.
In the morning we elected for the slow route back to Berlin, which took us through Straupitz with its austere 18th century church and working Dutch-style windmill that still cranks out flaxseed oil (which Spreewalders think is very good for you and like to make lakes of in their quark), rye flour, and the occasional plank or two, when they get the 19th-century sawmill ginned up (2018 was the last time they did that). The blades on the windmill no longer turn; the whole thing has been electric since the 1920s. But, you can still tour the dizzying 5 levels of the mill tower and see the original ingenious design of the three wind-powered mills–plus watch a flaxseed-oil-pressing demonstration and taste a bit of the leftover seedcake if you like (sadly, I had to opt out due to a bizarre flaxseed intolerance I discovered a few years ago). Lunch was…what else? Boiled potatoes with quark, onions, pickles, and flaxseed oil (for those who can). I have to say I could eat a lot of potatoes and quark before I got tired of it.
Our final sehr Spreewälder moment was a pause to see what the line of cars by the side of the road was about. Turned out, this woman decorates her yard with literally thousands of eggs and bunnies every Easter and invites passers-by to give themselves a tour of it. She also collects random other things as well, like blue-enameled cookware, brown jugs, and watering cans. It’s the clearest example of a collecting compulsion I’ve ever seen, with the operating principle being that N+1 of something is clearly better than N of it. I really liked the blue enamelware….
The Rookery 