Well, I guess falling behind on the blog was inevitable, but it has got a bit out of control at this point – sorry loyal readers! I’ll make up for it with two posts in the next week (I hope). So, let’s first journey back to almost a month ago, and our stay at the remarkable…
Frei Feldlage
Shortly after staying at Kanthaus (read post #9 to find out what a Kanthaus is) one of the Kanthaus members we had made friends with invited us to join their family at a woodcutting week at a sister community project. We thought about it for a while during our Italian travels, and made a fairly last minute decision to take them up on the offer. So, away we went on a roughly 23 hour bus and train travel marathon back from Florence, Italy to Harzgerode, Germany, on a mission to cut firewood. Yup, we’re crazy. Turns out, trying to sleep on a bus is pretty miserable, but we made it in one piece and on arrival found our beds and promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours.
Frei Feldlage is a truly unique community/alternative living project. Some 15 permanent residents currently live in what is a former hospital for children with lung disease, set in the beautiful Harz mountains of central Germany. The hospital was built around 1930, and for many years children with tuberculosis and the like were sent there for fresh air, strict health regimes and at times apparently rather problematic, experimental surgeries. Today, it is in various states of renovation, with some areas still totally abandoned and looking like an apocalypse film setting, and other areas hosting a total of 3 different shared flats, which are surprisingly homely given how impersonal hospitals generally feel. As it is a heritage site, only minimal changes can be made to the buildings and acres of surrounding fields and forest. All members of the community come together to make decisions, host gatherings (they have accommodation space for 20+ people) and to run the complex. One of the most critical components is heating – as a massive, old building, it gets pretty cold unless the heating is on. And the heating is entirely powered by… a wood-burning furnace. Which brings us to firewood. Every year, Frei Feldlage goes through a staggering amount of wood, so they rope in residents, relatives and friends to cut as much firewood as they can twice a year.
We spent 5 days getting to know both the residents and the other woodcutting volunteers, exploring the MASSIVE old hospital, and having a surprisingly good time cutting, splitting and stacking firewood. Thankfully, my knee held up well, though everything else got pretty sore! Luckily, the hospital’s old sauna was booted up a few times, which helped with recovery, and there was plenty of great vegetarian food made by volunteers each day to keep us full.
We hung around for a few extra days after wood week ended along with a few other guests, and had a great time relaxing and recovering, hanging out with the residents, hiking in the forest, and even trying tapping a birch tree (birch sap/juice is apparently very good for you – tastes like slightly sweet water). We hope to return there some day – we made some great friends, and got another interesting insight into how alternative ways of living together can work, and work well.
Berlin
Next stop was Berlin. A week and a half in Berlin was amazing, but still not enough to experience this city in full! It has so many different areas, different types of people and different experiences. We stayed in the “Sunflower Hostel” for the first part of our visit before moving to an AirBnb later on. Sunflower was a hostel that was extremely cheap… and turned out to be in the party district. This meant it was a lively and at times dodgy hotel (we heard of 3 stolen phones and a stolen wallet while we were there), Despite this, we met another couple of Aussies and an Irishman who were in the same room as us and quickly made friends, and we spent a great few days exploring the city. So what did we see?
Brandenburg Gate and Tierpark:
These were stereotypical tourist sites, but well worth a visit. It was surreal to ride a e-scooter under the Brandenburg Gate, and the Tierpark is such a beautiful space right in the city. We also made it to a small lake set in parklands on the outskirts of the city called Krumme Lanke during our visit – another beautiful green space where we saw our first squirrels!
Berghain (or not):
One of our new Australian backpacker friends was desperate to get into Berghain – one of Europe (and indeed the world’s) most well known nightclubs. It is notoriously hard to get into, with a strict, but largely unwritten dress code, but she had planned her outfit and entry strategy, and after a couple of drinks we all decided to line up with her to give her company and for a laugh (the rest of us were very much wearing casual clothes that were not Berghain-ready). It also happened to be International Women’s Day, so when we saw 2 lines next to each other, one largely made up of women and one exclusively men, we assumed that there was a priority lane for women, and most of us made our way to the men’s line. It was only after standing in the line of men for several minutes and getting many weird looks that we began to wonder if something wasn’t quite right… someone eventually took pity on us, and told us that we were in fact in line for a gay sex club that happens to be next door to Berghain! We quickly made our way to the correct line, and unsurpringly all of us were rejected, bar our well-prepared friend. We were just happy to have ended up in the right line, and quickly headed back to the hostel bar to laugh at ourselves. As for our friend? She came in to the hostel at 8am the next morning – had a good night by all accounts!
East Side Gallery:
The East Side Gallery is a portion of the Berlin Wall that was left standing after reunification, and features iconic pieces of street art that have made it a popular tourist spot today. We really enjoyed the variety of street art that was on display (when there weren’t influencers pouting their lips and sticking their butts out in front of the artwork for their Instagram accounts- it really is a strange world). The post-WW2 East/West Berlin divide and the impacts that it had on the people and the city was front and centre during our time in Berlin – we also made it to Checkpoint Charlie, one of the main crossing points between East and West Berlin, as well as…
The DDR Museum:
This fantastic museum was definitely one of the highlights of our visit – through really interactive exhibits and digestible accompanying information, it gives a great insight into what it was like to live under Communism in East Berlin and across East Germany more broadly. The thing that always fascinates me about East/West Berlin and the fall of the Berlin Wall is that it is such recent history – and that so many ordinary people were responsible for reunification in the face of potentially deadly consequences.
Templehof:
I visited this park on a whim on a spare afternoon while bike riding around Berlin. A former airport, it is now a huge park in the inner suburbs, and it has well and truly been adopted by the locals. There were people everywhere there – rollerblading, biking, even kite-skating – or just hanging out with friends. A really cool and quirky spot, that seemed to epitomise Berlin! It was certainly a unique experience to ride a bike down a runway.
Schokoladen:
Later in our visit, we met up with one of our new backpacker friends (who is actually moving to Berlin so also stayed longer) and decided to experience some of Berlin’s legendary music scene. We went to a bar called Schokoladen that had good reviews, and got the last 3 available tickets for the nights show. Two fantastic, quirky alternative rock bands played, and it definitely felt like an authentically Berlin experience.
In terms of cities I could live in, Berlin is probably the favourite from this trip. It has so many different aspects, fantastic green spaces, and great public transport and bike options.
Hamburg
On a whim, we decided to head to Hamburg after Berlin for a few days as we had heard great things from other travellers.
I started the visit off with a jog, which was great as it a) proved my knee is improving by the day and b) gave me a great opportunity to see Hamburg. I’m now trying to get a jog in when we first visit each city… weather dependent. Hamburg is much more modern than many other German cities (was decimated in WW2) which in this case meant that much of the city areas felt a little soulless. Despite this we found some beautiful areas, especially by the water (Hamburg being a port city). We spent plenty of time walking around the many beautiful parks and riverside areas – we definitely got our step count up whilst in Hamburg. We also caught up with a backpacker who we had first met in Prague way back over Christmas time – he lives in Hamburg, and we spent a great evening in the bars of Hamburg playing pool and catching up. Dinner was fish every night for us – what else would you expect in a port city?
So, it looks like we’re finally done with Germany on this trip (though I still would really love to get to Freiburg – so maybe we will sneak back in…). Next post will be all about our adventures in Netherlands, where we find ourselves currently. Wild to think we have been travelling for over 100 days now – time flies!
Next Stops: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels