It's been fairly hot in the last week. While Berlin has trees planted along many of the streets for shading, after a while, the stones of the buildings heat up and air conditioning is not usually found in apartments, and not even all that common in shops.
A trip to a green oasis with expanses of water seemed in order. While our visiting friends took the easy way out and went to Hamburg for the weekend, I decided on a bike ride to Britzer Garten in the southeast of Berlin.
The park is only 30 years old and was put in for the Bundesgartenschau in 1985. Bundesgartenschau is a horticulture show that happens in a different city or region in Germany every two years. It's always outside, with a focus both on traditional flower beds and garden design and more innovative approaches.
The city or region ends up with lots of visitors, and, after the show, a large park that's been spiffed up and will look better for years to come.
The artificial lake in Britzer Garten now seems as if it's always been here, stocked with carp and other fish and covered with beautiful waterlillies.
I participated in a bird walk of the waterfowl of the park and learned a bit about the many different species of birds - not only waterfowl - that live in the park. Our guide told us of woodpeckers (3 kinds), raptors, owls, and many songbirds. Interestingly, he said that the gardens of the surrounding area - which consists of suburban-style single family homes and small weekend homes in large gardens (Schrebergarten) - contribute as much to bird habitat as the park itself. Some birds like to nest in high trees, while many prefer medium trees, and of course the fruit trees and vegetable gardens are a favorite hangout for birds and rodents (which become raptor food).
After the bird walk I visited the different formal and informal gardens. I liked the combination of carefully manicured rose-and-salvia garden on the one side...
...and wildflower garden with grasses on the other.
Shady areas were planted with ferns, heuchera, and Japanese anemone.
And several of the buildings and shade structures featured a green roof. I saw many families with picnics, parents and grandparents sitting in the shade, kids running around or riding their small bikes and trikes, other families on their ways to a large playground. This makes the park all-inclusive of all ages - a great place to learn about birds, enjoy the beauty of garden plantings, go for a run, or play. Bikes are not allowed in the park in summer except for small kids bikes, which makes sense though it took me a half hour to walk the 2 km from one end to the other.
After a large juice and a tasty Brezel, I took one more photo and hopped on my bike for the long way home, pondering why the suburban areas in the bay area don't feature parks like this. What would it be like if instead of playing fields with lights we had tall trees and a lake? If kids ran around and explored a playground instead of being groomed to win?
Sounds delightful. Paignton has nice parks, very traditional, with lawns for dog walkers to let their dogs fetch balls etc, and small toy boat ponds (sans the toy boats) and playwark areas - as well as some untraditional components like skateboard ramps and so on. They're very well used and quite taken for granted, as they were in my day too. I go through one to get to the shops for groceries etc here and so do many others. Yet as you say we just don't have that kind of thing in Silicon Valley!
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