A chirpy weekend in BERLIN
Flying east from London, for a weekend in Berlin, the solacing chirping of sparrows in the leafy trees outside my room woke me each morning from my slumbers. By contrast, at home in London, I wake to the squawking of parakeets.
Bird song – not squawking – soothes the nerves, and rekindles the spirits, together with all things that we erroneously associate with nature: from trees and flowers to rivers and lakes. I say ‘erroneously’ as we humans are also part of nature: we are not separate from nature.
Streets lined with trees + the woods of Charlottenburg
Let’s get back to Berlin. London may have bigger parks than most cities in Europe, but Berlin’s streets form refreshing green corridors of shady trees in spring and summer.
Over my weekend in Berlin in June, I stayed first in Charlottenburg, noted in my grandfather’s diaries of 1911 as the richest town in the kingdom of Prussia, and then in Prenzlauer Berg, a now gentrified district of former East Berlin.
In both districts, the sparrows chirped from sunrise to sunset. They were cheeky sparrows. One attempted to pick at my berry-topped cheesecake while I sat on the terrace of a café, and another was waiting at my feet for the crumbs of my sandwich to fall as I sat on a bench.
But it was the trees that really struck my eye, my heart and my spirits: the rows of upright , conical limes and arching plane trees, reclaiming the city space from the car, of which there are not so many in Berlin compared with London.
My ‘tree’ experiences in Berlin also included an excursion not to Tiergarten, Berlin’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park, but to the gardens of Charlottenburg Palace, a short S-bahn distance from the city centre.
After soaking in some reflective time by the fountain, the central point among the Baroque parterres, I strolled through the palace’s deep woods that run along the river Spree, following the paths and trodden tracks.
I turned on my birdsong app, it flashed up ‘blackbird’ … ‘robin’ … ‘blackcap’. Not a sparrow to be heard. Sparrows seem to prefer the street life.
Pocket gardens – food for the sparrows
The dearth of sparrows in London is explained by the lack of biodiversity and food for them to eat – seeds, insects, dropped crumbs.
In Berlin, in Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg, districts largely saved from the heart-wrenchingly destructive bombing of the Second World War, I stumbled across plenty of patches of garden in front of the characteristic five-or-so-storey buildings.
These small bursts of nature offered thickets of greenery and mats of interwoven annuals and perennials – red poppies, blue nigella, green grasses, pink roses – that someone, at some time, had planted, or that were growing from whatever seeds the wind had brought or the birds had dropped. There was plenty of sparrow food here.
A region of thousands of lakes
When it comes to waterways, Berlin-Brandenburg, the name for the city and the surrounding region, is home to thousands of lakes, many of which you can swim in.
Being short on time – and neither was June 2024 that warm – I chose instead to swim at Hotel Oderberger, the reincanation of the Neo-Renaissance public baths in Prenzlauer Berg, which first opened in 1902 to cater for the expanding local population.
So no it was not a swim in nature, but instead a swim among the carved stonework, arched windows and art deco-style lighting that paid reverence to my strokes. An experience not to be missed.
Here are some other places in Berlin that served to calm my cortisol and lift my spirits:
Savours from the garden at Otto
A ‘small and lively neighbourhood restaurant’, next to Hotel Oderberger, specialising in local produce and inspired by Japanese cuisine.
Most of the ingredients at Otto come from the UNESCO-protected biosphere reserve of Schorfheide, north of Berlin, and from the restaurant’s small garden in Buchholz, on the way to Hamburg.
What I ate at Otto – over two evenings – and served with house sourdough bread with koji butter:
- Venison tartar, rhubarb, pepperwort
- Beetroot, sloed, labneh, brown butter
- Whole brook trout, wild herbs, garum
- Kohlrabi, gooseberries, asparagus, anchovy
- Erdhof feta (from an organic farm a couple of hours’ drive north of Berlin), sugar snaps, lovage
For a more casual dining experience, and a greater chance of getting a table, Otto’s sister restaurant Trio is a 20-minute walk away.
Here I sat at the bar and ordered a fennel salad and venison & veal croquettes.
A Bonanza of coffee
My favourite coffee hangout was Bonanza, which has four outlets across Berlin. I went to the one near the Hotel Oderberger, with seating inside and out, and plenty of planters to soften the landscape.
The best americano ever. A friendly crowd. And my take-home gifts – bags of coffee.
Albatross Bakery in Kreuzberg
A Bäckerai in trendy Kreuzberg, a district favoured by digital nomads priced out of Prenzlauer Berg.
I went for a House Ricotta Sandwich with parsley pesto, buffalo ricotta, lemon courgette, pistachios and mint. The Queen A caramelised croissant with sea salt was also tempting.
For a more traditional, German-style bakery, the popular chain Zeit für Bröt does great wholemeal bread sandwiches and vegan Schnecken, the German answer to Denmark’s cinnamon buns.
Natural wine at Jaja in Neukölln
To accompany a couple of small plates of food, I went a bit ‘wild’ with the wine … a glass of Wild Things 2022, a riesling by Soma Wines in Eckelsheim, Frankfurt …followed by … Wilde Meute 2022, an orange wine by 2Naturkinder in Bavaria (grapes Bacchus, Silvaner, Muller Thurgau).
At €9 a glass, and wines that cannot be found behind the tangle of Brexit tape, unless at an extortionate price, I could have gone for a third, but I like to keep my bearings when travelling.
Pralines at Pars
Pars is a restaurant in Charlottenburg with a large communal table, open only in the evening. During the day it’s a praline chocolate shop. A very stylish chocolate shop.
While the kitchen was busy preparing dinner, I sampled four of their handmade pralines, sitting at the small bar by the window: pralines flavoured with miso, rhubarb, elderflower and woodruff.
The four set me back €22, but not once did I shudder over the price, for such a sublime experience.
And on the shelf above me was a bottle of one of my favourite champagnes, L’Apôtre (the Apostle) by David Léclapart (see my post on Champagne), and there were trees in the street outside, although I was too engrossed in my tasting to notice any sound of chirping sparrows.
About the blog
‘A Conscious Way to Travel’ was born out of my frustration in finding magical places when I travelled. This is despite the plethora of guide books, magazines reviews and the world wide web.
The word ‘conscious’ is about slowing down, being more aware. ‘Conscious places’ are beautiful places that offer a distinct experience, and which open the door to …
- ART to lift the soul
- NATURAL WINE and HUMAN WARMTH to free the spirit
- SEASONAL FOOD prepared with THE HEART to replenish the body.
As food is for sharing, so are good stories… and good addresses.
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