Blasting Through Brandenburg (on a Brompton)

I had to go to the Spreewald this week so I of course decided to make a bike tour out of it. The trip

from Pirna to Lübbenau is 125km so took the train up to Königsbrück, one of the old trade towns along the via Regia going east-west and the old Berlin-Prague route of the Royal Roads of Saxony. From here, it was 80 mostly flat kilometers to my garden in Lübbenau

Cycling through Brandenburg is not for everyone. There are long straight rows of roadway raised over the flat fields of what was once Prussia. The towns are often empty and the landscape scarred from years of coal mining.

But evidence of the old landscape is there if you know where to look. For example, the long rows of old trees along the road are signs that this road was an old Prussian Chaussee and you can imagine the soldiers marching under the shade from the trees on their way to Saxony.

But the thing that makes the ride through Brandenburg so special is the cycling network that exists. Plenty of cities around the world have great bike lanes but there are few places that have such an extensive cycling network in the countryside. I spent most of the day on smoothly paved bike lanes next to bigger roads, through forests or winding their way through coal mines turned into nature preserves.