The Uckermark is only just over 1 hour away from Berlin by train. I hadn’t really explored it yet, so it’s was high time to check it out. The regional train was absolutely packed and I didn’t find a seat until the last couple of stops. An older lady was sitting next to me. She overheard me speaking English with my friend and started telling me in German how great it was to hear English and how she was going to classes every week to learn as well. She barely looked at me while she talked, her gaze facing the floor, and she just kept going. After I learned how much joy she got from the English classes, I heard about her holiday destinations and when the train conductor announced my stop was coming up, she pulled out her phone, frantically scrolling through the pictures to show me how her trip to the States had been. I wished her safe travels and we found our way into Warnitz, a small town on the Oberuckersee.
There is a beautiful camp ground within walking distance from the train station. It’s terraced and offers views over the bright blue lake. We had a cosy plot that comfortably fitted our two tents with some space for our chairs out front. The train had been uncomfortably hot, so the water of the lake was calling us. Towards the bottom of the camp ground, they’d built a jetty with benches on it, from which you could enter the lake. Most of the shore line was blocked by a thick layer of plants and there were only a few entrances or bathing spots. A bit further along we found a small beach and found relief in the cool water. For our first night we picked the town’s only restaurant for dinner. It was about to close at 8pm and we arrived about half an hour before. But luckily the owners were happy enough to still serve us some food. It was all German style, so I got the “Karre Mist”, or “cart of crap”. Out came a tiny wheelbarrow filled with potatoes, schnitzel and egg.
On the second day we rented bikes from the small tourist office in Warnitz. An older lady was manning the desk and had already prepared the bikes, since we’d announced our plans the day before. She looked at my friend’s English passport in confusion and decided filling out the paperwork was better done by us. She shared the story that she once had a guest with an American passport and had asked if she could take a picture. After all, “We don’t see that every day here. It looks so funny”. We did a little test drive and off we went on our loop to Prenzlau and back. We ended up biking just over 40km. The way there was the “uglier way” according to the local advice, even though it was the famous cycling path from Berlin to Usedom. Perhaps the first bit was not that interesting, but coming closer to Prenzlau we went away from the main road and cycled on small roads and specific bike paths. We came through some very small villages, saw cranes in a field and eventually saw Prenzlau’s orange roofs getting closer. If this was the ugly way, I was curious for the beautiful way.
Prenzlau may be a bit bigger than the other places around, but it’s still a small town. At least we had a choice of restaurants here and managed to grab some Indian food at the Indian-Italian-Greek-German-combo restaurant. Behind us was the main shopping street, which had a stage and some stands. Schlager music started playing and when we crossed the street we saw an older singer, completely dressed in black, including black hat. I wondered if he was famous and if people were enjoying this music, when we saw one of the stage hands burst out in dancing and singing behind the stage.
We also had a peak inside the town’s main attraction, the St. Marienkirche. The enthusiastic lady at the entrance immediately closed her little office and came in to tell us about the church. We listened to a story that went from the old days when it was a Catholic church, to become protestant, to GDR times and to the present. We learned about a Swedish royalty that was there for a while, the wooden figures which were stolen and found in a brothel, the kids that used to play on the collapsed roof and the organ that used to belong to Helge Schneider. The famous Helge Schneider. After the story I looked at my friend: “Who is Helge Schneider?” Anyway, the church is under construction from the inside and by far more impressive from the outside.
Our next stop was one of the many bathing spots along the Unteruckersee. I was thoroughly enjoying it until the fish started to peck at my skin. By the time we kept going it was already 5pm. We still had a way to go and the hills up and down were pretty tough at this time of the day. At least the heat got a bit less intense and we could enjoy the wind in our hair as we flew downhill past apple trees. Once we were back at our tents, I went down to the jetty to see the sunset at the lake. Afterwards I sat in my chair next to the tents, headlamp on, heating up our canned food on my little gas stove. After a little bit of stargazing, it was time to rest.
The beautiful thing about having a lake so close, is that I could take a swim in the morning, before it got busy. So after packing my tent and bag, I enjoyed the calm of the water, the warmth of the sun and sounds of woodpeckers in the trees. Even though I had to get out of my tent three times at night to walk to the toilet building, even though it was quite hot and I didn’t have an optimal sleep, even though we had a basic setup because we couldn’t come by car… I had missed this. There’s something about the calm of camping. About not having Netflix there. About just staring out over a lake, or admiring the stars. I should do this more often.
- The route on Komoot
