Here came the sun—at last!

      After more than two weeks of gray skies here in downtown Berlin, the sun finally came out in earnest yesterday. That worked out beautifully.

      On the train on our way to Potsdam the other day, I noticed a little lake from the window and what looked like a nice small town on that lake called Nikolassee. I filed it away in the back of my mind as a good place for a walk in the country.

      We had pretty much seen what was to be seen in Berlin and were ready to explore outside of town along the S-Bahn line that runs near our apartment. And we had yesterday with no opera to go to. The night before, on our way home from the opera, the sky was clear and we could see an almost full moon and some stars. It looked like a good omen for our planned trip to the country. The day started out iffy, looking like a return to the usual clouds but the sky lightened up little by little during the morning and by the time we headed out the sky was blue and the remaining clouds had almost lifted.

nice little house on the lake

      Sitting on the train I couldn't drink up enough sunshine and let the rays fall directly on my face. It felt like coming out of a long dark tunnel into a light explosion. After some initial confusion in finding our way to the lake we changed train lines at Nikolassee and took a train for one stop to a town called Schlachtensee (“see” is the German word for lake). The town appears to be a very upscale summer home kind of place with the cheapest homes I estimate at more than 1,000,000 Euros. Very swank. But the lake has a beautiful walking path that goes for some 5 kilometers all around the lake and it doesn't cost one Euro cent.

view from SW end of Schlachtensee

sun followers galore

     I expected that we would be pretty much the only people walking about on a cold albeit sunny winter day and have the whole lake to ourselves. Wrong! It seems that the sun had the same effect on lots of other people and the path around the lake was full of them just walking and soaking up the rays. It was such a pleasure that we decided to walk all around the lake—the whole 5 kms.—meeting people in ones and twos and larger groups all along the way. After about 3/4 of the way around the lake we came across a food and drink stand at the NE end of the lake. We decided to stop and have some glühwein (hot spiced red wine) if they sold it. As we were wondering aloud if they had glühwein and how to ask for it in German, a young woman overheard us and told us the correct way to ask politely (haben Sie Glühwein?) So I tried out my German question, got “Ja.” for an answer and ordered two with my fingers. Sitting in the sun and snow and drinking our glühwein.  Who could ask for anything more?

      Well, how about a terrific steakhouse called Asador to cap off a perfect day in the country with a perfect meal....

forget butter, try olive oil with salt and pepper added
 to dip your bread - goes well with red wine

      Or, maybe a car that "starts where others stop?"

Bentley

another Bentley

or maybe a Bugatti?

this would be my choice if I had the bucks