Monthly Archives: January 2013

Christmas by the lake

The second part of our Bad Saarow diary, from one of our favourite places only an hour or so by car or train from Berlin:

Through an open bedroom window I hear the sound of a family walking along the street outside. There is talk of a Christmas tree (perhaps they are even dragging it along as they speak) and excited chatter of presents anticipated, if only Father Christmas or time itself would get a move on. Downstairs Katrin, Lotte and Sean are making little pastry parcels, the potato salad sitting in a bowl on the countertop, all part of our mingle-mangled Anglo-German Christmas traditions that have, over the last couple of years, all fallen into place.

Once the pastries are made we will go for another walk down to the lake, the main road through the village busy with drivers that had to work on Christmas Eve and are now rushing home to the fireside and the family. And it does feel overly festive out on the streets, with the twinkling lights on the trees by the station, the smell of wood-smoke in the air, and the family down the street from our house that have lit a fire in their driveway and are standing around it with steaming mugs of glühwein in their hand.

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A Bad Saarow Diary

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The snow began to fall as we left Berlin. The car was so packed full – of presents, food and drinks – that there was not space for us all to travel along the autobahn together, so half of the party made the short underground hop to Alexanderplatz and the regional train east. The Saturday before Christmas, and the train was filled with returnees, leaving the capital or coming in from further afield, to make their way out to the towns and villages that sit amongst the lakes and the trees between Berlin and the Polish border. On the seats opposite us two young women chatted with the distanced familiarity of old friends who have not seen each other for a while, scattered during term time to universities elsewhere in Germany but brought together for the holidays, coincidentally climbing aboard the same carriage on the train home.

We were, on the other hand, escaping. A week in the countryside to fill the festive period. A house by the railway tracks, not far from the lake. I had been looking forward to it since the moment we landed upon the idea. But in a way, it felt like a return for us as well, to this small town that has become our bolt-hole from the city on more than one occasion, to this house we have stayed in before. At Fürstenwalde we changed over from the top-heavy double-decker regional train to a single carriage that would take us to Bad Saarow, a train that is smaller than the trams that rumble along the Osloer Straße beneath our bedroom window, but that is all part of the charm of the trip. As it rolled south through the forests, wet snow splattering against the window, I was happy that the car had been full and we had been forced to take the train.

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