There was no big trip this year… no epic road trip north, or month-long absence from which to return. Instead we were here and there, more than half of the time in Berlin and yet it did not feel like that. We made our escapes, to a village on the Oder river, in sight of Poland. To a cabin on the edge of the forest an hour or so north of Berlin, where were picked our way cautiously through the woods so as not to meet a grumpy mother wild boar protecting her young. To the very edge of the city, for a day walking the Berlin Wall Trail on the banks of the Havel. And to England, to an old stomping ground and a new corner of my home country never before explored.

We have some more plans, some weekends out of Berlin before the weather turns, but school starts again next week and yesterday I took a small group of people around Wedding on cultural-historical tour through my neighbourhood, and it was a homecoming of sorts. It not only reminded me about the interesting places within a stone’s throw of my front door, but helped to connect me in to the city again and why it is such as fascinating and interesting place to live. The idea of this website has never been to be a personal blog, or one focused on Berlin, but as the principal contributor to Under a Grey Sky, and as I happen to live in the city, then it is only natural that a good number of the pieces found here will be based on the different discoveries I have made in the German capital.

On Friday, on a walk that took me past both the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag – the most well-trodden tourist path through the city – I stumbled across a couple of places that I had never visited before and which confounded the expectations I had about what I was about to see when I set out from home a few hours before. That is one of the wonderful things about living in a city such as Berlin, even after a decade of living here, that there remains places to discover. They will feature on the website in the coming weeks, as well as the various tales of our fractured summer in Germany and beyond.

It’s good to be back.

Words: Paul Scraton
Picture: Katrin Schönig

This time last year we were about to hit the road north, towards Rostock and the Baltic and a ferry that would take us across the water to Sweden. During those four weeks, we put Under a Grey Sky on a break so that we could spend all our time relaxing, enjoying our experiences in Sweden, and to re-charge the batteries for the start of term feeling that always comes with the end of the summer. This year we have decided to do the same, although our journeys this year are slightly more fragmented, to the Lower Oder Valley on the German-Polish border, and then across to England, to Yorkshire and Northumbria, giving us the chance to discover a couple of new places both here and there.

Once again we would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has written for, subscribed to, followed and read Under a Grey Sky. And if any of you out there have some particular adventures beyond the front door that you would like to share on these pages, then please do not hesitate to get in contact at paulscraton (at) gmail (dot) com.

Have a great summer.

Paul

The choice of title of this piece has been chosen in homage to the inspiration for our explorations in the north of Berlin last weekend; the wonderful Strollology Berlin website that is devoted to “strolling through Berlin, collecting impressions of the city while moving around from A to B, as well as ‘strolling’ the internet in search of historical curiosities and images.” In a post last autumn, there was featured a slideshow of images from their “home neighbourhood” of Hermsdorf. The post intrigued me because, not only did their neighbourhood look leafy and green and well worth an explore, but also because up to that point I never even knew that Hermsdorf existed, and I was surprised to discover it was only about fifteen minutes away by S-Bahn.

It turns out that Hermsdorf is tucked up against the very edge of the city and the border with Brandenburg. Which means that, as Hermsdorf was part of West Berlin, the northern boundary of the neighbourhood was blocked off by the Berlin Wall. We did not make it that far on Saturday, instead climbing down from the S-Bahn and walking through quiet streets towards the old centre of the village (the “dorf” in Hermsdorf), stopping to explore the foundations of the former village church before following a narrow path down to the Tegeler Fließ, a stream that runs for 30km from outside Berlin (close to Wandlitz) to the lake at Tegel – hence the name. The stream itself was threatening to flow into some of the gardens as it appeared to have already broken its banks at various points, but the ducks seemed happy enough as they paddled in the shallows. By the time we reached the section where it opens out into the Hermsdorf lake the surface was frozen, contrasting nicely with the spring-time sunshine we were enjoying from above.

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The interest in “adventures beyond the front door” that eventually led to the creation of Under a Grey Sky, and the idea that you need not be in a National Park to enjoy the outdoors, has been developed not only by the getting out there and doing it, but by flicking through the pages of books – such as Rebecca Solnit’s wonderful Wanderlust or Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts– as well as reading essays online, listening to podcasts, and even watching the occasional film.

These virtual adventures beyond someone else’s front door led me to the Ventures and Adventures radio show presented by John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou – also available to download as a podcast – as they explored the outer reaches of London using old walking guides, or simply the interests of the two presenters, whether it was the Brent Cross shopping centre or the North Middlesex/South Hertfordshire Escarpment, otherwise known as Scarp and the title and subject (or starting point) of Papadimitriou’s book which currently sits in my to-read pile.

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We have been away, taking a break from all elements of everyday life including Under a Grey Sky. In the next week or so you will get an idea of some of the things we have been up to as normal service resumes. So we hope you all enjoyed a restful festive period and that all readers and contributors have a very happy New Year and many more adventures beyond the front door in 2013…

As regular readers might know, I have written a number of pieces for Slow Travel Berlin – so I might be a little biased when I say what a wonderful and informed resource it is for travellers and even locals to the city, but there you have it. Recently, Slow Travel Berlin have begun offering some tours (another project I am involved in) and this coming Saturday, the 27^th October, they are hosting a very special tour through the architecture of East Berlin, led by Richard Carter. Here are some more details:

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In preparing this post I thought a lot about a picture of the Welsh mountains that used to hang over the fireplace of our family home in West Lancashire, that would remind me each morning as I got ready for school or in the evening stretched out on the rug underneath it of those places we would get to through the Mersey Tunnel, the traffic jams on the coast road, and the views across to Anglesey, squat and lazy, and seemingly floating in the Irish Sea.

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The following article is written by Paul Scraton with pictures from Julia Stone (including the one above) for the wonderful Slow Travel Berlin website. Here’s a short extract:

What do you do with a building when it symbolises some of the darkest days of your country’s history? It’s a common question in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany, and one which was certainly asked of the various venues built for the 1936 Olympics.

Of course, Germany was awarded the Olympics before Hitler and his National Socialist cronies took power, and indeed many of the designs were already in place, but the Olympic Stadium and its surroundings still symbolise a games where Hitler was determined to show to the world the power and the glory of his three-year-old Thousand Year Reich.

Read the rest on Slow Travel Berlin

(above: Commemorative plaque of Mass trespass of Kinder Scout at Bowden Bridge Quarry, Hayfield, UK, by Marcin Floryan)

Thanks to Diana Hale and the Over The Hills blog for bringing the Kinder 80 campaign of the Ramblers to our attention. As today is the anniversary, it seemed fitting to post more details here:

80 years on and the journey to open up the countryside continues

In April 1932, much of the countryside in England and Wales was closed off to the public and hundreds of people risked imprisonment to walk up Kinder Scout as part of a mass trespass to open up the countryside. Now in April 2012, we can all enjoy a walk across mountains or moorland but there are still many beautiful places which remain out of bounds – says Ramblers.

On the 2^nd April the Ramblers launched its Kinder 80 campaign to highlight the places in England and Wales we still can’t walk and the work the Ramblers is doing to open up and protect the countryside.

80 years after this landmark protest, the Ramblers has won the ‘right to roam’, helped to create National Parks and long distance trails but the journey to make Britain the most walker-friendly nation in the world isn’t over yet.

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A while ago I published a photo collection from a walk in Rixdorf, an old village long swallowed by the city of Berlin. A longer piece was submitted to Slow Travel Berlin and they published it today. Here is the beginning:

It is a grey day in Berlin, which makes the Sonnenallee feel all the more gloomy. I am meeting my friend and Neukölln resident Julia at her apartment so she can show me the way to Rixdorf, an old village that still – just about – exists within the confines of the S-Bahn ring despite being swallowed by the city over a hundred years ago.

As we walk south, away from Hermannplatz, there is not much in our surroundings that suggests village life. This corner of the city is one of traffic and noise, takeaways and internet cafes, the electronic stores offering up second hand gadgets and tobacconists selling calling cards to five different continents.

People often comment that Berlin, for the most part, does not have the feel of such a big city. It’s quite spread out, with plenty of green spaces. Its fractured nature means there is no real centre, and people tend to orientate themselves around their neighbourhoods. It never really feels as hectic as London, New York or Paris.

Still, there are places, such as the Müllerstraße in Wedding, or the Potsdamer Straße in Tiergarten, where you get that big city feeling, and Sonnenallee has it too. And so it makes the contrast all the more striking when you turn down the Richardstraße and find yourself walking amongst half-timbered farmhouses, old stables that have been renovated but still betray signs of their original function, and cobbled alleyways that are lit, on this gloomy day, by what appear to be gas lamps.

Read the rest on Slow Travel Berlin