On the Baltic coast, Wustrow

A late springtime trip three hours north of Berlin…

We walk along the dune-top path towards Wustrow, occasionally moving to one side to allow lycra-clad cyclists to whizz past, some on their way to the next town – perhaps to grab the last available beach chair down on the sands – others stretching their legs on the Ostsee-Radweg, the Baltic bike path that hugs the German coastline between the Polish border and the Danish. At Wustrow the pier stretches out above the calm waters. All the benches are taken. Walkers and cyclists rest. Couples enjoy the view. An old man scratches the solution to crossword clues onto a folded paper.

Down on the sands tattooed sunworshippers are building their their little patch of territory around their striped, rented beach chair, but only their dogs are hardy enough to brave the chill of the May waters. A kindergarten class walks along in formation, and is surprisingly quiet, but the kids still receive a look of distaste from the angler on the pier who wishes he had the whole place to himself.

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Along the edge of the city

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On Saturday I met up with Nicky and Susanne from the wonderful Hidden Europe magazine, and we went for a walk from Lichterfelde in the very south of Berlin to the village of Teltow just beyond the city limits in Brandenburg. For a good stretch of the walk we followed the Berlin Wall trail, in a location where it was the dividing line not between the two sides of the city, but between West Berlin and the territory of the German Democratic Republic.

Apart from the neatly paved track upon which the guards once patrolled the no-man’s land, and the signs pointing the way, it would not be immediately obvious what it was we were walking on, so completely have traces of this old border been swept away. There were a few signifiers that something unusual had gone on here, such as the abrupt nature in which the city – including blocks of flats – gave way to the fields of the surrounding countryside, but for most of the walk it felt as if we were simply following a well-maintained and very straight footpath through the trees and alongside the fields.

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Giving my right arm: Tristan Reid

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This was sent to us by Ian Wright, a good friend of Under a Grey Sky, and we think that not only is this for a good cause, but a fairly unusual and distinctive way of raising money, so we would like to wish Tristan all the best with his efforts:

I have set myself a rather unusual challenge to raise funds for the Turkish wildlife charity DogaDernegi. After a recent wildlife holiday in southern and central Turkey, I fell in love with the country. The amazing biodiversity, awesome scenery and fantastic culture meant that it had a huge impact on my life.

On return to the UK, I was devastated to learn that the Turkish government had sold off all the country’s waterways to private corporations. There are now over 2,000 dams being built and over 1,730 hydro-electric schemes planned. The impact this will cause is disastrous. Not only will the habitats of one of the most biodiverse countries in the Western Palearctic be damaged beyond repair, but many small communities are likely to be displaced, thus destroying these traditional micro-cultures.

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Tramps like us…

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“If you’re here, and we’re here, they’re here…”

That was Bruce’s message from the stage at the Olympic Stadium, a refrain of recognition for absent friends that was one of the many memorable moments in what was described in the Berlin media as a “furioses Konzert,” and over three hours of “Gospel, Soul und Rock’n’ Roll.”

And it was. From the opening song of “When I Leave Berlin”, a 1973 song from Wizz Jones performed especially for the Berlin crowd (video above), through to the final bars of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out” 28 songs longer, it was clear they had arrived in the German capital in top form. Everyone will have their own highlights from such an expansive set-list, that included many of the tracks from the new Wrecking Ball album (personal highlight was the foot-stomping “Shackled and Drawn”) as well as heavy collection of arms-aloft greatest hits.

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Green revolutions in Cloughjordan

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By Barry Sheppard:

The town of Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary, is what can be described as a typical rural one-street Irish town in the ancient province of Munster. It straddles the invisible county border of North Tipperary and Co. Offaly and is situated only several kilometres away from what was the centre of the world for about an hour almost exactly one year ago when a man named Obama came to drink Guinness and tread the footsteps of his ancestors. Shortly before he embarked on that Irish-American vote clocking journey to Moneygall I embarked on a similar one to Cloughjordan to view the land of my forefathers. Armed with a camera and a quest for my own personal history I embarked on the 714 mile round trip from Belfast, which inexplicably took me through Limerick, to the small town of Cloughjordan. Disembarking from the train with slightly less fanfare than the ‘leader of the free world’ I walked a further kilometre to reach the town and on that pleasant spring day it was easy to see why its most famous inhabitant, the poet and revolutionary Thomas MacDonagh, once described it as a place ‘in calm of middle country’.

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Carnival of Cultures, Berlin

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16 years ago 50,000 people took to the streets to watch the first parade of the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin. Over the weekend, the estimate was closer to a million, all drawn to the sounds, tastes and smells of this annual street festival and parade. We walked along the parade route, picking our way through crowds to get a glimpse of the floats and the performers, enjoying the novelty of a stroll down the middle of the road whilst cooks worked their stalls on the pavement and locals sunned themselves on their balconies as one of Berlin’s biggest street parties passed by beneath them.

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Of pens and pencils – sketching and a sense of place

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(above: Charlottenburg, Berlin – Rolf Schröter)

I first met Rolf Schröter when we organised a Slow Travel Day at the Circus last year, and he came along with the other members of Urban Sketchers Berlin to put together a sketching tour for people who fancied the chance at trying to capture their immediate environment on paper. Since then we have seen each other a handful of times, usually at a similar events, and I think that I probably would not recognise Rolf if he did not have his trusty sketchbook in hand.

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Walking through memories, Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

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This is the hundredth post on Under a Grey Sky. Before we begin, I would like to take the chance to thank everyone who has contributed to the website, as well as all of you who have taken the time to read it. Here’s to the next hundred…

A week or so ago we took the tram from where we live in Berlin-Wedding across the north of the city to Hohenschönhausen; part family outing, part mission to discover some of the secrets of this neighbourhood. It is not the most famous of Berlin’s districts, but as with everywhere in this city the streets of Hohenschönhausen had plenty of stories to tell.

There was Berlin history of course – from the site of the first Plattenbau built in the early 1970s to solve East Berlin’s housing shortage, via the only private house designed by Mies van der Rohe and a lesser-known housing estate by modernist architect Bruno Taut, to the thick walls of the Stasi Prison and a small, sidestreet Soviet memorial – but more personal than that were Katrin’s stories, as this is the neighbourhood where she lived throughout her teenage years.

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St Jude’s In The City, London

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Regular readers of Under a Grey Sky will know that we are fans of St Jude’s Fabric and Prints. Angie Lewin is the co-founder of St Jude’s, and this week as part of St Jude’s In The City is holding on exhibition of her work alongside that of Mark Hearld and Emily Sutton.

Angie will be exhibiting a range of limited edition prints including “Island Celebration”, which you can see at the top of this post, and there will be framed and unframed works from all three artists, as well as examples of the fabrics and wallpapers that have been made for St Jude’s. No tickets or invitations are required for the opening event, which will take place this Wednesday 23^rd May 2012 from 6pm until 8pm at 30 Tottenham Street, London W1 (Tube: Goodge Street).

The exhibition then runs from 11am Thursday 24^th may until 3pm Saturday 2^nd June 2012, and if you want a chance to meet Angie, Mark and Emily beyond the opening event, then they will be hosting a book signing from 11am on Saturday 26^th May. It all looks great, and we can only urge Londoners and those close by to go and check it out. Maybe there is a way we can persuade them to hold a St Jude’s in The City over here in Berlin…

In the Pankow Bürgerpark, Berlin

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Saturday afternoon and the weather is unpredictable. In May you have to hope for a nice weekend, and this one is not sure how exactly it wants to be. When the sun comes out it is too warm for a jacket. When it hides behind the cloud it is too cold for a jumper. It is a reminder that summer is not yet here.

But still, with the first sign of sunshine and the first blossom on the trees Berliners head outside, to the beer gardens, the playgrounds, and most of all, the parks. At the Bürgerpark in Pankow families kick footballs around on the grass, or attempt to launch kites into the blustery sky. The goats grazing behind high fences look unimpressed at being watched by young kids in football shirts, waiting for a cup final that will take place past their bedtime. The beer garden is half-heartedly open, with sausages on the grill and beer on tap, but the shutters are down on the ice cream stand as if to say, “come on guys, not yet…”

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