Long story short - there's a bridge a few hours away from Berlin that Sasha's been wanting to see, because it was purposely designed with its arch to create a perfect circle with its reflection in the water below and it otherwise generally looked fairly amazing. Summer weather would be perfect to go there, if it hadn't been pouring with rain most of the time (can't get a good reflection if the water surface is disturbed by the rain!). Come autumn, the weather was more settled, but getting colder. We'd already noted down a possible weekend to go - the last weekend the nearby steam train railway was running for the year, which would provide the connection from the main railway to the bridge. But that weekend pelted with rain also, so we didn't go. We finally found good weather to go right in the middle of when all the trees were shedding their leaves in October - it was also turning cold very quick, so we figured it was either now, or never!
The title is stolen from Buzz Killington on Family Guy, but while the intent of the quote originally is to illustrate that there is not ever going to be an interesting story about a Bridge, ever, you're about to get a story about a bridge. You be the judge on whether its interesting or not, or a good story or not! Long story short - there's a bridge a few hours away from Berlin that Sasha's been wanting to see, because it was purposely designed with its arch to create a perfect circle with its reflection in the water below and it otherwise generally looked fairly amazing. Summer weather would be perfect to go there, if it hadn't been pouring with rain most of the time (can't get a good reflection if the water surface is disturbed by the rain!). Come autumn, the weather was more settled, but getting colder. We'd already noted down a possible weekend to go - the last weekend the nearby steam train railway was running for the year, which would provide the connection from the main railway to the bridge. But that weekend pelted with rain also, so we didn't go. We finally found good weather to go right in the middle of when all the trees were shedding their leaves in October - it was also turning cold very quick, so we figured it was either now, or never! To get there involved catching a train from Berlin to Cottbus (one of the ODEG double-decker trains), then another train from Cottbus to Weißwasser. This was accomplished with little trouble, but now that we were at Weißwasser we had the hardest part - a long walk from there to the bridge, as without the steam train railway running there was no other way for us to get there short of hiring a taxi (if they even have taxi's there!). This was an hour-and-a-bit walk through some forest trails, all largely covered in orange leaves while the trees still had leaves on themselves. Actually finding the paths proved problematic at times thanks to the thick leaf coverage obscuring the pathways! Finally we were there, at the Rakotzbrücke (Devil's Bridge) - and the view was quite stunning. Most people seem to come and see it, get some photos, and then carry on. However we'd made a hell of a lot of effort to get there, and we knew there was not much else around in the area either. So once we'd gotten our initial photos, we took out the blanket we'd brought and set up for the Picnic we'd brought with us on the water's edge looking at the bridge. Post picnic, we wandered around the small lake, seeing the bridge from all the different viewing angles - its not possible to cross it anymore as it was damaging the structure, however from time to time idiots still try and clamber up it. When we were there, an idiot did just this - the former walking surface of the bridge has been covered over and shored up with concrete in such a way that its slippery to walk on, there's no side railing to hold onto, its a long way down if you slip, and the water is very shallow. Once we'd had our fill of the bridge and its scenes, we walked back through the forest paths taking our time. When we got near the end of the forest, we realised that there was a train soon and if we didn't hurry we'd be stuck in Weißwasser for an hour with not a lot to do. So, we half-walked-half-ran our way through Weißwasser and made it with some minutes to spare before the train arrived. Because we got a train ticket that allows you to jump on and off as many of the slower trains anywhere in Germany for the day, we decided we'd not go back to Berlin just yet - we'd carry on to a town called Görlitz, which we knew was on the border with Poland and had been on the radar as a place to possibly visit anyway. When I say it was on the border with Poland, that's literally the case - prior to World War 2, Görlitz was a town which sat on both banks of the Neisse River. However the Neisse river became part of the "Oder Neisse Line" where the new border between Germany and Poland was drawn, when the Allies shifted Poland to the west after the war. Görlitz was split in half by the border and became two separate towns - Görlitz on one side, and Zgorzelec on the other. The EU Schengen Zone has eliminated any border checks between the two halves, but they are still two separate towns governed by different laws. We had a wander around the German half, before crossing the bridge over to the Polish half - there was a noticeable difference in feel to the two halves. This is to me even more surprising when you consider Görlitz was East Germany, and the river between them would have been heavily guarded and possibly fortified to stop people escaping into Poland (not that going that way would have helped much, both being Warsaw Pact countries with no easy links to the West). Since it was approaching dinner time, we thought we might get dinner here - and sure enough, it would be cheaper for us to have dinner in the Polish side than in the German side. So we found a restaurant with an outdoor terrace that overlooked the Neisse river, and had dinner in Poland with a view of Germany! We had a bit of a trek home on the train to Cottbus and then another one to Berlin, and because our first train was a bit late the timing of the connection was very tight - but if we missed it, it would be 90 minutes until the next one since it was so late. By now it was raining too which made it all a bit unpleasant, but we got home after a very enjoyable day out!
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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