On the internet, nobody knows you're closed.

I found a cool website the other day, covering "Hidden Berlin". Great write-ups, good details, and nice pics. So I chose a few locations and headed out to Berlin's eastern reaches.

First on the list was a restaurant cited as the "most beautiful in Berlin," on the shores of the Grosser Mueggelsee, the largest of Berlin's lakes. The restaurant, unfortunately, was closed -- as in, not in existence. However, the lake is quite nice, and I found a great biergarten as a more than acceptable fallback.

I then walked *under* the Spree, and along a beautiful, well-tended path through the forest, several neighborhoods, and a huge cemetery to the next spot on the list, the Treptow Crematorium. Morbid, yes, but as good as the write-up claimed: a perfectly disciplined, inspiring, and intelligent piece of modern architecture. Unfortunately, also closed, but I was able to get an ok pic through the full-length windows.


By now, it had occured to me that the printouts from site I was relying on so heavily gave no indication of when they were written or updated. Later, I checked and saw that the last copyright was 2001. It's likely the abandoned project of someone whose enthusiasms led them to new activities, leaving an orphaned website to live in perpetuity like a once carefully tended garden that slowly succumbs to weeds without completely losing its original form.


Which perhaps makes it appropriate that the last spot on the itinerary was a garden. A stunning garden, in fact, and a true hidden gem, tucked away deep in Neuekolln, a neighborhood (charitably) described on Wikipedia as "having no must-see sights."

Designed by Franz Koerner and built from 1912-1916, the garden is a rectangle sunk below street level, with a formal flower garden, grand fountain (no longer running, sadly) and an ivy-covered orangery which today houses a modern art gallery and cafe.


All in all, a rewarding (and tiring) day, despite a few glitches. My thanks to the creator of http://www.berlin-hidden-places.de/yuba_web3/index.htm

Berlin: the city that keeps on giving.