Before Covid19, I was quite systematically visiting cities and towns in Poland, and did manage quite a lot, since that is now my new neighbouring country, but recently, I seem to have forgotten that project, except those that can be reached on foot from Frankfurt/Oder and Görlitz.

I have also always been hearing good things about Georgia. Unfortunately, in the meantime, I decided to never fly again, so I may have to abandon that principle briefly, unless I want to spend three days getting there.

But for now, I am looking for good websites about all of the above.

Already visited Gdansk, Krakow, Lodz, Lublin, Poznan, Szczecin, Torun, Warsaw, and Wroclaw. Would like to visit Warsaw again.

A rare honour nowadays. Despite my attempts to attract pollinators by sowing several pots of wildflowers amongst the herbs, only the marjoram attracted a couple of visitors.

More unwelcome visitors are the pigeons, rats with wings, that seem to be looking for nesting places almost all year round. One afternoon I watched one flying in and out of a neighbour’s porch with construction material. I think it has been discovered in the meantime and the structure disposed of. It is not nice to return home from holiday, for example, to find a nest full of eggs, or worse ……..

I am still trying to photograph the swifts that are sometimes swarming in great numbers near my balcony, but even with my camera locked and loaded, and a lot of the time perfect light conditions, they are too, well …. swift …..

I am not sure why it has taken me so long to visit “Peacock Island“, except perhaps the fact that I have never really liked peacocks (pompous divas) nor old buildings, nor manicured parks, and all those are represented there.

Bus 218 leaves from S Bahn Station Wannsee once every hour (on weekends twice every hour) and stops by the small ferry which leaves more or less on demand and the rides takes about fifteen seconds. A return ticket costs 6 euro and can be bought from machines – one for cash and one for cards.

As it turned out, most of the buildings there are currently being renovated and therefore scaffolded and inaccessible, so I ended up taking many more photos of peacocks than I had expected.

Fortunately, it is not all overly-manicured park – there are some more unkempt areas more to do with real nature. I heard many birds, but saw just a few. Mid summer is not the best time for birdwatching.

I was pleased to ascertain that peacocks are clumsy and inelegant flyers :-).

The island is easily walkable, though due to the occasional thunder and heavy rain, I did not stay long enough to walk all around it and am therefore definitely planning to go back.

There is a kind of café with food kind of one step up from junk food, and what looked like nice, homemade cakes, and there is also a rather large restaurant on “the mainland” just by the ferry.

Definitely a nice day out

To all the morons and retards who have been keeping many of us awake most of the night by yacking and laughing incessantly and loudly on their balconies, thinking the whole world ought to hear their words of wisdom and that they are wildly interesting and funny to listen to: I have news for you: very few people are, and nothing is that funny, and most people should do the world a favour and keep their mouths shut more often instead of talking such a load of shite most of the time. I wish I had a way to keep you awake all day, now that you have finally gone to bed. #ihatepeople

By the way, on yesterday’s boat tour (Langer Tag der Stadtnatur) with Derk Ehlert, a.k.a. “Berlins Wildtier Gott”, about a third of the passengers blithered their stupid platter loudly and unashamedly THE WHOLE TIME. Wastes of space humans are.

A very enjoyable day extremely well organised by Margot Dietzsch, Thomas Lenk, and Joachim Wenzel. Joachim led a longer walk, and Margot led and narrated an interesting walk around Tegeler Schloß, themed around the brothers Humboldt.

Everybody then boarded the Moby Dick at Greenwich Promenade for a lovely two-hour boat tour, and we finished off the day with a meal at Tegeler Seeterrassen where they coped smoothly with an onslaught of 38 people who all ordered different courses.

Very nice and enjoyable afternoon as usual efficiently organised by Renata Fackler.

I got there early so played with ICM on some rocks, and photographed some birds before we boarded.

Very nice walk, and we saw many birds. Did not get any even half-way decent photos, but I am posting a small selection anyway :-).

IN PROGRESS

I feel so lucky to be living in a big city and yet be so close to such diverse nature. In many cases, half an hour on the S-Bahn (in this case from Anhalter Bahnhof) and a short walk is enough.

I picked this particular route because I have walked it several times before on the VHS birdwatching walks, and as I am still sufferering from Corona brainfog, it was just easier to not have to consult a map.

Bonus tip: right across from the S-Bahn station in Buch, there is an Italian restaurant which is also an ice-cream-café, with outdoor seating. Just sayin’.

Soon to enter week four with symptoms of that scheißvirus which I am not going to dignify by calling it by its name (fever, headaches, blocked runny nose) – milder now, and of course nothing compared to what others have gone through and are still going through, but still exhausting and frustrating – with my wonderful cleaning help volunteering to come back – badly needed 🙂 – I had to make myself scarce, so I went to Tierpark in the hope of finally seeing some of the new offspring – the Amur tiger twins and the Binturong twins. I saw one of the Amur cubs and none of the Binturongs. There were three new camel kids on the block, and, it seemed to me, one on the doorstep. And lots and lots of Meerkat babies. Did not have the energy to visit the “Himalaya” area – normally my favourite – hopefully next time.

Including a horrible cliché but I could not help myself :-).