Spreewald

The Spreewald is the forested area around the Spree River about halfway between Dresden and Berlin. Much of it is a nature preserve. The river, which flows through Berlin, has an especially flat incline in this area, so it is very slow moving, and there is an enormous network of canals. The area is not exactly a forest, though it is called one. Farmland, mostly.

Ladies on a flatboat in the town of Lübben munching on pickles.

Pickles. That's what it's known for throughout the land. They grow cucumbers, transport them on small, barge-like boats, and pickle them in various ways in gigantic wooden barrels. And everywhere you go in the area, it's pickles.

My German friends, the Weidners, invited me for a weekend up there in the Spreewald in mid-July. One day, we rented kayaks and paddled the river and canals (never sure which was which), and the other day, we did a bike ride, mostly on dykes between waterways and farmland. Stayed the one night at what was essentially a B&B run by a middle-aged woman on her grandparents' old farm. (She gave me a jar of you-know-what as a parting gift.)

One of many bike trails in the region. The Pickled Pedaler?

No, they don't have 43 words for pickle in Germany. Their word for pickle is Gurke, which is also their word for cucumber. If you need to be specific about it in German, you would precede "Gurke" with the word for the flavor of pickle (spice, garlic, etc.). The German word "Pickel" means pimple.

The waterways are interspersed by small locks, some of which you can operate yourself. Interesting to get to see how it all works.

To cap it all off, the highlight of the trip, the final sight before heading home was, yes, the.....

Pickle Museum!