Tour de Berlin 2015 - First stage Mauerpark to Kladow

Four people signed up, but one decided to sleep all day long and another did prefer to drink Caipirinha at the Karnaval der Kulturen happening the same weekend... Only two braves and their bike on the departure line!

1:33pm and Steffen is joining me. We have bikes, water, yoghurt cake, smart phone and offline map. Go go go.

A few km later we are in the pampa. The time to leave the city, to be still between East and West and to reach a border to the nature. We go over Tegel, Hohen Neundorf, Henningsdorf, aiming for Spandau but always staying away from it.

Relatively fast it's 50km on our counter. Down Spandau - I know the part because of previous summer expedition in this area looking for lakes to swim - the way is going in the forest again and is passing Sacrower See just after the Gross Glienicker See which happen to have been crossed by the wall delimitation.

From that point is becoming  a bit tricky. If you do want to follow the real Mauer path you have to take a boat to reach the Glienicker bridge... So instead the indicated way is to go to Kladow which is facing S-Wannsee. There is one of the public transport ferry lines. It's a big boat, there is place of at least 50bikes. But it's a nice day, no way we can get in without waiting hours.

6:03pm there is only one thing we can do while brainstorming how to go to back to Berlin: drinking beers and eating sausages in one of the beer gardens. Either we go to Potsdam and from there jump into the S-Bahn, but it means 20km more or we go back to Spandau by another way and following the water. We choose the second option which only 12 km to the daily ride.

Going back North we made another stop in Gatow where a fair is taking place. This time no sausages but delicious spätzle with cheese and beer of course. Our stomach feeling satisfied we continue and somehow ends up in the S-Bahn station Streesow.

9:33pm the sun is going down. A lot of km in our legs. It's nice to be transported by the outdoor S-Bahn that slowly brings us back to civilisation. I go down at S-Friedrich Strasse and cycle a few hundred meters to meet another friend for a last beer in this lovely summer evening.

Can't wait to complete this tour!