Landkreis Dahme-Spreewald

The Spree Forest is a UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserve area, recognized for its fragile wetland areas and alpine forests. I spent the better part of two days riding through what felt like a magical natural wonderland. It was lovely. The trees smelled exactly like a pine-scented air freshener, and the tributaries meandering through the wetlands were beautiful enough to make me get over the fact that I had to carry my bike up and down multiple pedestrian bridges since the whole place is basically a bunch of islands separated by tiny rivers. In fact, the area used to be exclusively traveled by punts, which, in my understanding, are European canoes. I saw many of them, and they look like they would have be difficult to get a bike on, so I guess I got off easy.

I was really hoping to see an otter, but I had to settle for swans, which are pretty fucking majestic I guess. I looked at my phone later and had (if I had to guess) many hundreds of pictures of swans and trees. I narrowed it down to one of each, cause ain't nobody got time for that

Except me, obviously
All I got is time to be the tree-and-swan-arazzi
I was always meant to be

(I have clearly been spending too much time alone. I'll show myself out now...)Read more