Besides all the urban excitement, Berliners do find peaceful escapes.
One quarter of the city's land area is covered with forests or parks and nearly a tenth of the city is covered by rivers, lakes and canals.
Berlin is surrounded by natural recreation areas, green forests and an expansive landscape of inland lakes. The Spree and Havel rivers, as well as many canals, flow through the capital and invite visitors to stroll along their banks and promenades.
Whether it is a walk in the park, a boat trip on an inland lake, or a day trip to a destination in neighboring Brandenburg, the choices of recreation and leisure activities are broad.
Two large lakes - Wannsee, with its historic Strandbad facilities and Grosser Müggelsee - are both easy to reach with public transportation.
"Across the threshold and into the green": public trails in Berlin
Twenty green paths, with a total length of over 550 km, make up the backbone of this network of trails linking Berlin's diverse parks and forests:
- The Inner Park Ring
links the historic Volksparks, allotment gardens and cemeteries in the densely developed inner city. - The Outer Park Ring links the many parks distributed among the large housing developments of the 1970's and 1980's in the leafy outskirts with the parks adjoining new housing developments and the four large nature and recreation areas on the city limits at Tegeler See, Wannsee, Müggelsee and the Berliner Barnim.
- The Green Axes bisect the city in both directions along rivers, canals, train tracks and side streets zoned for low and slow traffic.
They lead through the backyards and courtyards of every walk of life and every kind of workplace in Berlin, thus offering unique perspectives on the colorful mosaic of mixed uses and the many layers of history in the city.
Regionally and locally significant walking paths through the boroughs and Berlin's forests, while green paths, planted to the extent possible with shrubs and plants, link public transportation stops and residential areas as part of this trail network.
