Tom`s travels: Werder & Lehnin (17/12/2021)

On another day trip from Berlin, right before Christmas, I decided to head west and visit a couple of places. My first stop was the town of Werder, located on an island surrounded by the Havel river which here enlarges to form a kind of lake. After reaching the train station of Werder, which is just outside of Berlin, I then started walking towards the city center, which took me about 30 minutes. Once there I then crossed the bridge which connects the modern part to the old town on the island. Here I started touring the small city center, passing by the Bockwindmühle, a modern replica of a windmill that must have been easy to spot back in the medieval period in the town. Behind it, on the island's highest spot, was the old town hall built in 1879 by converting an old half-timbered school. Just next to it was the church of the Holy Spirit, built in a neo-gothic style in 1858 to replace an older one. The building was closed so I continued on my walk around town. The houses were small and low as typically part of a fishermen's town. I then reached the central square the Markt, with some larger and more elegant houses around it. I toured the whole town and thought it was rather small and not as appealing as I had originally thought. Nevertheless, I crossed the bridge connecting the island to the mainland once again and then waited at a nearby bus stop to take a bus in the direction of the town of Lehnin. Before reaching the town though I decided to get off at a few stops before, right next to a large forest that borders the town. Here I wished to walk all the way through the forest and reach the town later. The trail was nice and it was quite pleasant to walk a bit in nature with the peace and quiet. Not long after I exited the forest and reached the center of Lehnin where I first decided to stop at a supermarket to grab some lunch. I then headed on to visit the town's main monument and the reason I chose to visit the place, the Lehnin Abbey. A former Cistercian monastery, it was founded in 1180 and secularized in 1542 in the course of the Reformation. The abbey played an important role in the expansion of the young Margraviate of Brandenburg during the High Middle Ages. In addition to its historical importance, the monastery is also of great cultural importance: its church is one of the most important Romanesque-Gothic brick buildings in Brandenburg, and its reconstruction and refurbishment in the years between 1871 and 1877 are considered an early masterpiece of modern monument preservation. The monastery's complex now belongs to the Luise-Henriette-Stift, a Protestant deaconesses' house since 1911. As I reached the group of buildings I started out by visiting the interior of the abbey church. Even though largely rebuilt and restructured it was still nice to see, with its simple and spacious interior divided by the romanesque naves. Inside were a wooden crucifix from 1240 and a carved wooden winged altar from 1476. After the visit to the church, I headed out and walked around the rest of the complex, past some of the main buildings such as the old gothic brick granary from the mid-14th century, and some 18th-century baroque buildings as well. I then went around the nice mix of Romanesque and Gothic exterior structure of the abbey church and entered the nice small cloister. After that, I decided to sit on a bench right in front of the church's entrance and eat my lunch despite the rather dull and gray weather. After lunch, it was time for me to head to the center of the city where I reached the small bus station eventually taking a bus back to the nearest train station, Groß Kreutz, where I took the next train to Berlin.