Tom`s travels: Vetschau (27/08/2024)

After work, I decided to visit a town and hike a little outside of Berlin. I took a train and headed southeast reaching the town of Vetschau near the Spreewald, the cultural landscape area and large inland delta of the river Spree. Once there, from the station I headed on to the old town on foot. I reached the main square, the Markt, surrounded by a mix of older and newer buildings, and then walked over to the nearby parish church. Called the Wendish German double church, it consists of two single-nave church buildings set side by side. Originally dating to the 13th century, during the Christianisation of the Wends living in the area, the church burnt down in the 17th century. It was then rebuilt, most probably after the Thirty Years' War, and came to be known as the Wendish church. Slowly, while the surrounding countryside remained largely dominated by the Wends, the percentage of Germans in town started to increase and thus a new church was built attached to the first shortly after. The church though featured a single bell tower, built at the beginning of the 18th century. As I got there though I found the building closed and thus could only admire it from the outside. Not too far from there I then passed by the oldest house in town, a nice timber-framed building dating to 1710. A short walk then led me to the castle, built in a Renaissance style in 1538 over a previous Slavic ring wall and refurnished in the 19th century. It now functions as the town's administration building so I couldn't visit it but I walked around the surrounding park admiring the views. At that point, I left town and started walking westwards taking a minor road through the open countryside. I passed several fields, including some dry and wizened-looking sunflowers. Continuing on I then reached the shore of the Bischdorfer See, an artificial lake made up from the filling of a lignite open-cast mine closed in 1996. I walked along the eastern shore and after a bit reached the Slawenburg Raddusch, a largely faithful replica of a Slavic fortress from the 9th century built between 1999 and 2003 and used as a museum. As it was past closing time I could not visit it but instead walked around it to admire what many fortresses in the area would've looked like. Eventually, after a bit more walking I reached the train station of Raddusch from where I took my ride back to Berlin.