The question now is: shall we turn around or continue onward to Wannsee, the largest lake in West Berlin? If we want to get back on the S7 in that direction, we’ll be engaging in one of the Berliners’ favorite past-times: going to Wannsee. Berliners love their lakes and Wannsee is among their favorites. If your destination is congenial, the trip in itself becomes surprisingly relaxing. For a few minutes the trains doesn’t stop, the rhythm changes, and it is sent onward into the green. This stretch of rails is long and silent: there are no longer any houses and the strip of highway accompanies up until we reach Nikolassee. Again, if we want to take a swim, here’s where we need to get off to do so. And if we did, we could also have a look at the refined station. But, if we don’t want to get off here, in two minutes’ time we’ll be at Wannsee and it will be at Wannsee that we will get off the train, whether you like it or not.

You can do quite a few things at Wannsee. The simplest and quickest of them all is to simply cross the street and walk up the little hill in front of the station to look down onto how beautiful the lake is. And to think that from the central station of Berlin we got here in only thirty minutes! And that trains pass just about every ten minutes and that we are still in Zone B of the BVG!

Looking at the sparkling waves of the lake we can watch the reflection and breaking apart of the light in all directions and we will be happy to have happened upon of the thousand faces of liberty and its twin democracy in a flash. Did we really make it all the way out to Wannsee? Well, let’s turn around and go back into the city, hopping on the first train to pass, for example, the S1.

Translated by Alexander Booth