Week 31 & 32 of 2024 (Year in Review) – On Holiday in Germany with a Two Year Old

August is nearly finished and we’ve recently returned from a two-week trip to Germany and Denmark: through Berlin for a few nights, up to the North Sea coast (North Frisia) at the German-Denmark border for over a week, and then a couple cushion days in Brandenburg to break up the long way back from our overland (train) journey.

Although some friends are calling this trip “ambitious” or “courageous” because of traveling mainly without a car with our toddler and dog, we ended up choosing this destination in the end because I’ve been wanting to go to the German coast for ages. not to mention my love of Germany and getting to practice the language while there. Staying near Denmark brought new excitement as everyone else had never been there before at all and it’s always a lot of fun to explore an entirely new area. We had a far more ambitious trip planned before this and really glad we didn’t go for it. The eight full days in the North really allowed us to relax and renting a car for (just) that portion of the trip provided that freedom of wheels we don’t really get in our day-to-day lives.

But let’s just talk about the parts in Berlin and Brandenburg, on the way to and from the coast! I hadn’t been back to Berlin since the pandemic and it made a natural stop on the way north to Flensburg, so I was looking forward to showing our little one one of my favorite places in the beloved German capital. We opted to rent a holiday home in the outskirts of the city rather than stay within it; something I’d never done before. This afforded us flexibility to enjoy the evening in the garden on the patio instead of being cooped up in a hotel room or something which was nice… but it turns out, you can’t have it all. It doesn’t really feel like proper Berlin all the way out at the end of an S-Bahn line. You can have your city trip, or you can have the very nice garden. (I suppose that applies to real life too?) And even though we didn’t have that city atmosphere, the garden and weather were fantastic.

When in Berlin, usually my activities revolve around eating at my favorite restaurants and cafes, so with only three full days in the city, that’s mainly how we spent two of them. We started our day (after our nice morning in the garden of our holiday house) at Alexanderplatz with a bit of shopping, then lunch and walked north into Prenzlauer Berg. P-Berg has always been a beloved little quarter to me. It was the first district I ever stayed in (in 2006, during my first visit), it happened (randomly) to be the most recent one I stayed in (in 2018, during my month in Berlin and taking an intensive language course). There have been many times in between. Even while studying there, I would make my way regularly to St. George’s Bookshop on Wörther Strasse for new books and their long-running (now defunct) film night.

One of my favorite moments, besides Mouse playing at Kollwitzplatz playground was the simple sitting in a cafe on Husemannstrasse directly across from the apartment building we stayed in last time. It’s just such a lovely area in the summer. The massive trees that manage to shade the wide boulevard. Admittedly it makes me a bit nostalgic in a good way, and I can’t think of a better place to get a cappuccino on a hot summer day. My heart swells just thinking about it!

Our second day we visited the Turkish market on Maybachufer, walked a lot around Kreuzberg and had a delicious lunch at my all-time favorite, Thai-Huong-Snack, the most unassuming Asian bistro near enough to the Heinrich-Heine-Strasse U-Bahn. Mouse slept through that entire lunch (!!) so it was a really peaceful one! Of course, the day was punctuated by playground visits, shopping and lots of chilling in the garden. The playground (above) was right off of Annenstrasse in the neighborhood where I studied abroad in college. I probably don’t need to describe what a real trip it is to see your child playing on a playground in the neighborhood you studied (across the world!!) when you were 21. What is life? If you can dream it, you can do it.

Anyways, two full days of being pram-ed around the city is a lot for a two-year-old. Too big and busy to run around in so lots of being cooped up. In Rome at nine months old, this was no issue at all, but 25 months old is a whole different phase of life, so it’s time to adapt by breaking up the activities a little bit. With the temperature going even higher on our final day in the big city, we decided to head to one of the dozens of lakes in the greater Berlin area – Wandlitzersee, about a 25 minute train ride from S-Bhf Karow, right where we were staying. It can’t be easier to get to by train as the lake is literally across the street from the station. The only bummer thing was that no dogs are allowed inside the gates of the Strandbad, which it says nothing about on any website, so be aware. Nice little joint, though if you’re looking for lake access with amenities instead of hiking to a more wild area.

“Easy” is definitely what we were aiming for with this trip, although it isn’t always like that when you are traveling without a car but with your dog and child, but this lake day was definitely easy. Berlin is lucky enough to have a lake in virtually every direction so I think it’s best to go to the one closest you, wherever that is!

To break up our trip on the way back between the North coast and the Czech Republic, I wanted to stay somewhere in Brandenburg, preferably between Berlin and Dresden and Natur Aktiv Resort in Senftenberg, right on the border between Saxony and Brandenburg fit the bill so well! It’s a little village of holiday houses and an absolutely fantastic pool! On our “rest” day we did just that – lots of sleep and pool time with the little one. As we live in the city center in an urban area, for holidays I try to prioritize nature accessibility and it just makes me happy to see our child running around and playing outside. For dinner we walked to nearby Gaststätte “Zur Harke“, clearly an East German institution (since 1962) of a restaurant/pub with outdoor seating in a lovely overgrown garden, completely relaxed even though it’s clearly a locals favorite. Sometimes I get really nervous in truly locals pubs but with this one I didn’t feel like that at all. It was the perfect way to end our two week stay in Germany.

So so thankfully after so many Deutsche Bahn/public transport train fails over these two weeks (not a great summer to ride the train in Germany, turns out), the moment I remembered I had booked the entire childrens’ cabin on the EC train from Dresden back to Prague? Hours of bliss for the whole family. Mouse could nap in the cozy pram/stroller corner (included in the cabin!) and the upgraded, international train style of the cabin was even more private than the typical childrens’ cabins you see for domestic journeys. Never thought I’d be so happy to be back on Czech rails but now I know – Czech trains are a blessing.

Speaking of toddlers on trains – the sticker books from Flying Tiger are for sure our travel MVP over the past two months. I do believe one sticker book has afforded probably 7+ hours of keeping a two-year-old entertained during travel!

If you’d like to see how the the meat of our trip went, take a look here to see how our Germany-Denmark North Coast portion of our holiday went.

PS, You might like to peruse my other Berlin posts, or getting to know Vienna by staying in a beautiful summer house?