Berlin is great for it's outdoor green spaces. It needs to be: being a city of apartment dwellers, we all need a little bit of garden somewhere, a place to stretch our legs, a place to grill, a place to indulge our FKK tendencies in the city centre, ha, ha! Berlin's Tiergarten is pretty much my local park. I don't use it anywhere near as much as I should. And frankly I don't know why.
I decided to take the kids there today for a picnic and a run around and a play in the Spielplatz we often see from the bus on the way to Legoland. Today was perfect. The weather has warmed up nicely to where it should be at this time of year, and according to the BBC we are going to be experiencing 31 degrees all week. Hamish couldn't get to sleep last night until 9:30pm, so I knew anything too strenuous would be a killer for him and I couldn't face being too far from home with him whining.
We walked all the way there and it was just about time for lunch when we arrived so we had our picnic which was far less relaxing than I had envisaged. I dream of lying back on the picnic blanket with my book, while the kids play nicely around me. I'm deluded. I took my book, but I only managed to read a page and a half, and I couldn't lie down, because Hamish found that big stick in the top photo, and he was swinging it around like a ninja supposedly "sorting the mole hills", but there was a very real danger either myself or Orla would end up unconscious unless we kept our eye on the ball.
We were just starting to walk towards the Spielplatz which lies about half way along Tiergarten Strasse, when a taxi bike came along behind us and then stopped and asked if we fancied a free lift as he was going our way anyway. Seriously, there is nothing nicer than being done a good turn, is there? We loved it! We've never been in one before, but it was so nice to try even though it was only for 5 minutes. It certainly perked up our day and the kids are desperate to tell their dad their thrilling news!
The playground is pretty good. If we had a Spielplatz star rating system it would score highly for the hand operated sand digger which we've not seen in any other playground. Hamish was in his element. The kids managed to dig a trench from the end of the water pump (which can be seen in the background) ending in a pool near the digger. Can't beat a bit of engineering fun, can you?
If you want a bit more history about the Tiergarten, take a look at AndBerlin's recent post:
If you want a bit more history about the Tiergarten, take a look at AndBerlin's recent post:
Great post. By the way there is another one of those diggers at the Wasserturm playground in Prenzlauer Berg. We love it too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Melanie! And thanks for the top tip; we'd definitely be looking to try it out again!
DeleteLove city parks! We are pretty lucky here in London, in fact we live right next to a gorgeous old park with lots of mature trees and a newly renovated playground that the kids adore.
ReplyDelete