pilgrimage to Mecklenburg

As you might have guessed, my preferred mode of transportation is walking - closely followed by a ride on a train. And of course, Berlin offers a wide range of walking trails that encourage you to slow your pace and enjoy, to let your mind wander, to look around:  a walk in the beautiful park, and for that matter at the Spree (or both: for example at the lovely Treptower Park) the project 20 grüne Hauptwege (20 green routes) the Berliner Mauerweg along the former Berlin wall

Sometimes, however, it feels better to leave the city: to Brandenburg or, farther north, to the Mecklenburger Seenplatte, where many a path looks back on a long tradition of walking:

• on the 66-Lakes-Trail you can literally walk around Berlin - the trail is about 400km long, so it might take you three weeks to a month to complete the mission
• the ancient Way of Saint James crosses the Eastern German countryside: follow the yellow shell on blue ground and you might end up in Santiago de Compostela one day in early winter
• and then there is the pilgrims' way Mecklenburgische Seenplatte, which uses a sign easily confounded with the Saint James scallop

Way Mecklenburgische Seenplatte	Way of Saint James source: pilgern.ch

A couple of days ago I walked on the pilgrim's way Mecklenburgische Seenplatte (first, to be honest, I assumed to be walking the Way of Saint James - it was an amazing walk all the same) and was impressed by the stunning beauty of the lake scenery in that area. You could almost physically feel the silence.

The way passes through the small village of Mirow from where I took the train back to Berlin.

The first part of that route surprised me with a unique (re-)discovery of slowness of its own: 

At one point the ancient carriage that connects Mirow and Neustreelitz stopped at a railroad crossing. The train driver got off the train to close the barriers manually by turning a simple crank, then hopped in again to get us across the road, then stopped again to get off and open the barriers.