Parks and people in Berlin and Copenhagen, and my renewed appreciation for what we have in DC

by Marlene Berlin

One of my daily jaunts in Rock Creek Park last week was a delightful hike along Valley Trail north of Military Road.

It began to rain, which for me is a happy occurrence.

I enjoyed the activity and the surroundings but my head was also full of thoughts, mostly of the parks I walked through during trip to Copenhagen and Berlin in late May.

In Copenhagen, I walked through the Kings Garden to the paths behind the National Art Museum and along its naturalized pools.

King’s Garden in Copenhagen

A pool behind Copenhagen’s Natural Art Museum

Those led me to the most beautiful cemetery.

Garrison Cemetery

Initially, when I saw its trees from a street corner, I thought it was another park. As I wandered through I wished to be buried in such a cemetery – it only has walking paths.

On other days I crossed a bridge over transit tracks to head to the harbor or Kastellet.

Cohenhagen harbor

Kastellet in Copenhagen

It was all beautifully maintained. And there did not appear to be off-the-path trails, at least none that I noticed.

In Berlin, I walked to the Friedrickshain Volkspark most days. I found decorative fountains and one that allowed kids and grownups to play in the water.

I always search for high ground and there was a long hill to walk up. What I found were thin wire fences that lined hardscaped paths made of cobblestone or asphalt, at times interrupted by wire gates that were heavily padlocked.

Access to less-official dirt paths beyond the fence was blocked. Such closures are attempted but often fail in Rock Creek Park, much to the consternation of the rangers and trail maintainers.

But at one spot, I saw the fencing had been cut and bent to allow passage to the other side.

If this happens a lot, I thought to myself, it would be expensive to maintain.

To be honest, I found some comfort that there were people out there who did not always follow the designated path. At home, when hikers could not find a safe trail between Soapstone and Rock Creek Park, they created one between Broad Branch Road and the creek flowing alongside. The National Park Service went on to fence it off.

The friend we were visiting in Berlin, a part-time DC resident who is herself German, told us city was historically a center of the anarchist movement. She also told us about Rosa Luxemburg, a revolutionary and social democrat. We were staying near a plaza that was named for her.

The day before we left, I again walked up the hill, and found many of the gates closing off access to dirt trails open.

I wondered what was going on, and asked a woman who was coming toward me carrying a bag full of white blossoms. “They had given up,” she surmised.

She went on to explain that holes in the fence are not unusual, and that she often uses them to go into the closed areas and pick up trash. I asked if there are any groups that organize clean ups, and she told me she knew of no such groups.

Of course, I asked her about her clippings, which looked like they’d come from the trees overhanging the hillside paths. She told me that someone yelled at her for cutting the blossoms off the elderberry trees. (That would probably happen in Rock Creek Park, too.) She defended her actions, telling me there were so many elderberry trees in the park that it was hard to imagine they could be picked clean. She was heading back home to make elderberry blossom syrup.

My husband and I also visited one of Berlin’s main parks, called the Tiergarten. It featured waterways and naturalized as well as formal gardens.

But busy four-lane main roads running through the park interrupted the sense of being surrounded by nature and escaping from the city around us.

I was very happy to return to Rock Creek Park, where many trails do allow for an escape, and large portions of Beach Drive are now reserved for people on bikes and on foot. I find its wildness rejuvenating.

I am never quite sure what to expect when I round a curve in the trail or get to the top of a ridge. What kind of critter will be crossing my path, flying overhead, or swimming in the creek?

Even in my annoyance with the rangers who fenced off the Broad Branch Road footpath, curtailing its use as a safe detour, I still appreciate them, the park maintenance workers and volunteer groups such as Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and Rock Creek Conservancy. They keep our park as wild as an urban park can be, and navigable.

Even with the unruliness of nature and the people who use the park, we manage to make it work.