Potsdam - Trebbin

Starting from Potsdam station, you first follow the E10 (long-distance hiking trail E10 Rügen-Italy), passing via the Neustädter Havel Bay and the west side of the Havel south to the Templin railway embankment. At this point, you are already on the 66-Lakes Hiking Trail, which continues on the west side of the Havel to Caputh, where a ferry crosses over the Templin Lake to the east side. However, since I already knew this route from previous trips, I decided to cross over to the east side via the footpath on the Templin railway embankment and initially follow the E11 (long-distance hiking trail E11 Netherlands-Poland) for a while, which I slightly varied behind Caputh to rejoin the 66-Lakes Trail south of Caputh.

From here, the 66-Lakes Trail is very well marked with the blue dot on a white background. Up to the Kleine Lienewitz Lake, it proceeds relaxed along beautiful forest paths.

Already at Kleine Lienewitz Lake, the path becomes very sandy, which unfortunately continues with few exceptions all the way to Trebbin, making progress very arduous and sometimes only possible by pushing. Due to the poor trail conditions from here on, I could only maintain an average speed of about 9 km/h for the entire tour without significant breaks. With a touring bike, I simply reached my limit here.

The section shortly before crossing the A10 motorway was covered with coarse cobblestones, which I almost appreciated given the sandy path before. After the motorway, there was a long, straight downhill stretch through the forest, which I could only manage by pushing at one spot... very frustrating. A short, curved stretch of path before the railway underpass was thankfully paved. Afterwards, it goes sandy towards the Devil’s Lake and continues sandy to the Seddiner Lake.

The path along the Seddiner Lake is very nice again, leading partly through wooded shores, past several swimming spots, then again across open terrain on meadow-like, firm ground near the golf course, making it pleasant to ride until Wildenbruch.

After Wildenbruch, it gets very sandy again until Stücken. The fact that you then have to ride on the country road from Stücken to Blankensee is gratefully accepted.

Beyond Blankensee, one rides along the forest edge again on sandy paths, but unfortunately the signage is no longer good here. In fact, the signposts seem to be completely missing here. I mistakenly rode to Schönhagen at first, realizing that I must have missed the turn-off eastward. I couldn’t find this turn-off anywhere, so I started an adventurous blind ride into the forest, taking several attempts on different paths, which mostly ended in thickets. The fact that I completely forgot to document these blind rides with photos may illustrate my tension when I got lost again on a forest path and ended in a dead end. But somehow, I actually ended up back on the 66-Lakes Trail, and I must say, I have never been so happy to discover a blue dot on a tree trunk ;-)

The further route, crossing the B246 to Löwendorfer Berg, was again easy to find, of course still on sandy paths...

The Löwendorfer Berg with its observation tower can only be climbed by pushing on the 66-Lakes Trail/E10, as there is also sandy ground and the path actually leads quite steeply upwards. But the observation tower is worth the effort and should definitely not be missed. The descent from the tower towards Löwendorf is again very sandy but can be bypassed through the forest, which, however, requires some biking skill.

From Löwendorf to Trebbin station, you then ride on normal road surfaces. Unfortunately, there is neither a kiosk nor a pub at Trebbin station, so missing a train results in tedious waiting (as with me: 1 hour 20 minutes for the next delayed train).