The Botanischer Garten

We're back to some not-so-great weather this week! But Saturday the clouds stayed away, and I went out on multiple train lines (the connection was supposed to be pretty straightforward, except that there must have been repair work going on on the train line that we would usually take; the detour included two or three extra trains!) to the Botanical Garden in Zehlendorf. Louise, another language student in my class, came along with me.

The Berlin Botanical Gardens aren't as big as Chicago's. But they are really impressive; nicely laid out and with a huge variety of plants from all over the world. They are also much older than Chicago's Botanical Garden, since some prince or other founded them in 1679. A Grand-Duke, sorry! The model garden was started in Schöneberg, another Berlin neighborhood, and transplanted to its current location at the beginning of the 20th century. Today it is part of the Freie Universität.

Louise and I both appreciated the greenery and the break from city surroundings. She had to put up with all my photo-taking, since I am still partial to the plant kingdom in terms of environmental biology.