The Mixdorf maze

Summary

Full marks to the Ragower Mühle, a mill in the beautiful Schlaube valley near Berlin, for having created what we think is the first maze in Europe explicitly designed with wheelchair users in mind. Would only that the access route through the Brandenburg forests to reach the maze near Mixdorf were not so formidably rutted and bumpy.

hidden europe 31 / Snippet / By hidden europe

In the broader scheme of European hydrology, the River Schlaube is no more than a diminutive dribble. This little tributary of the River Oder makes no great mark on the Brandenburg landscape. Its valley is no more than a gentle impression in the flatlands that lie between Berlin and the Polish border. Yet this subtle valley is a place of rare beauty, easily reached by taking the minor railway that links Berlin with the villages of Mixdorf and Müllrose. The two hour journey is slow travel at its best, with the train dawdling through forests, hugging lakeshores and from time to time pausing at little wayside halts that seemingly have no villages anywhere in their vicinity.

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Editorial hidden europe 31
Editorial

By hidden europe

In this issue of hidden europe we take the pulse of rural life in the Faroe Islands, join a cattle drove along the canadas in Spain, visit a small community in the Basque country and explore Trieste, that most curiously un-Italian of Italian cities. We also recall the legacy of Georgian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin, take the boat to an island in the Gulf of Bothnia and cross from France into Italy on the trail of Alan Sillitoe.

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Paths of history: transhumance in Spain
Feature

By Diego Vivanco

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A place apart: Trieste
Feature

By Nicky Gardner

Trieste is wonderful, every bit as intriguing as the most fanciful places ever created by the Austrian novelist Joseph Roth. The Adriatic city is Austria's orphan, a one time entrepôt for the Habsburg Empire, that had to find a new role after the collapse of the K&K world. Today Trieste is the place where Italy rubs shoulders with Slavic world, but still a place that has a hint of Mitteleuropa.

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Feature

By Nicky Gardner

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Feature

By Nicky Gardner

Many people visit zoos to see apes, wild cats and okapi. But some visitors to Dudley Zoo in the English Midlands are drawn by quite another reason. Dudley Zoo boasts a fine collection of Constructivist buildings designed by Berthold Lubetkin and his Tecton group of architects. The Lubetkin legacy in Dudley and elsewhere in England deserves to be far better known and much more valued.

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People

By Karlos Zurutuza

The memory of Julián Gayarre, the accomplished nineteenth-century tenor, is perpetuated in his home village in the Pyrenees by a larynx preserved in formaldehyde. Karlos Zurutuza, who is a regular contributor to hidden europe, took the bus to Erronkari to unpick the tale of a local lad whose voice was revered in Europe's great opera houses.

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Message in a bottle

By Silvia Stock

By Erik Schaffer

Valsörarna is a sea of mauve heather, a landscape laced with juniper and full of ripe and juicy blueberries. This tiny Finnish outpost in the Gulf of Bothnia is one of the Kvarken islands. Erik Schaffer and Silvia Stock report on a summer visit to Valsörarna.

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Borderpost

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Books

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Railscan

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Timing

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Ferryscan

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Snippet

By hidden europe

Alan Sillitoe's first publications, written during the brief spell that he lived in Menton in France, were travel essays. Sillitoe died in April, having achieved a formidable reputation as a novelist. We take a look at the lesser known side of Sillitoe's writing, namely his travel prose.

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The Mixdorf maze
Snippet

By hidden europe

Full marks to the Ragower Mühle, a mill in the beautiful Schlaube valley near Berlin, for having created what we think is the first maze in Europe explicitly designed with wheelchair users in mind. Would only that the access route through the Brandenburg forests to reach the maze near Mixdorf were not so formidably rutted and bumpy.

Read on
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Snippet

By hidden europe

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Snippet

By hidden europe

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Preview hidden europe 32
Preview

By hidden europe

A look ahead at hidden europe 32 which will be published on 19 November 2010.

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hidden europe 31

The Mixdorf maze

Summary

Editorial

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

People

Message in a bottle

Borderpost

Books

Railscan

Timing

Ferryscan

Snippet

Snippet

Snippet

Snippet

Preview

At the water's edge: Germany's Wadden Sea

Into the hills: a Bohemian diversion

Rivers of memory: Wrocław