Within the 52 acres/21 hectares of Erholungspark Marzahn—a Recreationpark—you’ll find more recreational opportunities than you could take advantage of in a dozen visits!
The Recreationpark is really a collection of themed garden parks. It’s like being in Disneyland Park, where you can hop on a train in Fantasyland bound for an an encounter with the Pirates of the Caribbean as soon as you’re tired of the Mad Hatter’s teacups!
The idea for this park came about when the GDR decided that East Berlin needed an answer for West Berlin’s Britzer Garden. The park itself got off to a great start with the 1987—Berlin’s 750th birthday—Garden Exhibition.
In 2000 the Park’s Gardens of the World Chinese Garden opened with its copy of the Beijing summer palace (getting married here is quite popular). Within the garden is the smaller “Garden of the Reclaimed Moon” with its marvelous indigenous Chinese plants and teahouse overlooking the Mirror of the Heavens Pond. Can you say stress relief?
Then there’s the Oriental Garden of the Four Rivers, which in spite of its name is a Moroccan-themed garden in which a desert landscape contrasts with cool greenery and a mosaic-lined Reception Hall gives way to a walled garden complete with dancing fountains. The Four Rivers divide the garden, just like the rivers in the Garden of Eden. If you can’t find your own tiny piece of Paradise anywhere else, it’s waiting for you here!
Next to the Chinese garden is, naturally enough, the Japanese Garden of Together-flowing Waters. In this garden you’ll enter a symbolic time warp, because the water represents Germany’s past, present, and future.
Do you love a challenge? If so then you’ll love the Erholungspark Marzahn’s side-by-side Maze and Labyrinth. What’s the difference?
There are many paths leading to the center of a maze, but only one leading to the center of a labyrinth.
The Labyrinth borrows its design from that of the Chartres Cathedral. A tip: the stones leading to its center are lighter than the black ones leading nowhere. Even so, you’ll need about ten minutes to reach the rainwater pool and victory!
The Korean Seouler Garten, behind stone walls with a pagoda-roofed main entrance, contains over 1,600 (!) evergreen trees and three terraces leading to its main Pavilion, behind which flows a stream.
The Bali Garden of the Three Harmonias is really a glasshouse in which is a series of pavilions and shrines like those found in a Balinese housing complex. Its ferns, orchids, and other tropical plants thrive in their indoor environment, and I love to escape here on gray winter days!
The Erholungspark Marzahn is open year round from 9:00 AM until dark, but the Oriental, Japanese, and Korean gardens are open only from April 1st to September 30th. The Chinese and Balinese Gardens are open from 9:00 AM until their ticket offices close between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM depending on the time of year.
Admission is 3.00 EUR for adults and 1.50 EUR for your kiddies.
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