The best cycling routes around Guben

I have never seen so many swans at once as here.

An absolute highlight! Sensational and opulent – the interior is pure Baroque! Visitors are offered wonderful photo opportunities! The entire complex is very beautiful.

An absolute highlight! Sensational and opulent – the interior is pure Baroque! Visitors are offered wonderful photo opportunities! The entire complex is very beautiful.

Top cycle paths make it fun to ride here

The Neuzelle Monastery1 is a baroque gem.

Anyone looking for a break with a panoramic view will find it at Neuendorf Pond. The view sweeps over an almost oversized expanse of water, where the light, weather, and mood are constantly changing. Sometimes the sky rises dramatically, sometimes the sun glitters with quiet regularity on the water – and somewhere on the horizon, the towers of Jänschwalde smoke. A place that combines nature and industry in one image without hiding itself. The riverside path is easy to cycle, the paths between meadow and forest alternate between asphalt, firm sand, and the occasional gravel. If you like, you can stop at one of the small embankments – there is no designated rest area, but enough space for a roll and a few minutes of rest. The pond is part of the old fishpond industry around Peitz, embedded in a complex network of canals and dams. Not a postcard idyll in the classic sense – but a place with character. Ideal for those looking for something not just "beautiful" but also "interesting." And for a quiet observation break while the swans glide over the water and the clouds of smoke rise towards the sky in the distance.

Those who leave Cottbus behind will be rewarded on this section of the Spree Cycle Path: a consistently well-developed cycle path runs directly along the Spree River – mostly on smooth asphalt, in places on firm, smooth fine gravel. The surface is suitable for touring throughout, even with luggage or a child in a trailer. The route winds through quiet meadows, sparse forests, and wide meadows – flanked, depending on the season, by reeds, poplars, or summery swaying grasses. Views of the Spree River, sometimes flowing gently, sometimes gurgling over shallow sills, are repeatedly offered. Refreshment options are scarce on longer stretches – so it's worth filling up your water bottle beforehand. This makes it an ideal section for just letting go: little traffic, few distractions, and plenty of nature.

From the bridge, Eisenhüttenstadt looks like a painting: a backdrop of red-tiled roofs, a quiet church, and pastel-colored rows of houses nestled along the shore like traces of past summers. Below, a pleasure steamer cruises along, leisurely like an old gentleman on a Sunday stroll. Its paddle wheel puffs, its bow plows through the water, as if time were a flexible concept. The Oder-Spree Canal glitters in the light, as if trying to reflect the sky—and a little of itself. To the right, the Brandenburg meadows; to the left, the tidy melancholy of a city that has experienced much and made little of it. You can see the chimney of the steelworks, but it's not smoking. Perhaps it, too, has the day off. Anyone traveling here quickly realizes: This is no postcard idyll. This is the real East. With history at its core and a future in doubt. And that's precisely what makes it beautiful – in a quiet, unpretentious way. Looking back here isn't a step backward, but a quiet forward. The wind does the rest. And if you're lucky, a heron will greet you from the shore at the end – like a guardian of a time that doesn't intrude, but remains.