Müggelsee: Berlin's largest lake

Berlin has many rivers, lakes and canals and we recently discovered the biggest lake of them all, Müggelsee, in the district of Treptow-Köpenick to the south-east of the city. Großer Müggelsee ("Large" Müggelsee), with an area of 7.4 square kilometers (2.9 square miles) and a length of 4.3 km (2.7 miles), reaches a depth of 8 meters whilst it's smaller brother, Kleiner Müggelsee ("Small" Müggelsee) feeds the River Spree into the larger lake from the east.   

We visited the lake recently and found out that on a weekday morning it is mainly deserted. We can imagine that it can get rather busy though especially during a hot summer weekend. It was actually very nice to escape the city and to enjoy the soothing sounds nature had to offer for a few hours. We approached the lake from the south side at Müggelseeperle but there are some other worthwhile places to visit all around the lake including the towns of Friedrichshagen and Rahnsdorf. 

The lake, being a quite popular day-trip destination for Berliners, has beaches as well as public paths and various resorts around the lake. There are a couple of official bathing beaches and plenty of places to hire paddle boats, motor boats and even canoes.    

There are many paths and cycle lanes as well as lake-side cafes, restaurants and beer gardens to relax in and enjoy the view. What we really liked about our quick visit was that there was a lot of wildlife there including ducks, swans and deer. We also spotted a fox on our walk. 

There are quite a few activities close by such as a Waterworks Museum ("Museum im Wasserwerk") in Friedrichshagen on the north side of the lake. There you can find out about the history of the water supply system and see a permanent collection of machinery, tools and documents related to Berlin's water supply and the history of the plant which still supplies water to Berlin today.

It takes around an hour to get there by public transport (S-Bahn and/or bus) from the city center depending on which part of the lake you wish to visit. Check the useful 'journey planner' on bvg.de to find out the best way to get there. By car it takes about 30-40 minutes and there are lots of places to park around the lake.

A walk around the whole lake I suppose would take around 3-4 hours and I will definitely write a blog about it if I decided to go back and see how long it takes.