Walk 16 – Humboldt Trail (36 km)

Flower meadow in Gutspark Falkenberg

The Humboldt Walk starts in the vicinity of Schloss Tegel. As this large manor house was the childhood home of the renowned scientists and scholars Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, it is also known as the Humboldt Palace (Humboldtschloss). The Humboldt brothers would certainly have explored some of the walks around the lake “Tegeler See”. The Humboldt Walk leaves Tegel along the course of the drainage ditch “Nordgraben”. The ditch, however, would not have existed during the Humboldt brothers’ lifetime. It only dates from around 1930, roughly one hundred years later, and was constructed to adjust fluctuations in the river “Panke’s” water levels.

The path near the Falkenhöhe allotment gardens

Today, though, with the influx of wastewater from irrigation fields into the river “Panke” a thing of the past, the drainage ditch “Nordgraben” no longer serves its original function. To the east of the river “Panke”, the Humboldt Walk includes sections of the well-developed Fließgraben, Hechtgraben and Seelgraben walking trails, and connects the open landscapes of the Wartenberger and Falkenberger Feldmark parks with the finger-like shape of the Wuhletal park landscape. Between the rivers “Panke” and the “Wuhle” most of the walk is located away from the built-up areas, providing a chance to explore the gentle green hills where north-east Berlin meets the Barnim plateau – a region known as “Berliner Barnim”.

Length: 34 km