Camino Desserts

Camino Dessert Stories

Just a Little Background Info

My first exposure to Berlin is the city’s main train station where the subway system, the street-level rapid transit and the inter-city and regional trains all converge to discharge countless swarms every hour.

My journey along the Vía Imperii starts here. Berlin is a world-renowned, cosmopolitan city of over 3.5 million people. There are many interesting and varied things to see here like the Berlin Wall, the Holocaust Memorial, Museums Island, Checkpoint Charlie and so on. 

Berlin is a hectic, crowded, urban, highly frenetic city, and perfect for those not seeking solitude. That is not me.

Outside of Berlin

Days later I am far, far away from Berlin. I am amidst the rustic and  rural, walking along or through serene, green pastures, white snow-covered fields and forests of brown and grey tree trunks. Some days I don’t see another soul until I straggle into the place that has my bed for the night, be it a church community center, a hostel or a hotel.

Regardless, the one thing that brings me back to a sense of the normal, a temporary break from the routine of daily twelve to sixteen mile hiking, is a good meal that includes dessert.

Bad Dueben

I check-in to The Hotel National in Bad Dueben after 12 miles through the Duebener Heath Forest Preserve. For most of the day I was all alone, until I entered the outer and inner ring suburbs of the city of Bad Dueben. 

The hotel is a nice stay. With a day of temperatures in the low 30’s, my weather gear is performing great, but I still appreciate being comfortable and warm in the hotel. I wander around  Bad Dueben a bit, but return to the hotel for dinner. I am satisfied, but I can’t let it end with meat and potatoes. 

After leering lasciviously at the featured dessert, I must have it. It reads as “Pfannkuchen mit Kirche, Vanille Eis und Schokolade Sosse”. It translates as pancake with cherries, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. It is actually a crepe, but who cares. How can I go wrong with something so alluring, no matter the language?

There is a German song called “The Loralie”. The singer sings of sailors on the Rhein River who instead of attentively navigating a dangerous bend in the river, let their attention be drawn to the golden voice of a golden-haired beautiful woman who sits atop a hill and sings in a melodious voice that hypnotizes the unwary schooner captains below and lures them to their deaths on the rocks and shoals of the Rhine River.

With the Pfannkuchen in front of me, I meet my Loralie. I give my soul over willingly.

Lutherstadt-Wittenburg

I am about to break a cardinal rule in Lutherstadt-Wittenburg. Generally speaking, I don’t try to find American style fast food while I am hiking.

On the way to Wittenberg’s Castle Church of Martin Luther fame, I walk past a hamburger shop. I want a hamburger, more importantly crave french fries, which make an excellent delivery system for sodium chloride, also known as common table salt.

Die Altstadt, the old part of town, is scenic but due to the bitter cold, there is no one on the streets, and therefore only a few people in the hamburger shop. 

The ordering process is smooth. I order “ein Nummer Drei” - a number three. Soon I have my hamburger and salt delivery vehicle. Only there is not enough salt on the french fries. So back to the counter where I horribly mispronounce the German word for salt. The person behind the counter does not understand what I am asking for.

A lady to my left, who figures out what I am trying to say, helps me. With the fries now draped in salt, I devour them. It’s not pretty, but manners seem less relevant in the near-empty restaurant.

Anyway all this talk about burgers and fries is a diversion. Near the hotel is a coffee and pastry shop. 

Having taken my fix of salt, I enter the pastry shop near the hostel. I opt for a follow-on unhealthy choice of a heavy dose of sugar. Finishing the triple-layer succulent pastry with coffee with more sugar, I head back to Marta’s Hostel to settle in for the night … once all the chemicals clear out of my system.

Krostitz Supermarket

It’s my last day of hiking due to another in-coming blast of polar air flowing over central Europe.

The church community center is a welcome respite. 

After a half-mile walk through the freezing night air, I sit down at a Greek restaurant for pasta and beer. That’s called a low-carb diet.

On the way back, I stop in the local supermarket where in the pastry section I find a doughnut called the “Berliner”. This is the iconic doughnut of John F. Kennedy fame when he declared to the world, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” That translates literally as, “I am a doughnut”. What he meant to say was “Ich bin Berliner.” - “I am a Berliner.”

Regardless, the surrounded Berliners of West Berlin knew that he had made a statement of solidarity with them … instead of comparing himself to a doughnut.

This is the very first time in any German pastry section that I actually see a “Berliner”.When I see the doughnut in the supermarket in the tiny town of Krostitz in the German state of Brandenburg in the former East Germany, I have a good laugh. 

In the neighboring shelf, I find the Partyberliner doughnuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

I proudly declare to myself, and not to the other patrons of the supermarket, that “Ich bin ein Partyberliner.” 

Yes, I did just compare myself to a doughnut.

Wrap-up

These are the moments that make being alone out here, days on end, worth the experience.