Jessica J. Lee on her project to swim a different Berlin lake every week for a year…

In a region with thousands of lakes (Brandenburg is said to have over 3,000 and Berlin itself nearly 100), swimming feels as natural as cycling.

I personally enjoyed my first Berlin swim in the late summer of 2014. One afternoon after work, I pedalled my bike to the Grunewald and locked it to a tree on the banks of Krumme Lanke. The shallows of the lake were warm and golden in the sun. After swimming into the centre—clear, still, and fringed with grass—I sat on the banks, dipping my toes as I dried off.

I continued to explore the city’s lakes throughout the autumn and early winter, returning to Krumme Lanke for a New Year’s Day swim with friends. Thick ice creaked along the edges of the lake as we moved into the windswept, blackened water. A crowd gathered on the shore: families and their dogs, children and grandparents, young friends, all aghast that we were in the lake as they stood frozen on dry land. Perhaps, in retrospect, it might’ve seemed a bit mad to the uninitiated.

Between then and now I made the decision to swim a different lake every week for a year, 52 in total, cycling to parts of the city I’ve not seen before, hiking nearby trails to find exactly the right spot for a swim. I’ll take in local history, the quality of each swim, and whatever else catches my eye, from Arkenberger See to Zeesener See. Rain or shine, summer and winter.

The Rules are: no pools, no wetsuits and the lake must be accessible by foot, bike or public transport. By all means get in touch with any suggestions you might have either by contacting me through Instagram, or using the hashtag #52Lakes.

Krumme Lanke

Krumme Lanke rests at the end of a suburban road, at the end of the U3, southwest of the city on the edge of the Grunewald. This was my first Berlin lake, and it is here that I’ve returned again and again, alone and occasionally with others, to mark my time in the city. In early June, the lake is getting busy again—on a weekday afternoon, there are a few young families spread out on the beach and young couples sheltering in the woods.

I’ve come here with Canadian friends, and as we walk towards the shore, along the eastern edge of the lake, we breathe deeply and notice the swelling green of the trees, the light scattering along the path. The suburban streets near Krumme Lanke seem a world apart from Berlin’s centre, and the quiet of the forest seems at odds with the fact that, via U-Bahn, it’s so near to the city. The lake strikes a balance between nearby urbanity and sylvan rurality, making it so desirable that it was formerly the site of an SS settlement, Waldsiedlung Krumme Lanke, housing Nazi officials and their families from 1938 until the end of the Second World War. But now, street names quietly changed, the lake feels like a timeless summer scene.

We settle near one of the beaches halfway along the lake’s length, resting our bags next to a tree on the terraced shore. Stepping in, the water is cold at first, but the sand feels clear of debris, so I walk out before fully submerging myself in the greenish-blue. As I swim out into the middle of the lake, it feels warmer, and the sun cuts a glorious line along the shore. Grass fringes the edges of the lake, and trees lean out over the water’s edge.

The water at Krumme Lanke feels incredibly clean—so clean it’s used as a water source for residents nearby—but there is minimal wildlife. A few birds dot the edges of the lake, and some small fish dart around the shallows, but not much else. On a busier day, the swimmers here might outnumber the birds, but for now it feels quiet, like a safe corner of nature in the city.

Notes: They recently re-seeded the grass lawn on the south side of the lake, popular with sunbathers. The lake is popular with FKK swimmers. Some sections are fenced off for habitat restoration, but there are great swim spots both in the forest and along the beaches. In morning, the west side of the lake gets the best sun (and there’s a climbing tree for jumping into the lake), but the beaches on the east side get good afternoon sun.

Transport: Take U-Bahn U3 to Krumme Lanke Station, then walk 1 km down Fischerhüttenstraße. The lake is signposted on the right-hand side. By bike, it’s a 16 km bike ride from Mitte — bike to Hohenzollerndamm and then follow Clayallee to Argentinische Allee and Fischerhüttenstraße.

 Templiner See

A short bus ride from Potsdam Hauptbahnhof—or indeed, from the extravagant gardens of Sanssouci—is Templiner See, a lake traversed by an enormous stretch of the River Havel. Deep blue and rippled with waves, Templiner See is no rural hideaway, but rather an open, sun-drenched expanse of water, thriving with boaters, swimmers, paddlers, and beachgoers alike. The festive, holiday-town feeling seems rather at odds with the idea that, just 85 years ago Albert Ein…