Treptower Park: the river and the great memorial
A Spree-side park, the vast Soviet war memorial, an island folly, and the world's longest telescope. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Treptower Park, Spree shore
Start along the river. The park is broad, green, and properly Berlin at weekends — boats on the Spree, beer gardens, the lazy width of the water. Walk the shore south before you turn inland to the memorial.

2. Soviet War Memorial
This is the centre of the walk and a place to be quiet. A monumental cemetery for the Red Army soldiers who fell taking Berlin in 1945 — the granite gateway, the kneeling soldier, the long avenue of sarcophagi, the great earthen mound. At the top, the bronze soldier holds a rescued child and stands over a broken swastika. Walk the axis slowly.

3. Archenhold-Sternwarte
The old observatory on the park's edge — Germany's oldest public one, home to the *Großer Refraktor*, the longest pointable telescope in the world. Einstein gave his first Berlin lecture on relativity here in 1915. Check the visiting hours; the dome is the thing.

4. Abteibrücke and the Insel der Jugend
Cross the small stone bridge to the *Insel der Jugend* — the Isle of Youth, a wooded little island in the Spree with a café and a quiet that the main park doesn't have. The bridge alone, all arches and ivy, is worth the detour.

5. Plänterwald riverside
Follow the Spree south into the *Plänterwald*, an older stretch of riverside woodland. The path runs under big trees with the water always on your right. Stay on it to the Plänterwald S-Bahn, or turn back to Treptower Park if you'd rather.

Treptower Park: the river and the great memorial