The Spreewald |
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The Landscape About 100 kilometres from the German capital city Berlin, the Spreewald region stretches over a total area of more than three thousand (3,173) square kilometres, split into the Lower and Upper Spreewald. In its core, 75 km long and 15 km wide, is the area designated by UNESCO in 1991 as the Spreewald biosphere nature reserve. This landscape of lowland and water meadows, unique in Central Europe, developed around 20,000 years ago in the Ice Age. The landscape was named after the Spree, a river with a 970 km long network of waterways winding through extensive meadows, forests and scattered settlements.
The Legend of the Spreewald's Origin One legend tells that the Spreewald was formed as follows: The devil was ploughing fields in the region. He ploughed with two big black oxen, roaring and shouting terribly. The ploughing was hard and heavy going and the oxen were making a very slow job of it. So the devil took his hat and threw it, cursing, at the oxen. They got frightened, ran off and leapt criss-cross in all directions, still pulling the plough behind them. The deep furrows left by the plough caused many small streams to form where before there was one straight river bed. |
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