Bezirk Berlin: Marzahn-Hellersdorf

Population: 259,881
Sub-districts: 5

Marzahn

Biesdorf

Kaulsdorf

Mahlsdorf

Hellersdorf

Gärten der Welt | Gardens of the World

Marzahn Leisure Park is home to a variety of themed lawns. Its Gardens of the World exhibition opened in October 2000 with the Chinese 'Garden of the Reclaimed Moon'. This is the showpiece and plays homage to Southern Chinese landscaping. Soft-red-painted pagodas circle a 4,500 m²large lake, replete – like any body of water in a relatively nice setting in the UK – with copper coins on its bed.

The Christian Garden is the most recent and most striking addition to the exhibition. It is a traditional cloister garden framed by a gaudy-gold-painted cage made up of German philosophical quotes and references to the New and Old Testaments. The words obscure the plot's central features but are anyway themselves the reason to visit this highlight.

The Italian Renaissance Garden is recommended, though not for its 16th Century-styled architecture or flowerbeds. Here, most prominently, the cultivated wild of the grounds can be most easily contrasted with the Marzahn horizon. The way the pomp of the yellow stucco arch and terracotta pots clashes with the bleak blocks of GDR-era flats is wondrous.

The English Garden is, in August 2014, still under construction, but one can easily imagine it soon filled with roses and ornate shrubbery.

The hedge Maze is full of holes – and looks much better on the information board at its entrance – but is surprisingly effective. It is perhaps the only place you'll spot engaged younger people as the elderly ultimately populate the Gardens.