My Favourite Places in Nature

... and why they have changed over time

Nørlev beach, Denmark

The North Sea in Northern Denmark

If you’d ask me what my favourite place in nature was - for a very long time I would have said: on the North Sea in Northern Denmark.

Standing on the wide sandy beach of Kandestederne or Nørlev, a line of sand dunes behind me and the eternal sea with its constant breaking of waves and the vast horizon in front of me. The typical smell of salt and seeweed in the air, the never-stopping wind in my hair, my feet in the cold water (it was always cold), sinking slowly into the soft seabed. Breathing deeply. As deeply as I never breathe at home.

For decades, the rough North Sea was my favourite place to be in nature. I loved the vastness, the infinite waves. That's what eternity sounds like, I often thought. Being there always put everything into perspective. In a very good way.

Strangely enough it just worked in Denmark, not in Germany. Although I live in Schleswig-Holstein, the land between two seas (the other one is the Baltic Sea), I always prefered being on the North Sea in Northern Denmark.

The landscape is different there with the broad beaches, the dunes, it’s also wilder, rougher and the tides are very weak there, the water is never gone. And a big plus: There are significantly fewer people on the beach. It’s not commercialised. It’s open and free and just beautiful.

Although I’ve visited this region almost every year since childhood, I only started to consciously appreciate it when I returned as an adult. The sea as vastness against the cramped life in a small town, also broadening horizons in the truest sense of the word, a feeling of wanderlust. It encouraged me to spread my wings and break out of what I’ve known before.

When I returned a few years later, I noticed something else. Being there was the greatest possible inspiration for me as a writer. The sea, the beach, the peace and quiet, the slower pace of living, few people. I never went in the high season. It was perfect.

I wrote a lot when I was there, and I would have loved to move there, actually.

However, for some years now, my answer what my favourite place in nature was would have been different. I no longer felt so comfortable and happy there, the positive atmosphere disappeared. By the sea, I felt vulnerable, exposed and kind of lost.

The landscape hadn’t changed - but I had.

My grandparents’ garden

When I was a child, my favourite place in nature was my grandparents’ garden. It was a kind of a gentle, secure retreat and so fascinating and diverse at the same time. I loved to be there, especially in the summer. I felt safe. I felt happy. I felt accepted.

To me their garden was huge! It had different sections: a vegetable garden, a small orchard with apple and pear trees. Big fir trees provided shade. There was a pond. Lawns were as immaculately maintained as the flowerbeds with the most beautiful plants. There was a humming and buzzing everywhere.

Narrow paths ran through the garden, they seemed unbelievably long to me. As little space as possible was sealed. The washing fluttered on long lines in the wind.

I enjoyed the endless summer afternoons in my grandparents’ garden. In the evening, my grandad and I rode round the garden again on our imaginary horses. His horse was called Reseda. I couldn’t settle on just one name, so it changed a lot, dependent on which book on horses I had recently read.

My grandparents’ garden unfortunately doesn’t exist any more. The property was sold and someone built a house on my favourite childhood place in nature.

Mytikas, Mount Olympus

When I was 18, I did something very unlike me. I went on an adventure.

Well, if you call a four-weeks round trip through Greece with a group of other youths in minibuses an adventure. It certainly was for me.

It was an extraordinary journey through a very interesting country. I loved the very different landscapes, the historical sights, the warm water of the Mediterrenean Sea, but the absolute highlight was a two-day hike on Mount Olympus.

I wasn’t trained at hiking in the mountains at all - and I’ve certainly never climbed a mountain before. But I made it to the Mytikas peak with surprising ease. I think, I was on a climber’s high (if such thing exists, like a runner’s high?). I’ve never felt so fit and in tune with my body, neither before nor after. I was strong and I was fearless, I had confidence in my body and in myself.

Like I said, it was very unlike me.

I still remember how exciting it was to climb the last section, just like that, without a safety device, without anything, just red painted arrows on the steep rock face to help you find a good route. And then to be rewarded with this stunning view!

That was in 1993, I can't believe I actually did it, but there is proof. I've immortalised myself in the summit book at an altitude of 2,918 metres, and a friend of mine took a picture (not a particularly flattering one, but so be it, that was long before the days of digital photography and smartphones).

And I remember exactly how it felt to stand on the very highest point and see the other peaks, the clouds, the rocky terrain, I remember how the path felt under my feet and how narrow some of the ridges were that led to the final ascent. It was an incredible highlight!

When we descended from the Mytikas peak, we had to climb through the clouds, it was like passing through a bank of fog - only vertically. A fascinating experience.

To this day, climbing the highest peak of Mount Olympus is something very, very special for me.

A municipal forest twice the size of Central Park

When I moved to a big city to attend university, I found another wonderful spot to be in nature: the largest urban city forest in Germany, one of the largest in Europe, which is nearly twice the size of Central Park in New York (according to Wikipedia).

It’s such an old forest, mainly oaks, copper beeches, alders and birches, the trees are very tall, and it was amazing to walk or cycle through the woods.

Although it was very close to the city and cut through by a motor road, the city noise and the many people were very quickly left behind. I often couldn’t believe that I was still in the city because it was so quiet and calm, and I loved the special scent of the air you can only breathe in a forest.

I think, the forest was my counterweight to city life, although I didn’t go there nearly as often as I should have. However, when I went, I always enjoyed it immensely and it did me so much good.

Our own little garden

My favourite landscapes or places in nature have changed over time, according to my outer and inner life. Inner life, mostly. They changed with me and according to my respective needs. And sometimes they came at the perfect time when the need was the greatest.

Although the North Sea in Northern Denmark had been my favourite place to be in nature for decades, there came a time in my life, when it didn’t feel right and good any more.

It was a time when I needed retreat, shelter, something more gentle. A safe space.

Just as it had been with my grandparents' garden some forty years ago.

A toxic workplace and then the pandemic made life hard for me, my anxiety flared up, depression, survival mode … you name it.

My husband and I lived in a small flat then with a beautiful view, but a useless balcony.

And then, out of the blue, we actually came to a small house with a small garden.

It took us two years to renovate the house and we moved in the middle of the pandemic.

It was such a relief to be away from the closeness to people and to have an opportunity for nature on our doorstep during lockdowns. And it became even more a safe space after I quit my job at the library and during my year-long recovery from survival mode.

My former job and all the terrible experiences were far away when I sat on a bench overlooking the garden, watching the birds and the bees and just breathed.

A beautiful large, old maple tree, conifers, a flowering cherry next to a lilac, rhododendrons, many other bushes and a hedge provide privacy and shade. The wild, overgrown areas prevent people from looking in and provide space for birds and hedgehogs. Even if the flowering plants struggle a little because it's a bit too shady for them and the soil often dry.

Especially the birds make me smile - robins, great tits and blue tits, blackbirds, so many sparrows, even a pair of pigeons and magpies. Hedgehogs drink from the bird bath, their front feet in the water. Cats from the neighbourhood roam the garden. We named them all: Sleeping Beauty for her favourite spot in the roses, E.T. for his white pointed tailtip, Gandalf (for he is grey) ...

My favourite thing to do during my time of recovery was pottering around in the garden, working in the soil without gloves, or raking leaves. Sun, light wind, birdsong, otherwise everything was quiet - that's where I found peace.

Sitting on our bench next to my husband, just looking at the life in the garden, following the sun’s course and breathing in, breathing out, feeling this incredible, healing deep peace - it saved me. My husband and our garden, they saved me.

What will be next?

Now that I'm changing again, feeling stronger and calmer, much more at ease, I'm curious to see what kind of landscape, what place in nature will appeal to me the most next.

Or, to put it briefly, I think, I’m on the lookout for my next favourite place in nature.

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