23 Lakes Where Coal Used to Be Dug: Germany Turned the Holes Industry Left Behind Into a Tourist Destination

Germany has over 12,000 lakes, and in recent years the number has been growing. Not because it has rained more, but because somebody decided to fill with water the holes coal had previously been dug out of. The Lusatia region, about 140 kilometres south of Berlin and 60 kilometres north of Dresden, is today called "the German Lake Como". The artificial version, of course.

The story behind that name is more interesting than the name. Lignite was mined here from the middle of the nineteenth century. More than two billion tonnes of brown coal were taken from the ground, at depths of up to sixty metres. Which means the region was one of the kind we know in the Balkans too: a landscape eaten from the inside so that industry can run, with villages that live off the mine and die with it.

From a mine to 23 lakes

From the mid-1990s the regional mining administration company began gradually flooding the former pits. The result is a water system of 23 lakes covering over 13,600 hectares, with the ambition of becoming the largest artificial lake landscape in Europe. The plan is for ten of them to be connected by navigable canals. As of this summer, five already are.

The first opened to tourism was Lake Senftenberg, with 1,300 hectares and beaches carrying a blue flag for water quality. It has a harbour opened in 2013, an 80-metre pier and a path circling the entire water surface, for cycling, walking or skating. The second, Geierswalder, is known for its winds and for kitesurfing, and its most photographed sight is the 18-metre red and white lighthouse with cabins behind it, housing a four-star hotel and a restaurant.

From there, via the Barbara canal, you reach Partwitzer, surrounded by pine forest and with a two-and-a-half-kilometre peninsula that almost splits the lake in two. This is also home to the region's first floating holiday house. The last to open for boating and swimming was Sedlitzer, whose symbol is a thirty-metre steel tower in a rusty reddish colour that deliberately recalls the industrial past. From that viewpoint you can see three lakes at once.

Wine on the slope and one truth about inheritance

By Lake Grossrachen stand three cube-shaped buildings connected by terraces, serving as a viewpoint and as museum space for the region's history. Next to them is the family winery Weinwobar, whose small vineyard is the only one in Brandenburg planted on a steep slope. Since 2012 they have grown hybrid varieties resistant to fungal disease, harvest exclusively by hand and make single-variety wines. They also run tours with tastings.

This isn't a story about a beach. This is a story about what you do with land once industry leaves. The Germans invested thirty years and a large budget to turn mining pits into a water surface with a list of attractions, hotels and a tourism organisation counting visitors. The Balkans have their own pits, their own abandoned mines and their own holes in the ground waiting for someone to decide what to do with them. Does anyone here even do that arithmetic?

Lake Sedlitzer, incidentally, has also received a special permit to operate as a seaplane landing site. The ambition is clear and isn't hidden: they want to become a luxury destination, like the real Como. They will need a lot more for that, but the fact that there used to be coal at the bottom of those lakes can no longer be seen from the water.