Why We Left Berlin for the Mountains (and What Beauty Has to Do with It)
TL;DR: Just scroll down and check the photos….
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There are two types of people in Berlin.
Those who move there for the art, the techno, the sense of possibility.
And those who wake up one day and think: Wait… when was the last time I saw a mountain?
Or the sea. Or literally anything that wasn’t designed by humans.
I was in both camps.
For years, Berlin gave me everything I thought I wanted. Creative energy. Workshop atmosphere to try things. Coffee shops in laundromats. Strangers who dress like the year is 2094.
Berlin is many things. But beautiful is not one of them.
Somewhere between 3am club sets and startup demo days, I realized I wanted fewer dashboards and more dirt paths.
So four years ago, we moved to South Tyrol.
It felt impulsive at the time. But today, I was reminded that it wasn’t.
We went for a short hike. A couple of hours, maybe. That was the plan.
We came back 20 kilometers, 1,800 meters of elevation, one summit, and two bonus peaks later.
By 5:30pm, I was sunburnt, starving, and happier than I’d been in weeks.
Halfway through, my phone died.
Which meant: no photos. No checking the weather. No Googling “What kind of bird makes that sound?”
Just the sound of my own footsteps, my wife’s voice, and the wind hitting the ridgeline.
No pings. No posts. Just beauty.
That’s when I remembered: this is the reason we left.
Not the taxes. Not the tourism pitch in German newspapers from South Tyrolean marketing agencies.
Not the fact that Berlin winters are 8 months long and somehow still not snowy.
It was this: to live in a place that doesn’t need a filter.
We chose mountains over scene. Stillness over attitude.
And yeah, you give up some things when you leave a capital city behind. Like 24/7 falafel and Spätikeulen with dear friends. But you gain other things.
Like silence. And wonder. Beautiful nature everywhere. (And fewer existential spiral-outs in a Späti.)
These days, I don’t need the coolest gallery opening or the best flat white within 300 meters.
I just want a view where the green outweighs the gray.
That’s all.
No big epiphany. No framework. No life-changing insight.
Just a Sunday hike that reminded me: Immersing in beatiful nature isn’t optional. It’s the baseline.
