If it's the water you seek, we have a number of boats available, canoes, foot-powered boats, rowboats, motorboats and sailboats.

For more activity but without having to leave Rankenhof, we have ping-pong tables, badminton, boule or kid-sized soccer balls. Or maybe you want to fish from the dock or a rowboat. Or maybe get some help in building a raft?

If you seek some time for personal reflection, just ask. We are happy to organize an outdoor, lakeside yoga class for just you or together with others. If you're unsure of your endurance or motivation, there's also an easy jog through the surrounding pine woods. No worries, we have enough lounge chairs for the nap afterwards.

The only possible conflict is when it's warm out: parents want to get in the water, the kids don't want to leave our playground. No wonder. We have swings, a teeter-totter, slide, climbing structure and sandbox and in summer a large outdoor trampoline. Again, no worries, even the most intense acrobats will want to cool down in the lake at some point.

When the lake turns to ice in the winter, some guests opt to bring iceskates and hockey sticks. For those who want to hear just the sound of their skates scraping on ice can go a longer distance. Either around the frosty reed perimeter of the lake or straight out into the center. Staying only on our lake, the Zemminsee, or crocheting your way across a few adjoining lakes, skating all the way to Teupitz.

Or maybe you'll stay here and work on building a Scandinavian sweatlodge out of natural materials. Post-sauna, there's a plunge in the water or cooling off in the snow. A sauna like never before.