After countless years and endless arguments, Tempelhof Airport—what was once the city’s most contentious question mark—has become Tempelhofer Park— perhaps remaining Berlin’s most perplexing blank slate. Although the areas of greatest interest—the former airport buildings themselves—remain fenced off, Tempelhof still seems remarkable by its sheer size.

At nearly four square kilometers, it holds the title of largest park in continental Europe. True, the site of the Berlin Airlift in 1948-9, which figured so prominently in German and Allied consciousness post-WWII, is nothing if not expansive. It certainly offers enough space for its official motto, “Bewegungsfreheit” (“freedom of movement”), to be justified.

Although not much more than a wide-open space with a designated grilling area, the park provides a historically rich alternative to the nearby Hasenheide. Stow a bottle of wine and some grub in your bike basket and marvel at the sheer expanse around you as you search for the perfect picnic spot. Once you’ve found it, take some time to appreciate the 200,000 planes that dropped food and supplies onto the ground you now stand on, preserving the “Bewegungsfreiheit” of West Berliners until the Berlin Wall fell forty years later.