Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof is a 19th-century cemetery in the middle of Schöneberg that has settled into a profound, untended quiet. The oldest sections date to 1856, with graves and mausoleums in a range of styles from plain Protestant headstones to ornate neo-Gothic family vaults, all under a canopy of mature trees that in summer turn the paths into green tunnels. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are buried here, as are several other notable 19th-century German scholars. The cemetery is still in active use, but the older parts are largely left to grow as they will, which gives them an atmosphere quite different from the tidy municipal parks nearby.
It is the kind of place that rewards wandering without a particular destination. The combination of Victorian funerary architecture, old trees, and deep quiet makes it one of the more meditative spots in a city that is rarely quiet. The cemetery is open to the public during daylight hours and entry is free; the main gate is on Großgörschenstraße. Nearby, the Schöneberger Südgelände nature reserve — a former railway yard now reclaimed by woodland — offers a different but equally atmospheric version of nature reclaiming industrial Berlin.