Coming Full Circle: Berlin Germany
Our big trip of the year was to Germany last spring. The two week trip started and ended in Berlin and consisted of a basic loop around Germany, although we did briefly set foot in Austria, Switzerland and France. But what really made this feel like coming full circle was this happened to be the first trip back to Europe since we lived in Germany from 1989 to 1991. We used the excuse that our daughter was studying for a semester in Berlin last spring, but I believe we felt Germany has been calling for us to come back for quite a while now.Living in Germany all those years ago was the start of our love of travel, photography and adventure. We were big fans of Rick Steves' "Europe Through the Back Door" guide book back then. And, although we read Rick Steves' "Germany 2017" guide book while planning our trip, most of our trip was unscripted except for where our hotel reservations were. Even though we have done our share of touring museums, churches, cathedrals, palaces and castles over the years, we prefer being outside and just wandering around, exploring what is around the next corner or bend and relishing the beauty and charm of the small things along the way.
Surviving the First Day
From what we remember, the first day in Europe was always a struggle after not being able to sleep on the flight across the pond from the States, trying to stay awake until night fall once we arrived, with our brains in a fog due to the large time zone change. This time, Left Buddy did some research and convinced me to start shifting our daily routine a week in advance of our trip. We shifted everything by an hour each day, from what time we went to bed, what time we ate our meals, what time we worked out and what time we went to work. Thankfully we had jobs that would allow that. And I have to reluctantly admit that Left Buddy was right this time. Despite not being able to sleep on the flight, we felt good upon arriving in Berlin, could think clearly, enjoy our surroundings and did not have any problems staying awake until 8 or 9 pm Berlin time. That being said, our first (half) day of touring involved a lot of walking and not much thinking. Since Berlin has an excellent public transit system, we chose not to have a car while we were there. Using public transit and walking allows us to experience more of the local culture. We arrived in Berlin around lunch time, took a combination of bus and U Bahn (subway train) to get to the Grand Hostel. We had never stayed at a hostel before, but we had noticed that they had private rooms when we booked a room for our daughter at the beginning of her semester and her school was just down the street. After checking in, we spent the afternoon walking. With being cramped in an airline seat for hours, it felt good to stretch our legs and get some exercise. So we walked and walked and walked. From the hostel, we walked over to and around the Tiergarten. It was Sunday, so the park was filled with people walking, jogging, lounging, playing and picnicking. We noticed the people were engaged with each other, no cell phones in sight. Being a nature lover, walking around the Tiergarten was peaceful and rejuvenating for me and also satisfied our sense of adventure, following different paths to see where they would lead, finding ponds, gardens, statues and memorials hidden among the trees and bushes of the park. Of course, we also enjoyed seeing the Siegessäule (Victory Column) which dominates the center of the park, with its gold glittering in the sun.After wearing ourselves out walking around the Tiergarten all afternoon, we started a search for a restaurant. The person who checked us in at the hostel had told us that there were quite a few restaurants near Postdamer Platz when we asked her for recommendations earlier that day. As we wandered around Potsdamer Platz, we stumbled across the Sony Center, a modern courtyard or plaza under a structure that resembles a tent. We found an outdoor table at one of the restaurants in the plaza. Although the air was a little chilly, blankets were provided by the restaurants, hanging on the backs of the chairs. The food was nothing to write home about, but the unique atmosphere and surroundings made up for it. After dinner, we walked back to the hostel, taking in the quiet neighborhoods along the Landwehr Canal and imagining how the locals in the area lived.
Berlin Wanderung
The only thing we planned ahead of time on the first full day in Berlin was to meet our daughter and her roommates for dinner in the Nikolaiviertal. So we decided to start at Brandenburger Tor and walk down Unter den Linden towards Museuminsel (Museum Island) and the iconic Berliner Fernsehturn (TV tower). On the way to the S Bahn (train) stop to get to Brandenburger Tor, we walked past an unusual tent-looking building and then the facade of the remains of a historic building. So of course, I took pictures of them and looked up what they were later. The facade turned out to be the remains of the Anhalter Bahnhof, an old train station that was destroyed in WWII. The other building is called the Tempodrom and is an arena and concert venue. The picture to the right is a view of the Tempodrom through the Anhalter Bahnhof facade. After our pleasant stroll down the tree-lined boulevard Unter den Linden and stopping to check out St. Hedwigs-Kathedrale at Humboldt University and the Neue Wache memorial along the way, we climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom for the view of the city from above. The view was definitely worth the climb. It was getting close to lunch time, so we wandered over to Hackescher Höfe in search of curry wurst. We didn't find any there, but did enjoy wandering through the quiet little connected courtyards with little shops. After we found some curry wurst over on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße near the TV tower, we then wondered why we had so much trouble finding curry wurst, because we saw it everywhere after that.We still had time before our dinner date, so we decided to take a boat tour on the Spree River which went by a wonderful combination of historic and modern buildings and bridges. We also noticed quite a few places along the grassy river banks with large groups of lounge chairs filled with people relaxing, watching the boats go by, with a beer in hand. After the boat ride, we wandered over to the Hackescher Markt to have some coffee and Kuchen (cake) at an outdoor table. Hackescher Markt is a lovely city square filled with outdoor tables for several restaurants and beer gardens and a great place to take shelter from a short afternoon rain shower under the large table umbrellas. Afterwards, we walked around Nikolaiviertal before having a wonderful German meal at Zille-Stube, where we were able to show off our rusty German in brief conversations with our waiter in front of our daughter. Our daughter's German teacher had recommended the restaurant and we were very pleased with the food and the friendly waiter. The restaurant is named after Heinrich Zille, a local caricaturist, well-known during the 1920's. The Zille Museum is just around the corner from the restaurant. Nikolaiviertal was the highlight of the day for me, feeling like a small village in the middle of Berlin, with the beautiful Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall) on the northeast edge, the Nikolaikirche in the middle and the Statue des Heiligen Georg along the Spree River, all connected together with narrow streets lined with cute little shops and small museums.
Buddy Bears
As we wandered through Berlin, we came across quite a few Buddy Bär. Pictured here are a couple of them, Nikolai Bär (#1525) and Schweizerhof Bär (#2). There are hundreds of them around Berlin and you can find all their locations online (buddy-baer.com), but we found it much more fun to just be pleasantly surprised when we came across one. And there are now Buddy Bears located all around the world, not just Berlin. Have you seen one somewhere besides Berlin?
Strassenbrunnen (Street Water Fountains)
This was another instance of taking a picture and looking up the details later. Berlin has thousands of registered street water fountains that it encourages the public to use in order to keep them in working order. They are a water system from wells that Berlin keeps in case there is a failure with the regular city water system. You can read more at Berlin Companion. The one pictured to the left is number 26 located in the Nikolaiviertal. The best I can tell from my research (mostly websites in German), this fountain is a type of Lauchhammer pump from the late 1800's. The long handle on the right side is used to manually pump the water up from the well.
Worms Hanging From Trees
As we were walking around the Tiergarten, we needed to pay attention that we didn't run into these worms hanging from silk threads from the trees, especially when we were going down less-travelled paths. As far as I can tell, these are inch worms which are not worms at all, but caterpillars from some types of moths. Is there anyone who has a better identification? And why are there inch worms in Europe? I thought they were on the metric system!
Completing the Circle
On day 3 of our trip, we picked up our rental car and drove out of Berlin to continue our tour of the rest of Germany. We will describe our trip outside of Berlin in future blog posts. On day 12, we returned to Berlin in the evening with just enough time to turn in our rental car, check back into the Grand Hostel and make it to the Berliner Fernsehturn in time for our reservation to view the Berlin city lit up at night from the top of the tower.For our last full day in Berlin, we started off with an early reservation to go into the Reichstag building with our daughter. The Reichstag is an interesting combination of old and new architecture. In the left picture you can see a little glimpse of the glass dome that covers the modern addition that is shown in the right picture. After the Reichstag tour, we walked through the Tiergarten again on our way to meet our daughter's roommate for lunch at the food court of the Bikini shopping mall, overlooking Zoo Berlin. After spending a wonderful afternoon strolling through the zoo, we ended up at Sony Center for dinner at a table in the same plaza we ate in on our first day, pretty much back where we started. Our last day in Berlin was short and sweet, a quick tour of our daughter's school and then back on the plane, this time with our daughter, to fly back over the pond to home. Overall, what I remember the most is all the intricate details in the buildings, the bridges, and the public artworks.
(RB)