Contents
- Preface
- San Francisco
- Amsterdam
- Amsterdam, Helmond
- Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Haarlem
- Amsterdam, Bruges
- Bruges, Brussels, Cologne, Berlin
- Berlin
- Berlin, Potsdam
- Berlin, Wansee
- Berlin, Prague
- Prague
- Prague, Karlstejn, Vienna
- Vienna
- Vienna, Salzburg, Füssen
- Füssen, Neuschwanstein, Munich
- Munich, Innsbruck
- Innsbruck
- Innsbruck, Zürich, Lauterbrunnen
- Lauterbrunnen, Jungfraujoch
- Lauterbrunnen, Schilthorn
- Lauterbrunnen, Spiez, Zermatt
- Zermatt
- Zermatt, Martigny, Chamonix
- Chamonix, Mont Blanc
- Chamonix, Mont Blanc, Courmayeur, Aosta, Turin
- Barcelona
- Barcelona, Sitges
- Barcelona
- Milan, Venice
- Venice
- Venice
- Venice, Milan, Cinque Terre
- Cinque Terre, La Spezia
- Cinque Terre, Pisa, Lucca, Florence
- Florence
- Florence
- Florence, Siena
- Siena, San Gimignano, Rome
- Rome
- Rome
- Rome, Sorrento
- Sorrento, Vesuvius, Pompeii
- Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, Ravello
- Sorrento, Capri, Naples
- Naples, Bari
- Patras, Athens, Mykonos
- Mykonos
- Mykonos
- Mykonos, Paros, Santorini
- Santorini
- Santorini, Athens
- Athens
- Athens, Amsterdam, San Francisco
Prev :: Thursday, 8 September 2005 :: Next
7. Berlin
Photo Gallery
First I headed back to the Zoo Garden. A church here, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, was badly damaged in WWII, and left that way as a reminder of the horrors of war. It's an evocative ruin. Then I spent a bit of time looking for a place to rent a bicycle, and found one a short walk to the south. For getting around Berlin, it's either the U-Bahn or a bicycle. I ruled out the former because I thought it closed down after midnight (in fact, it seems many of the useful lines run all night, albeit infrequently). Biking is fun, with dedicated colored bike lanes going just about anywhere you want to go (often as part of the sidewalk). But Berlin is huge. It's not very dense, and the population is actually only 3.4 million, but the interesting neighborhoods are really spread out all over the place. So by the end of my three days, I was a bit tired of pedaling the long distances (plus I rode so much that the pedal-powered headlight snapped off, which didn't help at night).
So I rode past the Victory Column, which I was really looking forward to having seen it long ago in Wings of Desire, and then over to the Reichstag. This had a half-hour line — longest by far I had seen anywhere on this trip — and the sun was blazing, so I decided to come back later. I noticed that one of my major expenses was proving to be water! Northern Europe doesn't have water fountains. They don't give it to you in restaurants except in expensive bottles. The bottles on the street aren't cheap, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was spending $20 a day, given the heat. You can get cheaper big bottles in supermarkets, but then you have to lug them around.
Next I rode east through the Brandenburg gate, and into the former East Germany. Amazing how hard it is to tell the difference — only the occasional bit of Stalinist architecture gives it away — but you pass a great number of gorgeous grand buildings along Unter den Linden as well. Way out past Mitte I arrived at the gargantuan Fernsehturm (TV tower) and scaled it. The audio guide is a fine investment here. The first thing I like to do when I arrive somewhere new is to climb the highest thing around for an all-encompassing view of the place. Nearby Alexanderplatz seems unremarkable now, but this was the site of massive demonstrations before the Wall fell. I actually never made it out to see the sections of Wall which remain (or were belatedly reconstructed!) — they aren't too conveniently located. Potsdamer Platz has an impressive modern Sony Center, which reminds me of the Metreon in San Francisco, but it seems more dominated by office space. There is an open-air dome over the curved glass buildings, which at night is lit up in a variety of different colors.
Going south, I passed Checkpoint Charlie, then headed west to the home of the Philharmonic, custom-built in the 60s. They were performing Sibelius Friday night, which I would have loved to have seen, but it was sold out. So, I settled for Jenufa, a Janacek opera, on Saturday night. Nice lunch at Café Berio in Schöneberg, but as Berlin is not very touristy, language can actually be a difficulty! I ordered something more or less at random, and it turned out to be a wonderful lightly fried mushroom dish. Unbelievable... I'm sitting at this café in Berlin and the four guys from back home walk by yet again! So they stop for coffee; sadly I know that I won't see them again on this trip as their vacation is now ending. Riding back through the Tiergarten, one remembers an interesting thing about Germans, which is that many of them are quite happy to take their clothes off. In parts of this park, it's as if people were lying around naked in Golden Gate Park right next to busy 19th Avenue, with only a thin see-through line of hedges separating them from the drivers!
The line for the Reichstag hadn't gotten shorter, but I was going in anyway. It was still hot even as the sun was getting low in the sky. The dome is a little like a giant Fresnel lens or something surrounded by a greenhouse! So it is very, very warm inside on a hot day. You get to walk all the way to the top along a spiraling pathway. Not far from the Reichstag is a strangely moving Holocaust memorial, made up of stone slabs of varying height rising from an undulating surface. The spaces between the slabs are just wide enough to walk through, and they slowly rise up over your head as you enter.
A couple of the best museums are conveniently open until 22:00 on Thursdays. So in the evening I hit first the Pergamon museum, with its splendid altar from the ancient world brought here in the 19th century. Then I headed to the Kulturforum and its Gemäldegalerie, an interesting collection of paintings, heavy on 17th- and 18th-century Dutch and German artists. Not my favorite genre, but very good nonetheless.