Travels with Noreen: Berlin!

Arrived into Berliner Haupthabnhof Sunday, 6/16, afternoon after a long journey on a very packed train. We are glad we had reserved seats because the train was clearly oversold. people were standing in the aisles, sitting on the platforms between the train cars and must roaming the trains for an empty seat.

We meet up with Janet and Dave who arrived a couple hours before us. We are staying in the Brandenberg Apartments and their location is great! Close to the Brandenberg Gate, underground, bus, train service. The are very utilitarian but they do have a washing machine! After four weeks on the road it is nice to have real laundry versus hand laundry. The apartments are of Soviet Design and replaced some wonderful palaces. We are in former east Berlin area.

We did a 3 hour walking trip on our first day to get a lay of the land and a feeling for the history of Berlin. It is a beautiful city of neo-classic design but it is also a new city with glass and steel buildings, a little Frank Gehry and IM Pei. It is multi-cultural. Not sure any real Berliners really exist here. Here we have the Brandenberg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie. We also visited the German history museum which givess a fantastic view of German history from 1BC thru World War II.

We visitied the Bundestag which is Germany's Parliment. Angela Merkel who is the Chancellor of Germany is actually is number four in the pecking order. Before the Berlin Wall came down Bonn was the capital of West Germany. It was moved back to Berlin in the 1990 timeframe. They have 620 members. It is a beautiful new building bult within the interior of the old building that was destroyed in the war.

Berlin is getting ready for President Obama and his family to arrive on Tuesday. Manhole covers have been sealed around the Brandenberg gate where he will give a speech and Charlottenburg Palace where a state dinner is to be held. Multiple street closings, buses routes detoured, businesses around the square closed for two days!

Heard that the KaDeWe department store rivals Harrods in London for their food market, restaurant and deli. Floors 6 and 7 are devoted to food! They had cheese counters separated by country; French, Austrian, Swiss, Italian. They had oyster bars, champagne bars, chocolate bars, meats, sausages, produce, teas, coffees, you name it, they had it! We decided a sampling of French cheeses and a glass of rose was just what we needed.

President Obama was in town on Wednesday so we escaped to Potsdam. The summer palaces of Frederick the Great of the 18th century were in Potsdam. Sanssouici Palace was built in 1745-1747. We toured the palace, walked the gardens, had lunch at Meierei ("Creamery") at the Cecilienhof Palace where the treaty ending WWII was signed ending the war with Germany.

The next day, 6/20, we toured the Pergamon Museum which houses the fantastic and gigantic Pergamon Altar, the Babylon Ishtar Gate and a special exhibit on Uruk a mega city in 5000BC. Amazing!

We also visited the Alte Nationalgalerie. They had a special exhibit of French Impressionism plus some wonderful German landscapes. Lunch at the Hackescher Markt under the train track.

6/21 we visited the Neues Museum which houses a 3000 year old bust of Queen Nefertiti. No pictures allowed. Also saw the Golden Hat, made of paper thin hammered golf leaf dating back to the Bronze Age, 1000BC.

Walked the Kreuzberg district, inhabited by mostly Turkish people. It is a melting pot of nationalities and races. We visited on Friday when the market was open. You could buy anything from a button, socks, fruit and vegtables, doner kebabs to a burka if you choose.

Next we walked what is left of the wall on the east side of Berlin. The artist came in 1989 to paint these walls. They are very moving.

6/22 we toured the Chalottenburg Palace just another former residence of the Hohenzollern family.

We visited the Brohan Museum filled with beautiful Art Deco furniture lamps, glass, silver, posters. The day ended with wine and snacks in our little apartment.

6/23 our last day in Berlin. We visited the Topography of Terror Museum. The museum is located in the location that marks the headquarters of the Reich Main Security. This for me summed up Berlin. It focuses on the perpetrators rather than the victims of the Nazis. It was chilling to watch the power unfold seamlessly. They irradiated over 1.5 million Jews from the German empire which stretched all the way to Rhodes!. We need to make sure this history is not relived.