Berlin, Wittenberg, Nuremberg, Munich (2 August 2012)

Ralph again.  Anticipating a long day, we packed up and left Berlin early.  We had some difficulties getting out of the city.  First off, we drove onto the main beltway around Berlin right during rush hour, so we hit quite a bit of traffic on our way out of the city.  Secondly, we saw very few gas stations within Berlin and soon after we hit the traffic, the low-fuel indicator light came on.  [Gas is easy to find on the autobahn.  Rest stops have restaurants, fast food, bathrooms, convenience stores and gas stations.]  After sighting a “gas station this exit” sign, we went on a highly convoluted route to a truck stop where despite the store clerk’s inability to speak English and my inability to speak German, we managed to fill the tank, charge my credit card, and get back on the road.

Our first stop was about 15 miles off the Autobahn in Wittenberg, a place of great significance within Protestant Christianity as the site where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church, thus ensuring generations of Lutherans to visit on pilgrimage.  Wittenberg is a modern city of 50,000 people, but the historic district feels like Lutheran Epcot.  [Historical Wittenberg is much the same as it was.  I think the reason it didn’t feel “real” was because we didn’t really get a sense that people currently lived in the area.]

[This is also the place where Ralph experienced his very first pay toilet.]

We stopped into the information center, across from famous Castle Church, to get a map.  We came in to find a film crew working on we assumed to be a commercial.  While she seems happy and helpful pointing at the tourist handouts for an eager visitor, immediately after this take the blond woman sighed and hung her head low.

We went across the street and took photos like mad. 

[In Luther’s time, this was a Catholic church.  It has since become a Lutheran church, which is quite evident from the doors where the 95 Theses have been inscribed to the interior which is full of Lutheran symbolism and statuary.  It was very neat to be there.]

(location of the door where Luther nailed the Theses, with the Theses inscribed into the metal door.  Luther and Philip Melanchthon, both buried inside the church, are worshiping at the cross in the mural)

I had felt sick for a couple days so I stopped in the Lucas Cranach Apotheke (apotheke = drugstore) and bought some Ricola cough drops, which are cheaper than Halls here.  We then went to the City Church where Luther preached on Sundays and to the tiny chancel where he made his appeal to the pope.  [The organist was practicing while we were there.  He was quite good.]

 (Luther at the Last Supper, Luther preaching the risen Christ)

After lunch we said goodbye to Beatbox Brother Martin and continued on to Nuremburg.

Lynnae here now – Our goal was to spend a couple of hours in Nuremburg, just to see the Palace of Justice, where the Nuremburg Trials were held after WWII.  However, we had very bad luck.  We had made Wittenberg in good time despite our rocky start but then our luck changed.  We drove through several intense thunderstorms and some road construction.  (More praise for the Audi, it handled well on the wet roads and the automatic lights and wipers were awesome.)  Just when things were beginning to look up, traffic halted abruptly. 

We were completely stopped on the Autobahn.  After five minutes or so of no movement by any cars, we got out as did many others.  We couldn’t see what the problem was but obviously there was one.  So we relaxed for a while.  I sat down on the autobahn.  It felt very strange and unnatural. 

Fortunately we were only just past an exit (we were about level with where the road actually broke from the freeway), unfortunately we were in the left lane.  Due to the large spaces the Germans leave between cars, we were able to snake our way through and exit the freeway.  We were confident that we could drive a little ways, turn parallel to the freeway and the GPS would redirect us where we needed to go. 

Freedom!

It was great decision.  We could see traffic standing still for miles when we crossed the autobahn, with a only a slight detour before reentering the autobahn, we were on our way.  We’d only lost about 20-30 minutes.  We knew it’d be a gamble to try for Nuremburg but as it was on our way we decided to go for it.

Despite the plentiful gas station on the autobahn, when we needed one there were none to be found.  We were low on gas when we finally entered Nuremburg.  We parked and walked towards the Palace of Justice … only to discover that we were about 15 minutes too late.

We were concerned that if we went back to the car, we’d run out of gas while looking for a station.  So instead we continued down the street in search of a gas station or an internet café [so we could look up the nearest gas station].  Eventually we found a station, so we walked back to the car and drove there.   There was a mall with a grocery store across the street so I walked over to get some provisions.

The grocery store was really more like a Target but organized in a very confusing way.  For example the first few aisles were produce, the next few were beauty products, and the next couple were bread.  It took a little more wandering around then I was anticipating.  I was still done in pretty short order and walked back to the gas station.

Ralph informed me that he hadn’t been able to pump gas because we were not members of the organization that ran the station.  We couldn’t acquire a membership because it was closed.  However, a trucker had informed him that there was another station only a kilometer or so down the road.  Fortunately, the trucker was right.  We purchased our gas, marveled at a McGym next door to a McDonald’s and set off for Munich.

We arrived in Munich around 10pm in the worst rain we’d seen while traveling.  Very poor visibility.  We checked into the Hotel Orly, took our luggage up in the insanely tiny elevator, parked the car up the street and turned in for the night.

Berlin Day Two (1 August 2012)

Ralph here again.  We originally planned on only staying two nights in Berlin, then moving on.  But even after our long day in Berlin, we agreed there was more we wanted to see in the city and resolved to stay another full day.  The hotel was not able to accommodate us one more night so we moved a few blocks away to the Holiday Inn for the next night.  [Also a very nice hotel.]

Unfortunately, our decision to stay another day because “we just can’t get enough tourism!” was accompanied by a feeling that we were getting burned out on tourism.  So we decided to take an easier day.  [We ate lunch on the riverfront and enjoyed first (long overdue) German beers.]  We went to the DDR Museum, a museum that described life in the DDR (German Democratic Republic, or East Germany).  It was also a very dense museum, but thankfully much smaller than the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.  Summary of the DDR Museum: socialism does not work.  But it can be absurdly funny.

[The DDR Museum was kind of unique.  It was very hands-on.  Most of the information was under flaps and in drawers.  It was very family friendly in that regard.  There were many children all having a blast.  You could touch everything and touching was required to access a lot of the information.  There was also a trivia game that Ralph enjoyed although it was somewhat slow-moving.  The museum covered absurdities such as collective potty training for three year olds and how many of the people rebelliously went on nudist vacations despite the government’s attempts to stop it as well as the more serious sides of what could happen if you publicly objected to any policies.]

 [Ralph being interrogated.]

Central Berlin contains Museum Island, a small peninsula that contains three state museums and a lot of green space.  Both exhausted, we sat on the grass in front of one of the museums and decided against an aggressive tourism schedule for the rest of the day.  After ducking into a bakery for a quick recharging snack, we walked into the German history museum but did not get beyond the lobby – neither of us had our hearts in it so we decided to head back to the hotel to rest.  [On our way we stopped at the Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Victims of War and Tyranny.  This included those who opposed the totalitarian government after 1945.  Photo below.]

 We napped, bought our dinner from a Chinese fast-food restaurant at the nearby train station, and went to bed.

To conclude the post: the statuary of a failed ideology!

 I assume this is Lenin.  In the lobby of the German Museum

 

Marx and Engels (I think?).  In a small park

 

I hope this guy’s pet is not what it appears to be, which is a terrifyingly large rat

Berlin (Day 1, 31 July 2012)

Ralph here.  The drive to Berlin was pretty uneventful, and I learned (over and over) that Germans CANNOT GET ENOUGH of Adele.  It’s not that her songs were on heavy rotation; it’s more like the presence of her songs are the defining characteristic of German pop radio, with an occasional non-Adele song or commercial thrown in edgewise to make it an impure alloy.  I doubt that even the British like her this much, and she’s one of them. 

We located the hotel fairly easily – even though the GPS was chirping at us in German, it did what we needed it to do – and checked into the Weinmeister Hotel, located on a small side street in the central Mitte neighborhood of Berlin.  This hotel was described on the travel review sites as “modern,” and it did not disappoint in this matter.  We arrived at nearly 11pm and the reception/bar/restaurant megaroom was thumping with techno music as I received disapproving looks from the bartender, who may have been part of the Big Lebowski supporting cast.

Despite the deliberately antiauthoritarian look of the reception, the room was clean, affordable, and close to the attractions, even if it continued the same theme, sans techno music:

the eyes on the portrait follow you

[Ralph booked this hotel.  I was surprised when we walked in and my surprise continued as we went to our room.  The stairway wrapped around the glass elevator.  The walls had been painted white, then a group of local artists came and in a few hours painted whatever they wanted on the walls.  Our room was very modern and trendy.  More photos below.  Instead of a TV we had an Apple computer, the closet was built into the bed, most of the furniture was on wheels, it had a blacklight, and we had a rain shower and a complimentary box of spa products.  In response to my incredulous look (because this hotel seemed to epitomize many things Ralph dislikes) Ralph immediately responded, “What?!?  It got great reviews and was within our price range!”  I enjoyed the hotel and I think Ralph did too.]

We dropped our bags and went on an adventure through the Berlin streets to find a parking garage, eventually finding one a few blocks away at Alexanderplatz (Alexander Square).  [There is a parking garage next door to the hotel but it was full.]

Most of the major tourist sights in Berlin are packed within a mile of each other, so the next day we set out on foot for our whirlwind tour of the Berlin sights.  En route we learned an important fact about Berlin: while pedestrians and drivers are generally very conscientious of the rules of the road, cyclists – and we saw thousands of people biking everywhere, apparently for utilitarian reasons and not for exercise – do not care at all about traffic laws.  Or perhaps there are no traffic laws that apply to cyclists in Germany.  Either way, this two-wheeled menace exists to perpetually startle tourist pedestrians and prompt car-on-cyclist showdowns. [I recall no issues with cyclists.  I witnessed none of them breaking any traffic laws.]

After we realized that bikes would randomly appear all the time, walking in Berlin became easier.  We walked past Alexanderplatz, where a street fair was happening. 

[Tihis was very popular.  It had quite a line.]

About a mile and a half beyond Alexanderplatz, we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the only remaining gate to Berlin of the 18 that originally stood.  Many Nazi parades were held in the Pariserplatz (the plaza adjacent to it).  The Brandenburg Gate also served as a symbol of divided Germany during the Cold War, as it was a dividing point between West Germany and East Germany, and was the site of Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate, tear down this wall” speech.  Now, heedless cyclists pass through it unhindered as weary tourists get their pictures taken with men dressed in poor-fitting East German replica military uniforms.

Nazi parade at Brandenburg gate

The American Embassy is adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate.  While a remote necessity, it’s always good to know where the Marine Security Guards are.

Many other embassies are clustered around the Brandenburg Gate, including the Russian Embassy just up the street (hammer-and-sickle designs still on the outside of the building, clearly built when the Soviets were occupying that sector of Berlin):

After picking up a city map at the information booth on the Pariserplatz, we saw the outside of the Reichstag (now called the Bundestag), the German parliament house whose burning in 1933 helped Hitler rise to power against the Communist party.  Unfortunately to get inside you have to reserve tickets days in advance and we had not done that, but I’m guessing the view is good from the glass dome.

We wandered a bit in an urban park, the Tiergarten, a rectangular wooded enclave within Berlin’s city center, then saw the above-ground portion of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  It consists of a city block with a couple thousand concrete blocks, evenly spaced in a grid pattern.  The blocks range in height from just over a foot to about ten feet high, but the ground level is lower with the taller blocks so that from the edge of the memorial, the tops look approximately even with each other. 

There is a museum below-ground but we had some other places we wanted to see more so we ate bratwurst and currywurst (just a bratwurst sausage in a spicy sauce) at an adjacent restaurant.

One of the places Lynnae really wanted to go was the Topography of Terror.  This is an outdoor exhibit describing the rise of the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and the division of Germany and Berlin after the German surrender in World War II.  It is adjacent to the only remaining section of the Berlin Wall that is still in place:

Topography of Terror.  It is set into the earth a bit, the Berlin Wall section is visible in the background

We were there for probably two hours.  There was a lot to read and it was mentally exhausting.  [This exhibit was really good.  It only seemed like a lot in retrospect.]  So we decided to follow it up with another very dense museum, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.  As we often saw in the most tourist-trafficked areas of Berlin, at the site of Checkpoint Charlie, the free-market economy defeated Marxism in ways I wished it hadn’t:

Take your picture with a real-life German guy playing an American soldier! Only 2 euro!

a replica on the street, the original sign is in the museum

The museum was interesting, it described the political maneuverings between the East  German and West German national governments, and went into a lot of detail about life in divided Berlin and the various ways East Germans escaped to West Berlin, or attempted to do so.  [This museum was really interesting.  It was also perhaps the densest museum I have ever been it.  The sheer volume of information was incredible.  Every room had information on the walls and at least one object on display in the middle.  It was also hot and crowded.  It was also much larger than we had anticipated.  Time and again we’d walk into a room that looked like it was the last one only to see a hallway with many other rooms.  We read and looked at all of the information in the first 7-10 rooms.  Numerous anecdotes were repeated but the majority was still new.  My favorite story was a group of 6 senior citizens who dug a tunnel from East to West Berlin for themselves and their wives.  They had wanted to help with a neighboring tunnel but were turned down because they were too old.  So they made their own.  The youngest man was in his sixties and the oldest in his eighties.  After that we started skimming a bit for the next ten rooms or so.  At the end there were rooms we only glanced in.  There was information everywhere!  Great museum but it was information overload.]

Having done the whirlwind tour of the German capital, we threw in the towel and returned to the hotel.

[We bought a Nutella/banana crepe not far from Checkpoint Charlie.  Ralph had never had Nutella.  He was unimpressed but ate a significant portion of it anyway.  I thought it was delicious.  We also stopped at an Italian restaurant and split a very satisfying pasta dish.   At the table next to us, an English speaking couple was on their first date.  I didn’t think there was going to be second date but Ralph was more hopeful.  After this we walked back to the hotel.  We were so exhausted we couldn’t figure out why we were so tired.  We felt like we hadn’t seen much and should fit more in tomorrow.]