* Another quick trip from Dresden to Berlin
* Joined for the weekend by Carrie’s childhood friend Alissa and her husband Brian – Alissa and Carrie have been friends ever since, while at dance class, four-year-old Carrie informed Alissa that she “has a small face”
* There is a lot to see in Berlin – not only the sites relating to WWII and the Cold War, but also various neighborhoods and people that show a wide range of cultures, lifestyles, and socio-economic situations that make Berlin one of the most diverse cities we’ve been to on our trip
* Stayed at Guesthouse Sixmiles – a little pricey (but still a cheap option in expensive Berlin), it’s wonderfully located and very clean. We would recommend if you need something like that in Berlin.
* Joined for the weekend by Carrie’s childhood friend Alissa and her husband Brian – Alissa and Carrie have been friends ever since, while at dance class, four-year-old Carrie informed Alissa that she “has a small face”
* There is a lot to see in Berlin – not only the sites relating to WWII and the Cold War, but also various neighborhoods and people that show a wide range of cultures, lifestyles, and socio-economic situations that make Berlin one of the most diverse cities we’ve been to on our trip
* Stayed at Guesthouse Sixmiles – a little pricey (but still a cheap option in expensive Berlin), it’s wonderfully located and very clean. We would recommend if you need something like that in Berlin.
The Good:
* Friends! We enjoyed having Carrie’s friend from home, if only so that Carrie finally had someone else to talk to!
* The Holocaust Memorial and Museum is an honest and moving preservation of the events surrounding the Nazi’s rise to power and their extermination campaign during World War II
* We took a tour of Street Art (which is plentiful in Berlin), some of which is really creative and well done
* The Pergamon museum contains the huge (and I mean huge, like 118 feet x 110 feet which includes a wrap-around 371 foot long sculptural frieze depicting the gigantomachy, or struggle of the gods and the giants) Pergamon Altar from ~160BC in Greece and the equally large Ishtar Gate from 600BC Babylon
* The Neues Museum contains the ultra-famous bust of Queen Nefertiti
* The Olympic Stadium, where Jesse Owens famously kicked butt in the track and field events in front of Hitler and his “master race” during the 1936 Olympics and where the 2006 World Cup was held
* Friends! We enjoyed having Carrie’s friend from home, if only so that Carrie finally had someone else to talk to!
* The Holocaust Memorial and Museum is an honest and moving preservation of the events surrounding the Nazi’s rise to power and their extermination campaign during World War II
* We took a tour of Street Art (which is plentiful in Berlin), some of which is really creative and well done
* The Pergamon museum contains the huge (and I mean huge, like 118 feet x 110 feet which includes a wrap-around 371 foot long sculptural frieze depicting the gigantomachy, or struggle of the gods and the giants) Pergamon Altar from ~160BC in Greece and the equally large Ishtar Gate from 600BC Babylon
* The Neues Museum contains the ultra-famous bust of Queen Nefertiti
* The Olympic Stadium, where Jesse Owens famously kicked butt in the track and field events in front of Hitler and his “master race” during the 1936 Olympics and where the 2006 World Cup was held
The Bad:
* There’s a lot of construction in the city, which does get in the way of seeing some of the sites, and requires the use of above-ground piping systems (the groundwater level in Berlin is quote high (like 2 meters below the surface) so most building sites get flooded pretty quickly) that for some reason are painted pink or purple
“Ich bin ein Berliner”, John F Kennedy famously proclaimed in 1963 Berlin to show US support for the city the USSR had divided with a wall two years earlier. 24 years later, in 1987, Ronald Reagan visited Berlin and called on Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” In November 1989, passage was once again allowed between east and west Berlin; eventually, the wall physically came down. From then on, Berlin has worked to reclaim itself – to bring east and west together, to erase as best it can the stain of division left on the streets and the psyches of its people, to emerge once again as one of the most vibrant and diverse cities in the world. Our stay here suggests they’ve made strides toward these goals, but still have work to do.* There’s a lot of construction in the city, which does get in the way of seeing some of the sites, and requires the use of above-ground piping systems (the groundwater level in Berlin is quote high (like 2 meters below the surface) so most building sites get flooded pretty quickly) that for some reason are painted pink or purple
Our trip began with the Brandenburg Gate, where Reagan made his famous speech (JFK spoke at a site to the south of Brandenburg Gate). Nearby is the Reichstag, Germany's parliament, which has an interesting clear ball behind it (you can only see the top in the pictures below) that requires booking weeks in advance if you want to get to the top).
We then went to the Holocaust Memorial, which is a series of 2,711 concrete slabs of varying height arranged in a grid. At the center is a museum which contains a very honest portrayal of the Nazi’s rise to power, the scope of their genocide, and its effects. It’s worth seeking out if you are ever in Berlin.
Nearby is the Bebel Platz, which is the square made famous by the Nazis for their book burning. Today, a glass portion of the square gives way to a room with bare bookshelves to commemorate the event.
Eventually, we met up with Carrie’s friend Alissa (seen here…Hi Alissa!) and her husband Brian.
Our first activity together was to join a “free” walking tour to see the better street art the city has to offer. Berlin is wonderfully diverse, with many layers, and it is known for its street art throughout the world. The tour took us to some neighborhoods and places we wouldn’t have found on our own, which contained some seriously impressive works of street art:
Part of the tour, this is the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall remaining in the city, and has been appropriately decorated by the locals:
We then hit up Checkpoint Charlie, the old gate between east and west Berlin made famous by a tank showdown between the US and USSR in 1961. Today, the checkpoint is still there, replete with actors dressed in US military garb, for tourists to take pictures
The companion piece to Checkpoint Charlie is the Berlin Wall memorial, which is the only place that has all sections of the wall still remaining. See, it wasn’t enough to have just a wall, to effectively close the border the Soviets needed a wall, an inner wall, vehicle barriers, lights, guard towers, and patrol paths. The so-called “dead zone” had a width of 10-20 meters. Here are pictures from a viewing point above, as well as on the ground (including me in front of the wall):
Today, other than some of the sections seen here, the wall is gone but its path preserved by a series of dual brick markers.
Here we see Alissa and Carrie recapturing the magic from their glory days on the playground…
We then checked out the Olympic Stadium, where the 1936 Summer Games were hosted by Adolf Hitler. In the presence of Hitler’s “supreme” white beings, African-American Jesse Owens came to town to win four gold medals, the most of any Olympian that year. It’s a neat complex, which still has other sports venues such as the swimming and diving pools, and is one of the few Nazi-era buildings to have survived.
And then we went upstairs to have some chocolate and ice cream….seriously good!
Follow me on Twitter at @adonaldson1214
No comments:
Post a Comment