Germany: 30 - 31 Dezember 2009

30 Dezember 2009

Well, we've finally done it. We've made our way through three countries and 11 individual stops. We're on the last couple of days of our trip and winding down. This morning Chad went out to explore Berlin sans me. (I had blogging to do and was too tired to museum hop.) But, I wanted to share his experience with you as well.

As you may or may not know, Berlin throws one hell of a party for New Year's Eve. Thus, we were sharing Berlin with a cool million extra visitors or so. This made getting around and doing things a bit of a pain in the rear at times. (Chad learned this as he tried to visit a museum and was thwarted by long lines.) Nonetheless, he did see Museum Island and the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom).

Next, we met up at Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint "C"). While the actual gateway is long gone, this street scene as well as a full museum stands here to remind all visitors about the history of the Wall. A young American soldier faces east, while a young Soviet solider faces west.
Chad snapped a shot of these fun East Germany cars (Trabants) that are not only nostalgic, but available for a quick trip around town.
Next it was obligatory to see what remained of the Berlin Wall, which to be frank, ain't much folks. Here is one small chunk. The Wall was constructed nearly overnight in 1961 to slow the flow of Eastern Germans. The 13-foot high wall also had a 16-yard ditch between the two sides - also known as the "death strip". We found it interesting to learn that there were just over 5,000 successful escapes and that a whopping 565 of these were East German guards. Go figure.
Here is another larger shot of a remaining chunk of the Wall.
Our next stop was lunch at Leysieffer. We were also lucky enough to see this great art exhibit made entirely of cars.
Next we hit the Gendarmenmarkt Christmas Market. This was a great combination of both indoor and outdoor artisians and some of the finest goods we have seen so far.

Next we stopped at one of the best, albeit unusual, parts about Germany - one of their indoor car malls. These were sprinkled throughout Germany and allowed you to try several cars all indoors with multiple showrooms, cafes and some oldies, but goodies like this VW van.
Here is another shot of the Gate at night. They are still prepping for the NYE celebrations.
This is Berlin's Reichstag - or parliament. We attempted to get inside, but the silly tourists (much like ourselves) made it impossible to do without a two-hour wait. Alas, another trip might be necessary.
We ended up having dinner at another recommended cafe, Marché. This was totally worth the stop - fresh fruits, juices, veggies, etc. Yummy!
31 Dezember 2009

This morning Chad attempted the Pergamon Museum again and was successful. Here are some shots from the Gate of Istar, otherwise known as the Gate of Babalyon. Quite impressive by his account.


Here is a smaller-scale model of what the gate and is related sculptures might have looked like back in 562 BC.
Here's a couple fun pictures from the New Year's Eve (otherwise known as Silvester) celebrations at the Gate. So amazing and beautiful.

And, then the less amazing and highly crowded beer tent. (But, props to the beer tent being warmer!)
And then there was the snow. In fact, this band took a little time to talk about how much they enjoyed the snow playing.

And then there's are fireworks in the background. (And, me, again in the snow. Big damn snowflakes.)
Here's a shot of the beautiful Christmas trees lining Ku'Damm. We hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We certainly did. Much love to you all in 2010.

Germany: 29 Dezember 2009

No visit to Germany would be complete without a visit to Berlin, the country's new unified capital. We arrived in Berlin in the evening. Check out these fun decorations and holiday cheer at the train station.

We made our way to our pension, Pension Bregenz, that is located just a few blocks off Kurfürstendamm (nicknamed "Ku'damm") and is West Berlin's main drag and 2-mile ode to shopping. Here is a shot of our room.

Next we grabbed a quick meal and then headed out to hit the town a bit. We stumbled upon the pre-NYE setup at the Brandenburg Gate and caught this fun shot of the Ferris wheel! (Who in their right mind gets up on a Ferris wheel in freezing weather is unknown to me, but apparently it happens.)
Here's our first glimpse of the Gate at night. Ain't she a beauty? And to think, she sat relatively unceremoniously for 25 years because of some squabble. What a shame. Now she's really a site to behold.
Speaking of unceremonious sitting, we made our way to the Brandenburg Gate ("Brandenburger Tor") S-Bahn stop. This is one of Berlin's former ghost subway stations. During the Cold War, most underground train tunnels were simply blocked at the border, but some lines did happen to transverse through the East. The stations were, of course, strictly off limits. For 28 years Western trains simply passed through (seeing the Eastern guards and frozen stations along the way). Now they are open and look fairly similar to there 1931 construction.
Next we made our way to Unter Der Linen (otherwise referring to "under the linden" - meaning the linden trees that line the streets). This is the heart of former East Berlin. It is truly beautiful and so wonderful at night. We appreciated the thousands of lights they'd put up for us to enjoy.
Here I am appropriately bundled for a night stroll in Berlin in late December. I really do wish that more of you could have been with us to see these beautiful things - you'll just have to imagine them with the help of our photos I suppose. (Or, come and try this trip yourselves!)
With more ground to cover, we make our way to The Department Store of the West - Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) to enjoy their much-hyped cafeteria selection and enjoy the top-floor view. Here's a shot from the first floor where I'm busy checking my e-mail. (Probably reading your comments about another blog or Facebook post!) They had many of these great trees throughout the store. It was a pretty great department store to be quite honest - and it should be with over 2,000 employees to help you paw over their nearly 400,000 items. The cafeteria was also quite yummy now that I think of it!
Next we make our way outside to enjoy one of Berlin's many Christmas markets. I will have to tell you that Berlin's markets were pretty commercialized. Someone had gone around all of Germany to copy the best, quaint and charming parts from the other markets and try to plop them all right down here in Berlin. It doesn't quite have the same "Je ne sais quoi" as the others did, but they did get two things very right: (1) they have the best tables for you to stop and eat and drink and this is a big plus, and (2) they situated the festivities directly in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The church has been left as a memorial to the World War II destruction of Berlin and is beautiful. On that note, I think I will rest for now and tell you more tomorrow! Have a great night!

Germany: 28 Dezember 2009

This was our first true morning in Dresden, and we were sorry in a way that we only had allotted one night in this great city and they were unable to accommodate us for a second night. Nonetheless, we made the most of it and hit the streets running. We started with breakfast from the local pastry shop, and then headed to the train station to leave our luggage in a locker. (This is easier when you need to leave later on the train and it prevents you from having to haul around your crap all day.) Next we trotted along to the city center – Altstadt to check out the pedestrian walkways, shopping centers and market. Dresden is a large city with ½ million residents. It seems to have a nice balance of old and new.

I think it would be important to take a second here and talk about Dresden v. Prague. I mention these two because they were both cities that were basically destroyed during WWII and then were stunted for 40+ years due to communist rule. While Prague has rebuilt some of its commerce and has certainly restored numerous historic buildings, Dresden has really gone wild with the rebirth of their city and they are flush with commerce. This was so incredibly noticeable and it reminded me of one of my very first German lessons and the very first verb they had us learn – fleißig. Fleißig is the German word for industrious/hard working, and they are nothing if not that. And by golly can you see this in Dresden. (Perhaps this is a clue into my own tenacity…it’s in the blood?)

Here are a few shots from their market. (It was closed by the time we got to this city, but these are fun anyway.) Notice the giant pyramid that’s a staple in this city. I was glad to be able to see this, as it is one fo the most defining aspects of Dresden's Christmas market.

Next we were over to the historical district which essentially consists of royal buildings, old churches and famous museums. It’s nice, but most of it is closed on Mondays so we had to look at it from the outside. Here are a couple of shots from that area.

I don’t know what this is supposed to symbolize, but I’d like to call it “born enemies”.

This is the Parade of Nobles and artistically describes the leadership and fashions from seven centuries.

This is a statue of some guy we can't remember. We realize there is a reason for this. He's a relatively unimportant mid-19th century ruler - King John.We did get to see the Frauenkirche (or Church of Our Lady) that was built in 1743 based on Protestant pride alone - they raised all the money to build it via donations from across Europe. If you will notice, some of the stones are dark, and these are original before the church was burned to the ground in 1945. It wasn't until 2005 that the church was rebuilt, as it was kept in rubble as a peace monument. The restoration was certain to add these stones back to their original positions. (This is pretty interesting to see in person.)And, finally, this is a picture of Dresden's large tree inside their train station. Clever photography from Chad who is looking up the tree. (We had a little extra time to capture this since our train was late - again!) More tomorow from Berlin, our last stop.

Germany: 27 Dezember 2009

We started our day by spending our final morning in Prague. We headed down to the local bakery - Mansson Bakery. We’d grown to like this little oasis in our two brief visits. The service was friendly and English-speaking, so that worked well for us. The price was also right for breakfast coffee, tea and treats.

We hit the Prague subways one last time to transfer back to the main train station. We wanted to take a moment to point out that Prague has beautiful subway tunnels. We think this might have been a clever way to cover up graffiti-laden concrete, but we’re not sure. All we know is this Rainbow Bright (metallic style) approach works for us. This is just one of several we saw and they have various color schemes in each.

Now it’s off to Kunta Hora. This small town is about a one-hour train ride away from Prague. We wanted to see it for two reasons: (1) 90% of tourists never make it past Prague in the CR and (2) an ossuary just seemed way too cool to pass up.

The Ossuary (Das Beinhas in Sedlec) was just super amazing. We took hundreds of pictures, but I only put a few up here so you could get an idea. This design was adapted in the late 1800’s, although the building and related cemetery have been around since the 14th century.

This is a chandelier of bones - every single bone from the human body to be exact. In case you can't quite make this one out, that's a "bird" pecking out his eye. Nice.

After the bones, we grab a quick lunch by the skin of our teeth spending our last 164 kc, about $9. Chad said he felt poor as we had to sheepishly count out our last coins. I said it reminded me of my childhood when counting coins was something our family had to do every week. We’re both thankful times have changed and we get to explore wonderful places like Kunta Hora!

We now head back on the train to Dresden. Dresden is conveniently located half way between Prague and Berlin. What should have been about a two-hour trip, turned into about seven given a train malfunction. We were buzzing along just fine when all of the sudden the train started running over something on the tracks. (This isn’t a good sound to hear when you’re on the train.) Since we have our handy Eurail pass and get to sit in 1st Class (no, this hasn’t gone to my head), we are normally near the front of the train. Thus, we were part of the first few cars which heard this.

Long story short, our train rain over electrical lines that are associated with the rail system. When this happened, our train lost electricity and had to sit on the tracks waiting to come and be rescued by another engine (back up batteries kept on the lights and heat). As some of you may have noticed on my Facebook posts, times like these do not make me a happy camper. Nor do completely stupid passengers. As my friend Barry put it, had we been stranded longer, I know who would have been eaten first. To add a little flavor to the unplanned stop, we had several dogs (including one Saint Bernard) on the train and a cat. We also had someone with heart issues. (I thought the conductor was going to loose it.)

Having gotten to Dresden much later than expected, we were quite pleased to take one of their high-end trams to our hotel. Then, we were so happy to discover our room was a beautiful Mexican oasis at Guest House Mezcalero. Okay, so I know I have said multiple times now that a particular location was our “favorite” room, but this one really was. Check out these pictures. The theme was carried out beautifully throughout the entire building and in all the rooms. They were kind enough to put us in one of their bridal suites that included private entry and bath. They had even built custom luggage storage bins (with colored tiles) under the beds. Off to sleep now. More tomorrow.