It’s raining, but we vow not to let that stop us.
Waking early, we’re out of the hotel before 9am in order to walk to the Reichstag. For Scott this is a building of some note – he has, after all, taught about events that took place there in quite some depth for the last 7 years. The reason we set off early to get there is due to a tip in the guidebook that said you should expect massive queues if you arrive too late.
But before reaching the Reichstag we walk down the major boulevard Unter Den Linden with the iconic Brandenberg Gate in the background. Something about the scene doesn’t seem right, but it’s only when we get there that we realise we’ve been walking from the East side and almost and the photos of the gate are taken from the West. Now, of course, the wall has been removed and there is an enormous plaza surrounding the gate that used to make up the wasteland between the main wall with the West and the ‘hinterland wall’ blocking off access from the East. In the photos below, Alice is in what was the East while Scotty is in the West.
Around the corner we begin to spy the Reichstag. The first thing we notice is the enormous glass dome, rebuilt after reunification and now a major symbol of the new Germany. We notice a winding queuing area marked out in front, fully equipped with X-Ray scanners and burly security guards. This is, after all, still the main parliament building. But although we’re sure we’d pass the security checks, getting in is to prove impossible for us today. Our guidebook is a couple of years old, and the Reichstag have recently begun requiring visitors to pre-book their visit. It’s a frustrating disappointment, but we take a couple of photos and move on. Back at the hotel later in the day, Scott looks into whether we could book to go up tomorrow instead. Easing our disappointment slightly, he finds that the dome is actually closed to visitors for a week’s maintenance while we’re here: even if we had booked in advance we still wouldn’t have been able to climb the dome!
By this point the rain is getting heavier, and we decide to hotfoot it to Potsdamer Platz where we plan to get some breakfast. We cut through the enormous Tiergarten, the location – as MummyB reminds me – of numerous spy novels, and find lots of people out jogging. Although the trees are so dense now, the entire area was cut down by the people of Berlin in the years following the Wall Street Crash for use as firewood.
Emerging from the park at a major intersection, we wait to cross the road. We notice that the funny little red and green man on the traffic lights around our hotel isn’t used here – it’s a much more conventional (and boring) design. Only later do we realise that the design difference is a surviving symbol of the divided city. The DDR actively set out to find a different design to the West, and as we criss-cross the old division throughout the rest of the day we notice the traffic light symbols switch between the two. In most areas where the wall stood there is now a twin line of cobblestones set in the pavement, but it’s easy to miss and so I personally find that the walk/don’t walk symbols are a much better way to work out which side you are on.
There is lots of new development around Potsdamer Platz, including the huge Sony Centre. Between the newest builds is a roofed plaza where we find some breakfast. The reason for the huge amount of development in this area is because of the Wall; the space required for the two walls and the wasteland running in between has left huge tracts of the city centre now open. In many areas they have been developed like this into new builds, but others remain large open squares, like at the Brandenburg Gate. There are some old sections of wall here in Potsdamer Platz and an information point where we read up and see a detailed map of the wall through the city. A surviving length of wall is now used as an open air gallery (which we’re disappointed to learn only features post-reunification art, rather than, as we expected, being art produced during the divide). Other parts of the wall remain in situ to the north where they now form part of a nature reserve. Apparently this is a protected area because the wasteland between the walls offered new habitats for wildlife – an unexpected consequence of the division, we’re sure!
We follow the guide on the information board and walk along the old route of the wall south and then east along Niederkirchnestrasse. Here we come across a long section (about 100m) which has been left in situ and as it was at the end of 1989. The majority of the wall has been heavily chipped and the metal skeleton revealed, damage that was done in the weeks following the fall of the wall. However, not long after reunification this section was deemed a protected area and there is now a small fence running about 70cm away from the wall at waist height to preserve it. We both agree with the stance the Germans have taken here and find it important that the wall is preserved to tell the story of the division. The site of this section of wall though is also significant because it is also where the SS Offices once were during the Third Reich. They have since been demolished, but in their place is a very good exhibition space called The Topography of Terror and we spend a good hour reading the display boards and studying the pictures there which tell the story of Berlin from the Nazi rise to power to the fall of the wall.
The rain pauses for a while when we are reading the display, but manages to come back to a constant drizzle as we finish and contemplate what to do next. Because of the drizzle we decide against going to the Holocaust Memorial just yet and head instead to Checkpoint Charlie. We don’t know what to expect, but know that if we are visiting Berlin we can’t exactly miss it out. When we get there though it is disappointingly touristy as a traffic island is all that remains in the middle of the main road with a small booth and sandbags on. Two men pose as border guards with the American Flag in hand and will allow you to take a photo with them for 2 Euros. We need a drink and bathroom break so take advantage of the ironically placed McDonalds (just before the “you are now leaving the American sector” sign).
The rain is easing up and so we decide to head for the Holocaust Memorial. We pass the Trabi Museum and the Currywurst Museum, but as we approach the memorial the rain becomes very heavy again and so we decide to stop for a lunch break, rather than trying to do our visit to the memorial justice in the rain. We don’t want to stop for too long, or for anything too fancy and so we decide to pop into the nearby Subway for a quick sandwich. Having said that they take a fair while to prepare our sandwich, but during this time at least the rain has stopped and so the timing is good to now head to the memorial.
Arriving there we find a mass of grey concrete slabs, and we begin to walk among them. They are about 70cm wide and maybe 2m long and at first vary between knee and waist height. We can see that they stretch over nearly a whole block and so walk further in. Gradually two things happen; the ground beneath us starts to gradually slope downwards and the blocks themselves start to increase in height. Soon, instead of blocks at waist height they are above our heads and tower above us. It is a real maze and we stick close together and pick our way silently through the memorial. On the eastern side of the memorial there is a small staircase down which leads to an exhibition area. We are keen to find out more, especially about the concept behind the memorial installation.
The exhibition is free to enter and gives a chronology of the persecution of Jews leading up to the Holocaust. It is an interesting contrast to the Topography of Terror which did not explore anything thematically, but simply chronologically. This allowed it to give a very factual approach, but at times did not aid a full understanding of strands that ran through the story – such as the increasing persecution of certain groups. After presenting an overview of the Holocaust, the exhibition leads on to two rooms that present individual and family stories. The stories of individuals were told through letters or other ephemera that they had left; such as postcards, writing in the margins or books, or even writings on toilet paper that had luckily been preserved. Like with Anne Frank, these were normal people but what is amazing is that their accounts survived and that it is through these that their story and the story of what happened can survive. The exhibition told these stories simply and well, and a final room was dedicated to access to the database that is being compiled by the families of the victims.
It’s mid-afternoon by now and we’ve been up and on our feet a fair while so we decide to head towards the hotel. We go along Unter Den Linden again but when we are at the top of it we see that the weather is finally clearing up. We decide to find a cafe for “Kaffe and Kuchen” instead of just heading into the hotel, so we cross the bridge of the canal and start a walk along the Spree. We spy tables and chairs at the top a strange looking construction that is on the river and intruding on the views of the Berlin Dome. We decide that this could be an interesting place to stop for a drink, so we pay our 2 Euros and go inside.
It turns out not simply to be a cafe with views of the city, but an exhibition space. We spend a good half an hour wandering around and looking at things before finally having our sit down! This is the Humboldt Box has been built on the site of a new development to give an overview of the project. Whereas the exhibitions we had seen earlier in the day gave a lot of information in text form with very simple displays, this contains lots of multimedia and interactive elements.
The project is a mixture of the ridiculous and the fantastic. Since the 15th Century what is currently a large area of grass and construction vehicles was a royal palace. It had been extended and renovated right up until the start of the First World War, and all the museums and other significant buildings in the area faced onto it. With the Communist take-over after WW2, though, the palace was seen as a symbol of imperialism. The Communists destroyed the palace and completely removed every last reminder of it. In 1972 they built their own palace on the site – a people’s palace – and had it up and running in less than a year. By all accounts it was an amazing venue with 15 restaurants, a bowling alley, dozens of exhibition halls and also the main DDR parliament. They had, however, fire-proofed the structure using asbestos and in 1990 – in one of the last meetings of the DDR government before reunification – they decided to close the building for safety reasons. The new German government later spent 28 million Euros to remove the asbestos from the building, and by the early 2000s were using the building as an exhibition space. However, they then decided to remove it. Despite strong opposition from groups wishing to leave it in place as a symbol of the defunct DDR, the German government passed a bill that led to the systematic un-building of the structure over a period of years. In its place, they have decided to build a new palace. On three sides they will recreate the original (15th century) facades, and on the fourth – facing the River Spree – will build a modern style front. As said above, the entire project is a mixture of the ridiculous and fantastic. I can’t think of any nation on earth that would agree to the enormous costs involved – 83 million Euros to build the new structure – when they’d already spent 23 million making the thing that preceded it safe. And then spend 10 million removing it! It’s completely insane, but brilliant.
The Humboldt Box is simply a temporary structure to tell this story and, presumably, to try to generate some of the money they need to complete the project. We eventually climb the 5 storeys to the roof terrace, where we find the rain has stopped and the cloud is beginning to thin. We take advantage of this first break in the weather to get a good view over the area that we’re now becoming very familiar with on the ground. We grab a seat and have a hot chocolate each. This is ‘proper’ hot chocolate – just some melted chocolate in the bottom of the cup and a jug of hot milk to pour in. It’s delicious, and a great way to round of the afternoon before we head back the the hotel for a couple of hours to rest our tired feet.
We check back through our guidebooks for recommendations on places to eat. We’re keen to avoid the numerous international restaurants and go, instead, for ‘real’ German food. While we realise this actually puts us at the mercy of the dreaded tourist menu, our desire to eat pork outweighs the worry. We read about a brewpub – a Brauhaus – along the river and head there. The Georgbrau brewery is in a part of town that suffered heavily during the war, and it has been reconstructed from old photographs in the original style. With the weather being now quite bright and pleasant we struggle to find a seat outside so instead opt to grab a table by the window. Walking through the pub, we see an enormous copper mash tun with a blackboard behind it. ‘Hell’ it says – which apparently means ‘dark’ – 10,30. 12%. The first number we realise is the original gravity of the brew. The second we are confused by. An original gravity reading of 1030 would never be able to make a brew at 12% ABV. You’d be lucky to get 4.5% out of it. Maybe it’s the attenuation? But that would drop the gravity by more than 200 points, which again is impossible. It’s then that we remember that in the Heineken Brewery they wrote temperatures as %C rather than °C. We assume, therefore that they will be fermenting the brew at 12°C. This seems right for a lager.
We look through the menu, and order. We opt to order a 1.5L jug of beer to share between us – it’s less than a pint and a half each – and it comes with two dainty 20cl glasses featuring the brewery’s logo. We have to make a quick decision when the moustached waiter takes our order; dark or light? We glance at each other quickly and then opt for light as its probably more conducive to 1.5l drinking and eating. It’s a fizzy lager, but has a mild hop taste and a lovely rich malt finish. It’s incredibly drinkable, and we enjoy sipping away while wait for our food.
The menu is made up mainly of German traditional dishes, as we expected it would be in a semi-touristy place like this. Alice opts for the pork with dumplings and red cabbage and has to put her mind to it to find a day since leaving Egypt when she hasn’t had at least one pork-based product. I go for the schnitzel – a ‘must have’ when in Germany we agree. Neither of us think we can quite manage Berlin’s second most famous meal of “pork knuckle” which at 1kg in weight rises a good 10cm above the plate as it’s being carried along from the kitchen.
We finish our meal and then go for a walk around the small streets of the Nikolaiviertel area where the streets are pedestrianised and quiet with the odd restaurant or corner bar.
Our walk takes us along the bank of the Spree where we marvel at the number of rabbits that are running wild on the grass in the parkland here. We decide to stop for a drink on the river before making our way back to the hotel as we’re enjoying the nice evening.
The bar we choose has a menu that lists not only the beers they have, but also the mixed beer drinks they offer. These include the standard shandy that we’re familiar with, but also a drink they call "Diesel” which is beer mixed with cola, and then a ‘red’ and a ‘green’ beer which is beer mixed with different cordials to give a new, odd, colour. We’ve seen these beer mixers in other places we’ve visited and can only conclude that people order these bizarre drinks so regularly that it is worth their while including them on the menu. Maybe they are also a ‘German thing’ and included to give people the authentic experience – we don’t know. Although they also include in their listings a white wine spritzer, they don’t include the classic ‘red wine and coke’ that we were introduced to at Sziget by some Dutch girls, but the list does include ‘beer with Fanta’ which apparently is also popular in South America.
We amble back to the hotel, enjoying the dry evening and playing with the camera settings as we try to eclipse the street lamps in our night shots of the city’s landmarks.
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