Trip: Februray 27 - March3, 2007Trip: Februray 27 - March3, 2007Things have changed since the wall came down. Berlin is clean and colorful, with many parks and tree-lined streets. There are statues, monuments, fountains, sidewalk cafes, upscale stores and restaurants- fashion and history are everywhere. And there are landmarks like Checkpoint Charlie, Museum Island, and the Kudamm, short for the Kurfürstendammstrasse, the Berlin version of Paris’s famous Champs Elysees.
The wall came down – there’s a remnant of it near our beautiful four star hotel, the Angleterre.
Now Berlin bears a strong resemblance to the Paris of twenty or thirty years ago. Skiman and Lynn absolutely fell in love with this city. It is on our top three list now. We liked it so much we tried to extend our stay there. The high cost of changing our air tickets nixed that idea!
Come to Berlin with us! It might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You can’t miss it
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Berlin is a name that conjurs up instant visions of historic significance. A divided city after WWII, it came to symbolize the struggle between the free world and the communist one.The most famous wall in modern times separated East from West. Before that, of course, it was the center of the maniacal Nazi regime that loosed a nightmare of death and pain worldwide. The Berlin Wall, Nazi history, site of Hitler's final days, the Berlin Air Lift, the wall (and Communism) coming down (Mr. Gorbechov, tear down that wall!")... Wow: what history! It is a place that must be seen and absorbed.
Berlin's history is not all it has going for it. It has become one of the hottest, most visited cities in Europe. Since the reunification of East and West Berlin, it has become a mecca of rebuilding and change. It is a city on the move, both modern and historical at the same time. And, many consider Berlin to have some of the best nightlife in all of Europe. The June issue of Smithsonian Magazine had a feature article about Berlin. There is one paragraph which we found intriguing: "As Berlin has done several times in its long history, the city is rebuilding itself. There is a roominess here that no other European capital can match-Berlin is nine times larger in acreage than Paris, with less than one third of the population-and an infectious sense of anything goes." Berlin spends more on culture per year than the entire U.S. does, and now boasts 3 world-class opera houses, 7 symphony orchestras, 175 museums, 1,800 art galleries, the world biggest crossing train station (over 7 levels), and 2 zoos with more wild animals than any city in the world.
Berlin is going to be fabulous... that we can say already. Our trips to Munich resulted in great times and great memories of Germany. It is a wonderful country, full of great history, friendly people, and best beer gardens.
Join us in March for our Austria pre-trip to Berlin. It is going to be "wundabar" and you can say "I am a Berliner!"
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| Colorful Berlin Bears dot the cityscape. | Beautiful sidewalk cafés fill the Kudamm, great food, great people watching. |
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| One of the best museums of the ancient world, the Pergamom, is found on Museum Island. | Photo taken moments before this bear tragically mauled Lynn. |
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| Monuments, statues, grand buildings it is a very cool place. | “Mr. Gorbechov, tear down this wall!” |
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| Brandenburger Tor, the Entrance of Berlin | The Berlin Dome |
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| The tower - up in the sky | Night at Berlin the River Spree in wunderful lights |
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| Friedrichstadtpalast - a well known theater | "Unter den Linden" a long anvenue is the center of the night |
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| The main station is the biggest "crossing" station of the world. Right over the river Spree is the German "White House" | The "Siegessäule" with the golden agnle on top stands in the middle of a great place. |
The city of Berlin, which celebrated its 750th birthday a few years ago, is striding into the future like a town half its age.
Today Berlin is Europe's biggest construction zone. Potsdamer Platz - once the bustling Times Square of Europe, then a vast no-man's zone - is now a forest of sparkling new skyscrapers. A super train, levitated by magnets, will literally fly between Hamburg and Berlin's futuristic city center.
I walk a block away to Berlin's long-dreamed-of "Kulturforum." Here the city's vast collection of art treasures - scattered awkwardly between east and west for fifty years - is reuniting. The Kulturforum's Gemäldegalerie is Germany's top collection of 13th- through 18th-century European paintings (over 1,400 canvases), beautifully displayed in a building that is a work of art in itself.
After meeting up with Sarah, my long-time Berliner friend, we wander through a lush park along the Spree River. I tell her I wish we had a people zone like this in my city. She says, "With all the bombing and bulldozing in our history, you have to be suspicious when you see a nice green park. This will soon be a construction zone."
Berlin is developing so fast it's impossible to predict what will be "in" next year. (Picture on the right: the Reichstag - German Parliarment)
In 1996, I explored the trendy arty café zone around Oranienburger Strasse in eastern Berlin. Describing the bombed-out but cutting-edge ambience of this bohemian zone, I wrote, "On this bizarre street, hopelessness is hip and rust and rot are a happening." When I walked the same street in 1998, I found only candle-lit pubs and cafés, trendy theaters, and fancy galleries with a power-suit clientele. By 2003, Oranienburger Strasse was still trendy but was being challenged by hipper Friedrichshain farther east, and Prenzlauer Berg, to the northeast. At night "techno-prostitutes" - dolled up like cage dancers on the Starship Enterprise - line the street. (Picture on the right: the inner of the Parliarment building can be visited.)
As we walk through the former East Berlin, I tell Sarah, "I've heard that many Easterners long for the more predictable and secure days before the Wall fell. (Note: the wall was about 107 km long and over 12 feet high - right in the middle of the town.) It's called ost-algia, right?" Sarah says, "Yes. Older Easterners are the lost generation. Perhaps these are the people who keep the Wall in their mind. They are the so-called ost-algic ones." Pointing to the once-grand, now-decrepit Palace of the Republic, she continues, "I hope this will soon be destroyed by a wrecking ball. But some easterners argue that this 'peoples' palace' of the Communists should be saved."
Stalled at an intersection along Unter den Linden, I find the only bit of the old East that Sarah seems to like. She points at the stoplight's "walk" symbol showing a perky little striding man with a felt hat. "These are from the DDR," she says. "As they burn out, they are replaced by the boring western green men. As these get more rare, maybe even I feel a little bit ost-algic."
We stroll down Unter den Linden. Sarah reminisces as if she actually lived through the ages. "In Berlin's good old days, this was one of Europe's grand boulevards. Named centuries ago for its thousand linden trees, it was the most elegant street of Berlin before the Nazis, and the grand boulevard of East Berlin after." Hitler replaced the venerable trees - many 250 years old - with Nazi flags. Popular discontent actually drove him to replant linden trees. With a strong economy, the strolling café-ambience of Unter den Linden has returned.
Travel in Berlin is great. The last 15 years have taken Berlin through a frenzy of rebuilding. And while there's still plenty of work to be done, a new Berlin is emerging. Berliners joke they don't need to go anywhere because their city is always changing. Spin a postcard rack to see what's new. A five-year-old guidebook on Berlin covers a different city. This high energy, along with the grand building schemes and new museums, makes Berlin more enjoyable than ever.
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