Ishtar and the Topography of Terror: Berlin, Germany

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) We're on the Cold War and Nazi trail here in Berlin. Earlier today, we visited the seat of the country's government at the Reichstag, visited for formerly forbidden Brandenberg Gate, and remembered the innocents slaughtered at the Holocaust Memorial.

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A few blocks away from Checkpoint Charlie's tourist horde, we find a more manageable leftover piece of the Berlin Wall.  About 200 yards of the barrier have been preserved as an open-air museum called the Topography of Terror.

An accessible path takes you along this section of wall, separating what was the bombed out ruins of the Third Reich's administrative buildings and the apartment buildings across the street in what used to be East Berlin. There is a chunk missing, where the first section of the hated wall was broken through giving access to the west for the Berliners of the east.

Many more holes are punched through the wall, exposing the rebar in the concrete, giving evidence of the citizens of the city rushing to tear down the wall with hammers, picks, and crowbars.

Ramps lead to a section below with many photos exhibits of the Nazi era events and locations that took place in this mostly vacant field.

The history here is enveloping and, since it's completely free, devoid of the tourist trap atmosphere that pervades the Checkpoint Charlie area on Friedrichstrasse.

It's time to break for lunch so we find a very nice Italian place, Ristorante Marinelli, across from the Anhalter Station.

There is still a façade standing at this old train station, the only thing left standing after World War II bombing raids. The only trains now are the S-Bahn trains running in the station underground.

During the war, Jews were rounded up and brought here to board trains to their awful fates in the concentration camps. This façade, and a few interpretive displays, were left as a memorial.

Below, we board a train heading for the eastern side of the city where we'll visit Museum Island to end our day.

It's a short walk from the Hackescher Markt station then a walk on a bridge across the River Spree, hard by the Berliner Dom cathedral, to reach Museum Island. Here, five state museums form a UNESCO Heritage Site where visitors can see some of the great treasures of this city.

Some parts still show war damage from seventy years ago.

Our destination is the Pergamon  Museum, which features very large, reconstructed buildings from the ancient age. It's star attraction, the Pergamon Altar, is closed for renovation for a couple of years but we are able to see it's other great restorations.

The deep blue tiles of the Ishtar Gate, recovered from Iraq and brought to Berlin to be rebuilt, brick-by-brick, used to guard an entrance to Babylon. Three thousand years have not dulled the brilliant colors.

This was a "small" gate into the old city but we are dwarfed by its massive dimensions.

Dragons, lions, and other beasts are depicted on it's walls. The hall leading up to it is a reconstructed street that led up to the gate.

A model shows just how puny this reconstructed section is when compared to the entire gate complex.

Behind the gate, a Roman temple has also been brought to Germany and rebuilt in this massive hall.

Columns, mosaic floors, and busts of leaders who thought themselves gods adorn the walls.

I'm a bit blown away by the large temple but even more so when I turn around and notice the other half is behind me.

Our long day of Berlin touring, hitting all the major stops on our Cold War and World War II lists, has come to and end. We make our way back to the S-Bahn and on to Potsdamerstrasse to have another delicious Turkish dinner at Café Neffes near our hotel.

We'll rest up, drinking some great German Riesling while watching corny German language gameshows and continue on tomorrow.


Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

Working off a Jet Lag Hangover at the Cold War's Most Famous Airport

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Jet lag’s a funny thing. My lights went out the second my head hit the pillow at about 10pm. Out like a log, sleeping like a baby but my body decided I’d had enough at 4:30 in the morning.

I can’t just get up as Tim and Letty are still sleeping in the same room so I lay quietly for a couple of hours until Tim stirs.  We all gradually awaken and shower up before breaking out for the day.

Potsdamer Strasse in the Schonberg district, south of the center of Berlin, will be our home for six nights.  This is a Turkish neighborhood. If it was in Los Angeles, we’d call it ‘Little Istanbul.’ Red flags with white crescents decorate many of the apartment balconies here.  Little cafes, or bars, populated solely by Turkish men dot the area.

A bakery across the street delivers us cheap but good, filling food with strong coffee to get us started.

Today is just a slow day to get us accustomed to the different time zone and to recover from our jet lag. 

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Berlin is full of cold war and World War II sites and history.  I’ve always been fascinated by the main airport in the middle of town, Tempelhof, and it’s role in history...particularly in the Berlin airlift at the start of the Cold War. Just under 277,000 flights came in to keep West Berlin alive when the Communists of East Germany and Russia shut down all land access shortly after the war.

It’s a little over a kilometer from our hotel so we walk over and get a really in depth tour of normal, everyday, residential Berlin.

The airport was decommissioned a little less than a decade ago and has been transforming into a huge park ever since.  We finally arrive at the main terminal, now locked and empty. The semi-circular building is huge, more than a half kilometer from end to end.

The only way through is around so we make the long trek to the eastern end of this formidable structure to finally find an entrance to the park on the old runways.

Past a couple of baseball fields (home of the BerlinBraves), we find a biergarten to settle into, have some currywurst (Tim’s been dying to try some), and a couple of cold brews on this very hot day.

Luftgarten sits under some of the precious few trees in the new Tempelhof park with a great view across the former airfield. Currywurst is available as is a Berliner, a pastry Tim’s been dying to try.

I get the currywurst from the guy manning the barbecue and order a Berliner from the stand at the biergarten as the girl hands me a beer.

“I want a Berliner.”

“That is a Berliner.”

“No, the pastry.”

“We don’t have the pastry, that’s a Berliner bier...Berliner Kindl.  Trust me, you’ll come back and let me know how good it is, no?”

OK, so a bit of a misunderstanding but Tim loves the currywurst and I love the beer. And, yes, I did let her know.

It’s about six blocks through a residential neighborhood to the U-Bahn station back to the hotel.  I love these kinds of walks because it gets us a taste of the real flavor of a destination, not the ones you see in the tourist brouchures.

Kids at play, parents watching, and...for some strange reason...hand-water pumps on every block. 

I couldn’t get any of them to work and am still mystified as to why they’re there.

Eventually, we find our way back to Potsdamer Strasse to our lovely, comfortable, and friendly Turkish neighborhood for another dinner at Neffes Cafe and settling in for the night.

It’s a laid back, slow moving day but that’s what we need to combat the jet lag from the 30 hour travel day before and the activities to come.

Darryl

Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

Pictures Copyright 2016 - Letty Musick

All Rights Reserved

The Cocktail Hour: Biergartens of Germany

Beer is a way of life in Germany and the neighborhood biergarten is a way of life in the warmer months when all the people want to do is go outside and enjoy the fresh air.

You can find them almost anywhere, especially in Munich where over 400 biergartens call the city home and are almost on every corner.  They are more numerous there than Starbucks is in the states.

Here are some of the outdoor brewpubs we visited while we were in country, in the order we encountered them...

Luftgarten (German for Air Garden) sits on the perimeter of the former Tempelhof Airport. It's relaxing, sunny spot. You can even sit in their beach chairs.  Shade is a bit of a premium here because most of the area is open field without too many trees. A barbecue trailer cooks up specialties such as currywurst and there's a nice selection of Berlin brews to choose from.

It's also quite a walk from the nearest U Bahn station.

Berlin Zoo has a biergarten in the center, next to the kid's playground.  As in most, there's a nice, shady outdoor area to relax with your brew and a snack from the adjacent cafeteria.

Nice, but maybe just a step up from your average zoo snack bar.

Café am Neuen See is the 'biergarten in the tiergarten.' It shows up on many 'best of Berlin' lists including this 7 Best Places to Eat in Berlin from Wanderlust. I can't vouch for the food...we just had dessert and beer there...but it is an amazingly relaxing place with tables set around a small lake under a forest of nice, shady trees. One of the few biergartens we found in Berlin that serve beer in liter glasses.

Moving on to Munich, the biergartens multiply exponentially here. Literally, we'd find one around every corner.

We had two in the immediate vicinity of our hotel, one of which we made our local while we were there, the Alte Heide.  I did pretty much an entire post extolling the virtues of this tiny neighborhood biergarten that serves the best food we've ever had in Munich.

The Aumeister Biergarten sits at the north end of the massive Englischer Garten. Dating from 1810, it's big but not as big as some of the other biergartens in town. Very traditional space with plenty of outdoor tables and snack stands along the beer line. One of the places you can get the very delicious Auszogne (also called a Bavarian donut), though here they use regular sugar instead of powdered sugar to coat it. My wife really likes the dough they use here best, however.

It's at the top of the very forested north end of the park where there are dozens of trails for hiking and biking. It's very popular with both of those groups as a place to take a break in their activities.

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) The Chinesischer Turm is a massive biergarten towards the south end of the park. The name means 'Chinese Tower' and is overshadowed by a 25 meter tall pagoda. Thousands of drinkers can fit here, sometimes listening to musicians playing up in the tower.

Several food stalls surround the beer stand with all kinds of goodies to eat. Know that your price for beer includes a deposit for the glass. Return it to the counter around the back to get your fee back.

After passing the south end of the park, past the surfers on the Eisbach, eventually you'll reach the city's main plaza, Marienplatz. Just another block or so beyond that is a destination that every traveler to Munich needs to visit, the Viktulienmarkt.

This 2-block long market is where you can find just about any food or drink you can imagine from individual vendor stalls.  The New York Times said is was worth flying across the Atlantic just to visit this market and I have to agree, it's a wonderful place full of fascinating smells and tastes.

The biergarten in the middle of the market is where you can indulge in all those goodies you're going to buy from those vendors, along with food you can buy at several surrounding snack stands and, of course, the beer counter.

This is one of the best places to make friends with locals over a bier and a wurst.

Across from the Haupbahnhof (the main train station) is the expansive Augustiner Keller biergarten. One of our very favorites, this is the place to come for massive schweinhocken (pork shanks with very crispy and tasty skin) and a fluffy, pillowy Auszogne.

One of Munich's oldest breweries, Augustiner (not available in the U.S.) pours from old-fashioned wooden kegs into giant liter glasses.

Help yourself to a giant pretzel in the baskets near the cashier.

Eagle's Nest has a notorious past. This small, mountain top spot south of Munich on the border of Austria used to be Adolph Hitler's personal getaway. He was painfully afraid of heights so he only made the trip up here a few times.

Today, it's open to everybody and commands a spectacular view to go with your brew.

Back in the Schwabing neighborhood of Munich, there's another market that is as yet untouched by tourists. It's much smaller than Viktulienmarkt but Elisabethplatz still has everything you'll need or want, including a beer garden in the corner.

This is Wintergarten and serves some of the best sausages we had here, along with more great Augustiner beer.

There are hundreds more but the three of us can only make so much of a dent. The biergarten culture in Germany is alive and well, I only wish they'd export it over to us in the states.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

Jesse Owens and the Fuhrer: Olympic Stadion, Berlin

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Our last, full day in Berlin. We've pretty much seen everything on our list. Now, it's a free day and we're looking for a way to pass the time.

"I see an Olympic stadium here on the map," my wife says while perusing another amazing Turkish breakfast.

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The Olympic stadium!  I'd forgot...it's another big moment of Berlin history and I almost let it slip through my fingers.

It's a bit of a ride on the U-Bahn to the Olympicstadt station. From there, it's another long walk under a tunnel, up a little hill, through the woods, until you finally emerge at the stadium's parking lot.

An admission is paid at the visitor's center and then we're on our own (tours are available but we'd rather just explore at our leisure).

We find a ramp and a tunnel into the stadium. It's huge and imposing. It's also made out of marble, the height of Nazi chic at the time.

While the walls and façade are original, everything inside has been modernized. There's a well-maintained blue rubber track (that's being scrubbed by a beast that looks like the lovechild of a street sweeper and a Zamboni) and a flawlessly green soccer football pitch.

The Fuhrer's box has been replaced by some VIP seats and suites but it's not hard to imagine Adolph fuming from up above as a black man put lie to his 'master race' shenanigans.

The seats are serviceable metal folding chairs, bolted to the concrete. No armrests or cupholders.

The ever-present beer bar is open so we quaff one as we admire the view.

To the side, we find the old swimming and diving stadium, now being used by local kids to cool off in the crystal blue waters on this hot August day.

Eventually, we make our way to the other end of the stadium where we pose at the Olympic torch.

On the other side, we spot a bell from the old bell tower (it was destroyed in World War II and the current one is a rebuilt tower).

Although the swastika is illegal in Germany today, you can still see something suspicious on this old bell that the welders couldn't quite hide completely.

Closer to the stadium than the U-Bahn station is an S-Bahn station. From here, we catch a train back to central Berlin where we can walk through the Tiergarten.

We've been toying around the edges of this giant park for days but on this last day, we decide to walk through until we find a little lake with...of course...a biergarten at it's edge. It's here we'll have one more before signing off from Berlin.

Tomorrow, we'll go to the Hertz office and pick up a car to continue on.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved


Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

From No Man's Land to Tourist Trap: Cold War and Nazi Sites in Berlin

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Forty years ago, I could be shot for standing on the spot where I'm at this morning. Today, it's a bit more innocuous with the McDonalds nearby, the 'Wall" museum, a replica of Checkpoint Charlie in the street median where actors in military garb will pose with you for three Euros, and a sandy beach bar on former No Man's Land behind the leftover segments of the wall that for three decades served as a focal point of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

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People have been killed for trying to pass this little strip...a line drawn on the map, basically...behind the cart selling t-shirts and trinkets off of Freidrichstrasse.  I'm having trouble dealing with the incongruity of it all.

Little did Erich Honecker realize when he built this barrier to keep his people from fleeing to the west that he was building one of the world's biggest, crassest, and Capitalistic tourist traps.  A bit ironic.

While this intersection around the most famous of border crossings between East and West Berlin has devolved into a crowded, money grabbing, photo opportunity, there is still plenty to see about the Cold War and World War II in today's Berlin without having to feel a bit like a sell-out to do so.

We've rested up for a couple of slow days and started off with another little Cold War excursion to the Bridge of Spies in suburban Potsdam yesterday. Now, we're in full gear as we have a full day of touring to accomplish in central Berlin.

Our hotel on Potsdamer Platz is two blocks away from three train stations. It depends on which way we're going as to which station we'll head to. Today, it's Yorkstrasse station. Three lines converge here but only the S1 is wheelchair accessible. That's the line we'll take.

We exit at the Brandenberg Gate station but the lift is out of order and has not been reported yet so we have to backtrack one station and walk an extra two blocks.  

We're starting at the seat of German government, the Reichstag, where we have an 8:30am reservation to take the lift up to the roof. We're reminded this is an official seat of government when we have to process through a rather strict security screening and get an official escort (because of the wheelchair, we have to take a slight detour to the lift) before we can go up.

At the top, we get an English language brochure and a player with an earpiece for an audio tour.  

Heavily damaged during World War II, the building has been rebuilt with a glass dome overlooking the Bundestag (the German Parliament).  A large terrace on the roof surrounds the dome where 360 degree views of the city greet us.  There's also a restaurant up here but we didn't take advantage of it today.

While Letty takes pictures, Tim and I take a slow lap around the roof looking towards the tall TV tower in the former east, the Brandenberg Gate, the very large Tiergarten park, and even a former CIA spy base on a hill off to the west.

When we're all set with the picture taking, it's time to climb the dome. This is where the audio tour kicks in. There are two spiral ramps, both wheelchair accessible, one for going up and the other for going down.

The audio tour tells us as we go up about the wall, the Brandenberg Gate, how all the trees in the Tiergarten were cut down for firewood after the war and all the trees we see now only date back to the 1960's. There's a solar panel that moves with the sun that shades the legislators working below.

It's all very interesting and fits in the budget...it's free.  You just need to make a reservation ahead of time on their website. It's one of the more spectacular buildings in Berlin.

Afterward, we make our way over to the Brandenberg Gate, another site where you could have could have been shot 40 years ago just for standing there. Next door is the U.S. embassy which leads us to the Holocaust memorial, a collection of thousands of stellaie commemorating the enormous loss of life due to Hitler's final solution.

Barely wheelchair accessible, it's a maze into the dark depths of the absolute depravity of the Nazi's view of the world. You start out with short, knee-high blocks and slowly descend until they're over your head and completely obliterate the city around you. It's a descent into darkness that you won't forget and an amazing effect.

Next, we amble down the block. Past the t-shirt and doner kabab stands to a little, unremarkable parking lot.

It's here that the nexus of evil in this world came to a gruesome end.  For years, no one wanted to mark this site but such an important and infamous site couldn't be hid forever.  It took until just a few years ago that the government finally decided to put up a rather plain little sign saying what the significance of this site is.

Under this parking lot, somewhere near the 5 mph speed limit sign, one of the most evil persons every to walk the face of the earth...Adolph Hitler...took his own life in his underground bunker as Soviet troops drew near.

The little grassy spot behind the sign, next to a couple of empty parking spots, is where his cronies attempted to burn his body.

This rather plain (and purposely so) parking lot is where the Third Reich met it's ignominious end.

That's probably enough for this post, we'll catch you up on this tour on the next installment.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved