Berlin

A German knight

Our last long weekend was spent in Berlin.  I was last there maybe 5 years ago, and it's amazing how much it has changed over such a short time.  Last time it still felt a little derelict, with abandoned warehouses and vast empty lots.  But this time it felt like it was kicking up a gear.  There were cranes all over the place, everyone seemed to have a job, it was really clean.  You feel like "what Euro crisis?"  Germany is definitely doing OK during this time.  Not like slightly depressive France, or Britain with it's constant obsession with immigrants

Last time I was all over the Second World War things, I really like that period of history.  But Dave had never been to Berlin and he actually isn't interested in that era at all.  Which was kind of good, because it meant this time we did all this stuff I hadn't done last time.  In the end we hardly ventured far at all.  We spent most of our time on Museum Island, which was about 10 minutes walk away from our hotel.  And I hadn't even planned it that way, it was just the way it happened.  We had learnt from our Copenhagen trip that Museums can have odd days closed.  In Berlin it was Monday, so we could make sure we didn't end up wandering the streets on that day disappointed that our museums were closed.

Oldy-times signatures - your mark attached to the paper

The awesome German Empire coat of arms

We again had a problem with the taxi driver from the airport, we were easyJetting, so landed at the airport with no late night train service.  Even though I showed the driver the address and the area, he ended up taking us to completely the wrong hotel.  Luckily the receptionist there came out and put him straight.  Airport taxis!

We hadn't any real plans for things we wanted to see.  On the first day we came across the National Museum, which was the historical museum for Germany.  That was a great museum - we spent hours in there, the only reason to leave was hunger.  It started off way back with the Germanic tribes who destroyed Rome. And went all the way through to after the Second World War.

I never really appreciated the trouble the Reformation caused for Europe.  I have been reading about that time from the perspective of the English.  And compared to Europe the Reformation basically did nothing, I mean a few Catholics and Protestants got burned at various points, but there weren't too many England wide wars.  In Europe it just felt like they all went a bit crazy and started fighting with each other for a couple of centuries.  It was impossible to keep track of them all, and in the end I had to just skim over that entire section.  It wasn't until we got close to the first world war that things started to get a bit more settled.  At least that's what it felt like.  I would like to read a bit more on this period.  But man it seems like it's going to be tough keeping all the alliances straight.

The radio tower - every city needs a big pointy object

A reconstructed Roman market gate

There were a few other great museums on this same island.  One was the Neues Museum - this is really famous because it contains the bust of Nefertiti.  Any pictures you see of Nefertiti or ancient Egyptians is generally of this bust.  It is quite an impressive bust.  Unfortunately no photos allowed. It's a bit like the German Mona Lisa, except not made by Germans.

There is also the Pergamon Museum and I think that's a bit of a must visit.  It's not very big but is has three awesome exhibits, all reconstructed artifacts.  There is the Pergamon Altar, another awesome Greek city state back in ancient times.  I think it is actually in modern day Turkey.  It had this great altar built on a hill, with this amazing frieze.  Which is now re-built in Berlin.  There is also a Roman market gate - only 60% or so of the structure is original, but it's amazing to see how big they were able to build back then.  Finally there is the Ishtar gate - built by the Babylonians.  Again amazing to see something that old (575BC) look so large and colourful.

Part of the Ishtar gate

The final museum on that island was the Bode museum.  This was really a sculpture museum, they had a few Donatello's which was kind of impressive.  The audio guide was again a good addition.  One of the Donatello's was of this little boy, the fact that there was a twist to his body was this amazing innovation at the time.  It meant that the sculpture actually had viewing angles all around the body, instead of just straight on as it had been up to that moment.

We also went to two awesome restaurants - Reinstoff and Horvath.  Reinstoff was two starred, which we would never normally go to, but work had given me an award which was money for a pretty fancy dinner for two.  So we thought why not.  It was pretty nice, though could have perhaps been served slightly faster.  There were some big gaps between the courses, and it didn't finish until midnight.  I am not a night owl, so it was a bit of a struggle eating that late.  But the courses were all great, with some slightly odd innovations, which I always like. And the ambiance of the restaurant itself was really nice, hidden inside a courtyard, very dark, but each table was well lit.  And not many people at all, yet heaps of serving staff.

The walk back to the hotel was interesting.  We had walked there as well, which was before the sun had set, and it seemed like a

Donatello - with a twist

nice neighbourhood, full of little galleries and boutiques and coffee shops.  But then it seemed as soon as the sun goes down it turns into something completely different.  In that all these prostitutes come out.  It seems that street is where they do business, I guess it was opposite a large park, maybe that helps business?  The first one I just thought, hmmm she's wearing an unusual outfit for such a cold night.  But then you pass another one, and another, and they are all wearing the same sort of clothes, I guess it's a uniform of sorts.  And then you are just wondering, holy cow, how long is this street and when will this end.  Since it's the clientele which was a bit worrying.  But then you reach the Hackescher Market and suddenly it's all over.  Pretty bizarre.  I think we should have taken the staff's offer of a taxi.

The next restaurant we went to was Horvath, which was in the old West Berlin side.  This was about the only time we really ventured much into West Berlin, and I gotta say I prefer East Berlin.  You always have this idea that the Communist side would be full of horrible concrete block apartment buildings and really run down.  But actually that was the West side.  The east was full of the historic section, and all these interesting buildings.  Perhaps it's a bit different in the other cities, or further out of the centre.

Though the area around the restaurant was a bit depressing, massive concrete blocks and thousands of TV aerials, the restaurant itself was really nice.  The food was really good, and thankfully they were much quicker at serving.  The suckling pig was a bit of a stand out.

The bunker - now art gallery

My most Berlin moment of the weekend has to go to our visit to the Sammlung Boros collection.  We were on our way to the Contemporary Art museum and had stopped at a cafe for refreshments - it was a bit of a walk.  And across the road was this massive concrete bunker (we were back in East Berlin at this point).  I'm thinking - this has got to be something, it so obviously stood out from the normal hotels and apartment blocks around it.  It turns out it was an old world war two bunker, which had been used for raves in the 90's before being bought by a rich advertising executive to house his personal collection.  Since we were looking for modern art anyway we thought, well lets have a look.

We go over the road and there is literally no sign anywhere, we walk all the way around it and there is only a single door.  We just hope that we have actually got the right bunker, and that this isn't some drug den.  But you open the door and go round a corner and suddenly there are artful pieces of driftwood laid out - so we are probably not in some drug den.  Around another corner and there's the reception, with fashionable hipster.  We ask if we can visit, but he says we can only go with a tour, and that the next open English tour is in 10 weeks time.  But he then says that a tour has just left and some people hadn't turned up so we could join in with that one if we wanted.  And we are all like "hmmm maybe, what do you think?, oh all right why not".  And he's probably thinking, there is a 10 week wait and you are umming and ahhhing over it!  Anyway I have to say we weren't the biggest squares there, since some people left halfway through.

It was some of the most modern modern art I have every seen.  Some was pretty cool, and there was usually a good idea behind it.  But some, like the rubbish bins on the wall, was not so good.  Literally someone had just stolen bins from the street, done nothing to them, and stuck them on the wall.  I'm not sure what that was trying to say.  There was also the video of someone doing the moonwalk through darkened streets.  Again not sure what the message with that was.  Being inside the bunker was pretty interesting.  They had done quite some renovations, turning 130 rooms into 80, so it wasn't quite as claustrophobic as it could have been, but still pretty full on in some parts.  And the guide was pretty good, he obviously loved it, so that level of enthusiasm certainly helped.  You just felt like a bit of a fraud, since some people were so into it, and taking notes about what he said.  Whereas you are thinking, it's just bins!  Anyway, if you know you are going to Berlin in 10 weeks time, I would try and book a spot.