Berlin, Germany 25 June - 6 July, 2009
We arrived in Berlin on a home exchange that put us in a lovely light filled apartment in the center of Berlin. We were lucky to meet our lovely host, Rozalia, a free lance journalist who showed us the local neighborhood to get us oriented. We spent the following eleven days touring the city and its impressive array of museums. On our first outing on a Saturday morning we happened on a Gay Pride Parade that was attended by 500,000 people. It was difficult to get anywhere without being blocked by the parade route, and we finally arrived at the Brandenburg gate where it ended. The pictures will tell more of the story of the parade.
Holocaust remembrance is a very visible theme in Berlin. There are brass plaques on cobblestone sidewalks in front of apartment buildings all over the city where Jews lived and were deported. They commemorate each individual person they had information about. It is very moving to walk every day along these sidewalks and see these names and think about what they meant. The Holocaust memorial is a most impressive and moving statement, taking up a full city block, in the very heart of the city, near many of the embassies. It consists of over 2,000 large cement blocks of various height, creating dark, canyon like passages of dark stone, as if walking through a dense cemetery. It was designed by an American architect (Eisman) who won a prize for its design. There is also a museum underneath this monument which documents the holocaust, and many of it's personal stories to push the point of how many real lives were so tragically and brutally destroyed. There is a sense of true shame about that awful period, and an attempt to warn of what can happen when racism runs amuck. We also visited the Jewish museum nearby which documents Jewish life in Germany through the centuries. It also very interesting architecturally, with a facade which is a stylized exploded star of David.
The around the Reichstag, the Chancellery (offices of Chancellor Angela Merkel) and the government center is beautifully restored, with many modern interesting buildings, reaching across the Spree River to symbolize East West unification. We saw the remaining segment of the wall, and a double lane of stones embedded in the pavement identifying its former path, and the location of the Checkpoint Charlie.
Berlin of today is a beautiful, clean green vibrant city, with wide boulevards, lots of parkland and water, with a river and canal crossing it. It is surrounded by many "Seas" or lakes. The apartment we are staying in is steps away from famous Kurfustendam, which is one the most elegant shopping streets in Berlin and is teaming with people speaking an endless mix of languages, most often heard, was German, English, Russian, Arabic and Turkish. The public transportation is fabulous consisting of a network of underground and over ground trains, buses and trams. It was very easy to get every where using it and we never used the car.
Of the many Museums we saw, our favorites were: the Pergamon Museum, on Museum Island, which holds a collection of some monumental antiquities, such as the Pergamon Altar, the Babylonian Ishtar Gate and procession way, some Assyrian period wall reliefs and many others. In addition we enjoyed the Berggruen Museum with its wonderful Picasso and Matisse collection, and the Kathe Kolwitz museum with a magnificent collection of her drawings, statues and prints.
We saw many more wonderful paintings and statues at the Alte National Galerie, and The Bode Museum. Mostly works ranging up to 19th century. The Brucke Museum had a special exhibit while its permanent collection was on tour unfortunately, and the Neue National gallery also was holding a special surrealist exhibit while its entire permanent collection of 20th century art was on tour as well. We've had some good and some mediocre German food, and wonderful Italian and Turkish food.
An additional tour we took was to the Charlottenburg Castle, built in 1699 as the summer home of German royalty. We took a tour of the rooms of the palace which was filled with beautiful, ornate baroque decorations and paintings. We then took a walk around the beautiful formally landscaped gardens. It was a wonderful place.
On a day trip to Potsdam, the capital of the state of Brandenburg, (45 minutes by train from Berlin) on a hot steamy day we took a long walk along the beautiful former Royal grounds parks and palaces which are at the core of the city and are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant (the Loft) on a local recommendation and had the best ice cream we ever tasted.
We took an organized tour of Dresden which was completely restored and rebuilt in the past 20 years after it was practically destroyed by allied bombers during WWII. It is absolutely a magnificent city, built in the Baroque and Rococo style. It is a real jewel!!! We were fortunate to have absolutely a perfect cool and breezy day with puffy white clouds in a beautiful blue sky. Surprisingly the tour was in Hebrew and English, narrated by an Israeli guide. The vast majority of people on the bus were Israelis.
From here we fly to Nice, France and then drive to a bed and breakfast hotel in the Provence countryside where we will join a group from Ventura for an art workshop.
To see a slide show of pictures, click on the photo below and then click “slideshow”.
Holocaust remembrance is a very visible theme in Berlin. There are brass plaques on cobblestone sidewalks in front of apartment buildings all over the city where Jews lived and were deported. They commemorate each individual person they had information about. It is very moving to walk every day along these sidewalks and see these names and think about what they meant. The Holocaust memorial is a most impressive and moving statement, taking up a full city block, in the very heart of the city, near many of the embassies. It consists of over 2,000 large cement blocks of various height, creating dark, canyon like passages of dark stone, as if walking through a dense cemetery. It was designed by an American architect (Eisman) who won a prize for its design. There is also a museum underneath this monument which documents the holocaust, and many of it's personal stories to push the point of how many real lives were so tragically and brutally destroyed. There is a sense of true shame about that awful period, and an attempt to warn of what can happen when racism runs amuck. We also visited the Jewish museum nearby which documents Jewish life in Germany through the centuries. It also very interesting architecturally, with a facade which is a stylized exploded star of David.
The around the Reichstag, the Chancellery (offices of Chancellor Angela Merkel) and the government center is beautifully restored, with many modern interesting buildings, reaching across the Spree River to symbolize East West unification. We saw the remaining segment of the wall, and a double lane of stones embedded in the pavement identifying its former path, and the location of the Checkpoint Charlie.
Berlin of today is a beautiful, clean green vibrant city, with wide boulevards, lots of parkland and water, with a river and canal crossing it. It is surrounded by many "Seas" or lakes. The apartment we are staying in is steps away from famous Kurfustendam, which is one the most elegant shopping streets in Berlin and is teaming with people speaking an endless mix of languages, most often heard, was German, English, Russian, Arabic and Turkish. The public transportation is fabulous consisting of a network of underground and over ground trains, buses and trams. It was very easy to get every where using it and we never used the car.
Of the many Museums we saw, our favorites were: the Pergamon Museum, on Museum Island, which holds a collection of some monumental antiquities, such as the Pergamon Altar, the Babylonian Ishtar Gate and procession way, some Assyrian period wall reliefs and many others. In addition we enjoyed the Berggruen Museum with its wonderful Picasso and Matisse collection, and the Kathe Kolwitz museum with a magnificent collection of her drawings, statues and prints.
We saw many more wonderful paintings and statues at the Alte National Galerie, and The Bode Museum. Mostly works ranging up to 19th century. The Brucke Museum had a special exhibit while its permanent collection was on tour unfortunately, and the Neue National gallery also was holding a special surrealist exhibit while its entire permanent collection of 20th century art was on tour as well. We've had some good and some mediocre German food, and wonderful Italian and Turkish food.
An additional tour we took was to the Charlottenburg Castle, built in 1699 as the summer home of German royalty. We took a tour of the rooms of the palace which was filled with beautiful, ornate baroque decorations and paintings. We then took a walk around the beautiful formally landscaped gardens. It was a wonderful place.
On a day trip to Potsdam, the capital of the state of Brandenburg, (45 minutes by train from Berlin) on a hot steamy day we took a long walk along the beautiful former Royal grounds parks and palaces which are at the core of the city and are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant (the Loft) on a local recommendation and had the best ice cream we ever tasted.
We took an organized tour of Dresden which was completely restored and rebuilt in the past 20 years after it was practically destroyed by allied bombers during WWII. It is absolutely a magnificent city, built in the Baroque and Rococo style. It is a real jewel!!! We were fortunate to have absolutely a perfect cool and breezy day with puffy white clouds in a beautiful blue sky. Surprisingly the tour was in Hebrew and English, narrated by an Israeli guide. The vast majority of people on the bus were Israelis.
From here we fly to Nice, France and then drive to a bed and breakfast hotel in the Provence countryside where we will join a group from Ventura for an art workshop.
To see a slide show of pictures, click on the photo below and then click “slideshow”.
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| 2009-07-07 Berlin, Germany 25 June -6 July |
posted by Dahlia and Lance Riley @ 12:47 AM
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