There are 3 transit zones, for the greater Berlin area, but we figured we'd spend most time in the inner two zones. If we decided to beyond once or twice then it would be cheaper to just buy single ride tickets for those occasions.
Looking at the cost of single tickets @ 2 trips per day (19*2*2.30) = 87.40 each = 174.80 euro for both of us for 19 days.
There are a variety of different daily, weekly and monthly passes. At the far end of the scale for us was a "10 AM Monthly pass" which is designed for folks who will not be traveling during the morning rush hours. That's fine for us as we usually take it slow in the mornings and can easily wander around the neighborhood for a bit, if need be, before getting on the transit. Anyway, for our 19 day stay in Berlin, we chose this monthly pass for the two inner zones (AB). The website quoted the cost at 53.20 euro each but when we went to the local station we discovered the cost was only 38 euro each for a total of 76 euro for the two of us... giving us essentially unlimited (except for the 10:00 am rule) transit for our entire stay... a savings of over 100 euro even if we only rode the transit twice daily... note, we normally will ride 4 or 5 times a day as it's cool to just get off and on at different places as we roam around the city, so a fairly substantial savings.
Enough about transit fares...
To finish off last week we took the S-Bahn over to Savignyplatz where we strolled down some side streets with very nice boutique type stores. This area led us to the very popular Charlottenburg shopping area along Kurfurstendamm, or Ku'damm as it is locally known, where we no sooner turned a corner that we ran into a small store whose name we recognized...
We walked along the Ku'damm looking in a variety of stores, stopping for coffee and lunch and ending at the humongous department store KaDeWe before calling it a day. Very nice, relaxing day.
One day, after a bit of a walk through part of the huge Tiergarten, we took a bus over to the Brandenburg Gate area. We were a bit disappointed when we found that to go up to the sightseeing glass dome of the Reichstag requires making an online reservation at least 3 days in advance. Later looking at the website, the process looked to be a bit of a hassle so we decided, for now, to skip that particular tourist attraction. Maybe we'll reconsider but there are lots of things to see in Berlin. One particularly moving display they have outside the Reichstag is a Memorial to the 96 Reichstag members of the opposition parties killed by the Nazis...
Leaving the Reichstag we walked over to and through the Brandenburg Gate.
After lunch, We walked along Under den Linden to Friedrichstrasse then down past (and into) the large department store Galleries Lafayette, to where Checkpoint Charlie was as a crossover point between East and West Berlin.
There are some great wall murals depicting life as it was with the wall in place, showing the resistance, terror, hardship, and tension of the Cold War. Friedrichstrasse is an excellent strolling streets, lots of shops, boutiques, high end stores, etc.
Potsdamer Platz is home to the Panoramapunkt office tower with it's high sky view over the city. This place claims to have the fastest elevator in Europe. Don't have other big Euro-elevators to really compare it to, but boy was it fast and smooth. Great views across the city from the rooftop Terrace, Later we had a nice lunch in the Sony center across the plaza. Walking up towards Brandenburg Gate we stopped at another moving place, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
After having gone up the Panoramapunkt, I, Brian, decided that another visit to the Alexanderplatz and the nearby Fernsehturm tower was in order. Kris gave it a miss while I went over to get a ticket expecting to have to wait awhile before getting in. Turns out I was able to get in right away although I did have to sneak a bit because my ticket number was one more than the last one allowed at that time slot (I was supposed to wait another half hour)... the first guard got distracted as I walked by so I thought for sure I was in. The second checkpoint is the bag check where buddy does a cursory glance into your bag and decides if you can take it up with you... but it was the third checkpoint that got me... the electronic one where you scan your ticket and the gate either opens or it doesn't. I scanned my ticket and of course it failed. I innocently asked the guard there if there was something wrong expecting to be turfed out on my ear... she politely looked at my ticket, gave me a new one and said "go ahead, use this, I'll scan yours later"... sweet. Anyway, the views were great. A clear day and 360 degree view over Berlin. Everything on the ground looked tiny with lots of people scurrying around looking like ants. Man, is Berlin and the country around it every flat.
This is what Alexanderplatz itself looks like from way up there.
Tuesday we took the train to Hannover and back. It was a 2 hour ride each way. The train reached speeds over 250 km/h. The purpose of this trip was to visit the War Cemetery outside of Hannover, where an uncle is buried.
The War Cemetery is very easy to get to from the Hannover Hauptbanoff (main train station). As you exit the station onto the large plaza, head over to the right (at about 2:00 o'clock) where you will see a tram stop. This is a stop for the number 10 Ahlem tram. There is a ticket machine at the stop. It gives change. There is a continuously updated ETA board which shows when the next trams will arrive. Jump on the 10 Ahlem tram and ride it to the end of the line which, coincidentally, is at Ahlem. Exit the station and cross over Heisterbergallee (this is the road running parallel to the train tracks), walk past the Esso station (it will be on your left) and continue along the sidewalk for maybe one km. Nice easy walk in the country. You will see the cemetery across the road to your right. There are actually two cemeteries. The larger one, which you come to first is the British Military Cemetery. The War Cemetery abuts it to the left. Wander down until you are in front of the Stone of Remembrance looking up the hill at the Cross of Sacrifice to get your bearings. The grave reference you have might need a bit of de-cyphering, but after a bit of looking around and trying to make some deductions, here's how ours worked using this of the cemetery taken from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website...(right click to enlarge and open in a new tab or window)
Grave reference for our uncle as found on the cemetery website: "COLL.Grave 16, G. 10-14"
- On the map locate graves in group 16, it is the third group to the right of the Cross of Sacrifice at the top of the hill.
- On the headstone on the end of each row is a group and row number reference. The first row in group 16 is row A. Just go up the rows until you get to row G.
- Start counting the headstones. Between 10 and 14 we found our uncle's headstone. His was the 13th.
We visited for awhile, noticing how beautiful the cemetery is kept. Very respectful. Afterwards we took the tram back into Hannover and strolled around the city center before boarding a late afternoon train back to Berlin.
Much of Hannover was bombed during the war, so a great deal of what you see (even historic looking buildings) are in all likelihood reconstructions. We wandered into the Marktkirsch which I would consider to be the most beautiful church we have seen thus far. The entire structure has been reconstructed using the original red bricks, they have a new (very graceful looking) pipe organ and have re-installed some of the original stained glass windows that were salvaged. There has been no effort to reproduce the interior decoration of the original church, just the original structure. What you see in the pure architectural form, very spare and unornamented with the stained glass sections suspended in the clear glass windows.
Wednesday was our introduction to the famous Berlin Currywurst. Taking a cue from our Frommer's Berlin Day by Day guide book, we headed for the "legendary" Curry 36 take out joint which, as they claim on their website serves up "die beste curry aus Berlin". We joined the lunch hour lineup, each ordered a couple of currywurst sausages, stood shoulder to shoulder with other munchers and actually quite enjoyed this new found fast food item. Later when we related this to an older Berliner gentleman he slowly shook his head and said there are two rules... no MacDonalds and no Currywurst... we all had a good laugh.
Wednesday was also the first "museum" day we have done in Berlin. First we went to the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie. This place is quite expensive (26 euro for the two of us) and not particularly worth it. It is a bit of a disorganized group of rooms, very hot, stuffy and very crowded. There were some interesting parts/stories and displays showing ingenious methods used to escape to the west, but the owner's have definitely expanded the "scope" of Checkpoint Charlie with exhibits/displays having little if anything to do with the place or the era. Due to the heat and crowd we left after doing a relatively quick go through. Maybe another time when it is not so hot and crowded we would have another go at it and possibly change our minds as to it's value for money.
A block away was a museum of a different kind. We entered the Currywurst Museum and had a most enjoyable experience. First of all, air conditioned and very few people. This museum is just a lot of fun. It has interactive displays showing the history of currywurst and other fast food modern convenience phenomena. The folks there were very friendly and they have an excellent little gift shop. Oh, yeah, entrance fee included a free cup of their own version of currywurst. Arguably, to a currywurst newbie, it was every bit as good, if not better, than Curry 36.
Two museums a day is pretty well about it so after that we wandered along Friedrichstrasse until we got to the S-bahn station and caught the train back to our apartment.
Thursday was "Zoo day" as we had heard and read that the Berlin Zoo is a pretty good one.
All in all they have many excellent animal enclosures giving the critters a fairly natural environment, albeit never seeming to be as large as would be optimal. We didn't see the entire zoo but there are a few critters, especially in the cat family, which appeared to be still kept in old style relatively small cages. This is a beautiful park and is a very informative and excellent zoo. There were a number of relatively newborn/young animals which we had the opportunity to see, including an elephant, an orangutan and a couple of lion cubs.
Afterwards we strolled over to the nearby Ku'damm before heading home. After a brief respite in the apartment we went out for a glass of wine only to encounter the hardest rain we've had so far on the trip. Just up the street from our apartment is a Flammenkuchen place so we decided to duck in there for a bite and some vino. Very nice.
We still had one extra travel day to use on our Eurail Pass so we decided to head off to Dresden for the day on Friday. It is a little over 2 hours on the train with some pretty good scenery along the way. We planned it so we would have around 4 hours or so to wander around the old town part of Dresden. After arriving, we stopped at the TI for info on the tram schedule etc (it is walkable to old town but only on better knees and feet than we have). We had an excellent lunch then decided to just do the Old Masters Gallery and New Masters Gallery museums for our time in Dresden.
After Italy, we thought it would not be possible to see galleries which have collections equal to the Uffizi, for example. The AlteMeister Gallery in Dresden is reputed to be the finest painting gallery in Europe. And it is. Brian sort of gave me a questioning look when we discovered that our one day Dresden pass did not, in fact, include admission to the gallery and we had to pay 12 euro each to go in. I had already decided that this was one of the things I wanted to see, so in we went. We had only limited time, so we did a "highlights only" sprint through the gallery - but if we ever come back to the area again, I would come to Dresden to spend a day in this gallery. They have one of my favourite paintings (Vermeer's Young lady with a Message ) and also have a great many Rembrandt's as well as the Rafael's Madonna that has the two cute cherubs at the bottom. Our Dresden day pass did include a reduced admission to the Neue Meister Gallery, and again we only had a chance to sprint through. They have a wonderful collection of Degas, Monet, Gauguin, Van Gough, Picasso - really would be worth coming back to another time.
As we finished with the New Masters Gallery it was time to head back to the station for our return trip to Berlin. Our conclusion from this short visit is that Dresden is definitely a place with return trip potential. Needs at least a few days to have a good look at.
To end the week on Saturday we decided to just chill in one of the city neighborhoods. We chose the Hackescher Markt area where we spent about 4 hours just walking around the busy streets, stopping for a coffee and pastry in a very popular little sidewalk coffee place, and just basically checking out numerous stores. We came away with some clothing items and some especially nice beads which Kris put together for a pretty necklace.
Saturday evening we walked down along the river and stopped at the Patio, a restaurant/bar on a boat on the Spree river. It started to rain so we had to go inside where it was sort of neat to sit in a glass covered room with the rain hammering down. It took a half litre of wine sipped slowly for the rain to stop at which point we called it a day... and a week.
| Back to Week 6 | On to Week 8 |
No comments:
Post a Comment