Monday we had a pre-arranged Reichstag tour booked. Our tour time was for 10:30 with a request to arrive 30 minutes early. The easiest route from our place was to walk about a .5 km through the Tiergarten to catch the #100 bus which stops right in front of the Reichstag. That was quicker than we thought and we arrived about 45 minutes early so had to wait around a bit but soon they had us marching through security and being checked off on multiple lists to make sure our passports matched the names on the reservation. After security we were divided into language groups. Our English tour group consisted of about 18 people from such countries as Denmark, Sweden, England, USA, and, of course, Canada.
The tour guide and the tour itself were excellent. Besides being shown different areas of the building we were told about the history of the building and about how it came close to being torn down altogether after the war due to the damage it had suffered, but when the wall went up, right beside it, a decision was made to keep it and rebuild it as a museum. After re-unification and the decision to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin it rebuilt in it's present form. The last stop on the tour was the plenary and a talk about how the German parliamentary system works.
The various art works in the building are really interesting. There doesn't appear to be much info available on line, about the art, but the video on this site tells a lot about it. There are a few pics from the tour on our picasa album.
After the tour ended we were free to walk up to the top of the Dome. That was pretty cool with great views out over the city. This one being of the Hauptbanhof (the black building with the tubes sticking out of it)...
... and this one being of the Memorial to Murdered Jews in Europe...
After leaving the building we stopped at the Memorial to the 96 elected members of the Reichstag who were murdered under the Nazi regime..
We decided to take the #100 bus back through the Tiergarten over to the Ku'damm area and try the buffet lunch on the 7th floor of KaDeWe. Not bad selection and decent lunch but a bit pricey at close to $30 CDN each. After lunch we wandered around the general area stopping in a large, well stocked model train store... oh so tempting but not this day. Later that evening we went over to Friedrichstrasse for some wine, people watching and tour boat watching along the river...
Tuesday we figured would be our last Berlin museum day. Catching the S-Bahn over to Friedrichstrasse the the M1 tram to Museum Island we thought we'd try the Pergamon Museum first. However, the lineup for tickets was way to long for our liking. We opted instead for the Neues Museum next door where we were able to basically walk right in. The cashier tried to up-sell to a Museum Island Pass but you really need to be prepared to power walk through at least a couple of them since the pass is only good for one day. Usually one museum a day is enough.
The Neues is primarily an ancient Egyptian and Roman history museum. The main holding is the iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti. The Nefertiti gallery is the one place in the museum where photos are not allowed. There were at least four "guards" in the gallery making sure no cameras were about to be used. Sketching is allowed so we partook of that activity along with a group of about a dozen young school girls doing the same. Fun. Lots of other interesting items in the museum including one Roman sculpture that bore an uncanny resemblance to Brian...
For the afternoon we took the S-Bahn to Alexander Platz then the M4 tram north to Mariensburgerstrasse in search of one of the Boesner Art supply stores. After a sort walk from the tram we entered the alley at #16 Mariensburgerstrasse. This alley with it's walls covered in urban art (not graffiti) ...
... leads to the store door. Wow! This place is huge. The Opus art supply store in Vancouver would fit int a small corner of this place! Their product catalog is a tome of a book about 2 inches thick and weighs a ton. We elected to not tote one away but did come away with a small selection of supplies. This place actuallly saves you from yourself by not accepting credit cards.
Later that evening, after doing some grocery shopping at the local Kaiser's supermarket we stopped in at a Paulaner pub a few doors down from Kaiser's. Nice wine and nice munchies.
Wednesday morning we headed over to the Ku'damm for some items we were running short of. Then to another part of the city, in Charlottenburg, we had not previously been for some lunch and to ferret out yet another Boesner store. Seemed like a good excuse to check out the area. To get there we took the U1 (underground metro) from Ku'damm to Wittenberg then the U2 to Ernst-Reuter Platz. Emerging from the metro we found ourselves on a very large traffic circle with busy roads angling off like spokes on a wheel. We found Marchstrasse and headed off past the immense Berlin Technical University. Past the university on to Franklinstrasse this area appears to be mostly light industrial with a couple of large VW and Audi dealerships thrown into the mix but not much in the way of eateries. We found the Boesner store but decided to find some lunch first so continued along Franklinstrasse. Turning the next corner at Helmholtzstrasse Kris noticed a number of storefronts with awnings which usually indicates restaurants as they did in this case. We picked Schrodingers, a busy looking small place and went in. There were two seats at the end of one table so we took those. Two young guys beside us were having what looked like "mac & cheese". It looked good so Brian tried it (Spatzle)and Kris tried the Schnitzel. Excellent lunches for under 6 euro each. Lunch done with it was time to head over to Boesner. This time it was just some supplies to supplement the basic Schminke paint set Kris had picked up in Rome. Another excellent large art supply store.
Wednesday evening we headed back over to the river across from the Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn station and found a talble overlooking the river. We were joined by another couple with whome we struck up a conversation. Julie and Paul are from St Louis and also have a home in Fort Benton, Montana, both places we are familiar with so we had lots to chat about besides our respective travels in and around Berlin. They told us about their adventures in a small town, not far from Berlin, where they were able to track down a whack of information about Paul's grandparents. Very interesting. Julie is an architect so Berlin is pretty well a perfect place to visit. After a nice long chat on a nice evening out we exchanged contact info and went our separate ways. If luck is with us we will connect again in St Louis, Fort Benton or maybe at our place on Vancouver Island, a place Julie said she has on her bucket list.
Thursday was not only May Day with most stores being closed but also packing day for us. After doing the first (big) round of packing we decided to go off to another different part of the city. We chose to get off the S-bahn at Hackescher Markt and wander in a different direction than previous times in the area. We walked along Orienburgerstrasse past some of the riverside parks where large numbers of families were already starting to set up for their May Day picnics. It was shaping up to be a fine day for a bbq.
After a while we happened to walk past the New Synagogue Berlin. It was open for visitors. This is a very interesting building complex, mostly used just as a Jewish Centre and museum now. Built in 1860 it had been badly damaged by the Nazi regime and the war in general. In 1958 a major part of it was deemed too unstable to save and was demolished. A lot of the reconstruction was done in a way to preserve what they could as a memorial.
Returning to Hackescher Markt we had a nice lunch at the outdoor section of Restaurant 1640, a place we ate at earlier this visit to Berlin. Kris had a sausage but since they were still serving breakfast, Brian tried the English Breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, sausage links, toast and has browns... Kris got the better of that one, but still pretty good.
After a bit more wandering we headed towards home to stop in for coffee and cake at Cafe Buchwald at the end of what we always refer to as the "Bear Bridge" but is it's actual name is the "Moabiter Brucke". It was also time for a bit of sketching...
Then it was home to rest a bit. Later for dinner we returned to the 12 Apostel restaurant at Savigny Platz, this time for a salmon, prawn and fresh creme pizza and some wine. Meanwhile our apartment owner Christa was arranging a taxi for us for 6:30 am Friday.
Friday morning we were up early to finish packing and get ready for the taxi. The taxi arrived on time and we got to the hauptbahnhof in time to sit and have a coffee and buy some food/sandwiches to go for on the train. The train left a couple of minutes late so we were sort of glad we had changed our reservations to this earlier train from Berlin so we had lots of extra time on the connection in Mannheim (if this one was late then the chances of the later one being late seemed pretty good). It was a rather uneventful train ride through some nice scenery from Berlin to Mannheim to Paris. About an hour or so out of Paris there was an announcement that 1st class passengers could have a taxi arranged for them. Sweet deal! We got off the train in the Paris Est station and there waiting for us was a taxi driver holding a sign for Emmerson! Nice. That makes life easy. A quick taxi ride and we arrived at our apartment. Thierry was waiting for us and gave us a quick rundown on the place, nearby grocery stores and restaurants.
After getting settled we went out and got some basic groceries then wandered along Blvd Richard-Lenoir (our street) and tried Le Paris for dinner. Could there be a more aptly named place to try for your first meal in Paris? Food was good. Brian tried sausage with cheesy (as in cheese, not as in chintzy) mashed potato and Kris tried duck (as in the bird, not as in 'look out'). Could escargot be next? Very nice meal.
Saturday was our welcome to Paris day. We started out by wandering through an arts and craft market just down the street where Kris picked up a couple of beautiful scarves/shawls. Then it was into the metro, at The Bastille station, to see about passes. Since we are goiing to be here for a few weeks the best deal is the Navigo card which is designed more for locals but gives you unlimited metro/bus use for 7 days (monday to sunday) for around 20 euro. Compare that with the 5 day tourist pass that runs in the 38 euro range. Since the pass doesn't start until Monday we bought a book of 10 individual rides to tide us over. After that we got on the M1 line over to the Louvre. We didn't go into the Louvre today but did walk through the outdoor complex, past the Pyramid, through the Tulieries (garden) and after a stop for a nice lunch of quiche and croque monsieur in the garden, we waited in line for the Musee de l'Orangerie. The main display in this museum is the Nympheas de Monet. This is just fabulous. The display comprises two semi-circular rooms encircled by Monet paintings of water lilies. Wow! No photos allowed but the rest of the museum is pretty cool as well with huge selections of Renoir, Picasso and others.
Leaving the museum we walked along the Champs d'Elysee, a very busy artery in the city...
... while we wondered what it must be like, at the end of the Tour de France, cycling this major boulevard and knowing that you have won the race. We walked just about as far as the Arc deTriomphe before we started to flag. We found a Starbucks hidden away in an arcade so after a lenghy wait in their lineup we sat and enjoyed an iced latte. Leaving Starbucks we stopped in at Monoprix then at Sephora where after only a few minutes in that madhouse Kris came out exclaiming "Run for your life!". Man, what a zoo!
Outside Sephora we noticed a metro station so went into the bowels of the earth, used a couple of tickets to get on the #1 line and came out at The Bastille. By this time it was cocktail hour so spotting an Indiana bar/cafe watering hole we dropped in for some wine, chips with guacamole and some people watching before heading home for the night.
Sunday morning we went deeper into Parisian life and spent several hours at the rather large Marche aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves. A bit of a bugger, for us newbies, to get to but we figured it out... walk to The Bastille, take #1 metro to Champs d'Elysee-Clemenceau, transfer to #13 metro to Porte de Vanves, go the wrong way out of the metro station, and finally ask a stranger in our best French "excuse moi, ou est le marche de puces?", which apparently was good enough as he directed us straight to it. This place is one mother of a flea market! Lots of fun to wander along checking out the wide range of "stuff" on offer. We found some great buttons and a cool set of pewter "knife rests".
Leaving the flea market we retraced our metro steps back to the Bastille then walked along Blvd Beaumarchais until we found a nice looking bistro in which to have lunch.
On Saturday, when Kris bought the scarves, the woman there gave us a pass for entrance to the Grand Marche d'Art Contemporain currently on near the Bastille. After lunch, on Blvd Beaumarchais, we decided to use the pass today since the art show ends tomorrow. Wow, another huge event, but we had guessed that because the pass she gave us was from two fellow artists who had booth #573! The event tents wrapped around a good part of the Port de Plaisance de Paris Arsenal...
... There was a whack of great arts and crafts, mostly paintings and sculptures and eventually we found booth #573 but unfortunately the artists, Philippe Autefage and Caline Muller were on break so we didn't get a chance to chat.
Later that evening we wandered farther over into the Marais and sat at a sidewalk cafe for a couple of glasses of wine. As this week ends we are quite liking this parisian life.
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