Travel Blog: A Weekend and a Bit in Berlin

Larry always says 'Keeping tour groups together is like herding cats!' And it's been proven that you CAN'T herd cats. Tauck was putting that one to the test on Saturday morning, when all of us walked from our two hotels (we couldn't all get into one) to the Hauptbahnhof in Nuremberg in order to catch the ICE, InterCity Express, train to Berlin.

We wondered how three tour directors would keep track of 114 people, but they broke the group up into three and had seats for us in three different cars of the train, all in second class. Second class?? What? Surely Tauck, with their pull, could get first class seats for all of us? Some people were actually wondering this, and Larry found himself explaining that we were all traveling on ONE ticket and adding enough first class seats to the train would make it too long to fit into the station.

The other concern people had was if they would be able to get on the train fast enough. Nobody had really serious mobility issues, but there were a few that weren't moving that fast and needed canes to help them on stairs. Somehow ICE had become equated with BULLET train and, maybe, Tokyo Subway, and many of our group thought the train would only make a very short stop. Again, it took a bit of explaining by our tour directors that we would have plenty of time to climb aboard and find seats before the train left. Some others were wondering if everything would be going by in a blur because of the high speed, and, again, we were explaining that top speed would be 225 or 250 km/hour, a comfortable speed.

Eventually we did all get on board and settled in for our three and a half hour ride. Our bags went by truck - it would have been a real nightmare any other way. Although we were in second class, Tauck did arrange a lunch package for each of us that included water, a salad, a sandwich, fruit, a chocolate bar and pack of nuts. Even on the train we were fed as though we were still on the ship!

Once in Berlin, we boarded our buses for a short city tour that would keep us busy until the rooms at the Adlon Hotel Kempinski were ready. First stop was Charlottenburg Palace, where, for a little while (see centre photo) dark rain clouds threatened, but they blew away just as quickly as they came.

We were staying at the Adlon Hotel, which for many, many years has been THE hotel in Berlin. Even during the war it was used for meetings with foreign dignitaries, but it didn't survive the bombing, or the Russians. The hotel, or what was left of it, was actually in the death zone between the inner and outer Berlin Walls after they were erected in 1961, and wasn't rebuilt until the 1990s after the Wall came down in 1989. It was rebuilt in the same style as the original, and without knowing this history, you would think it had been standing since the very early 1900s.

Our room - a nice size, and comfortable

And in case you're wondering - no fancy
electronic toilets here, although this one
did have its own room.

Our view over the courtyard

In the lobby

Old fashioned elevators

The Elephant Fountain

The lobby

Larry with his venison and spaetzle, German
style egg noodles

Monica chose the Koenigsberger Klopse,
which are veal meatballs in a sauce, something
Mom used to make

Our tours took us to the Museum Island to visit the Pergamon Museum, where although we saw some interesting exhibits, there was a lot of work still being done to expand the floorspace and create a new display for the Pergamon Altar, the museum's most famous exhibit, which is now in storage until 2023.

The Ishtar Gate. The smooth tiles have been added in, but the
rough and discoloured ones are original.

The Roman Gate; quite impressive, especially when you
look at the smooth white inserts - these were replacements
for damage that occurred from bombs during the war.

We also had a lunchtime cruise on the River Spree - when, of course, it rained, so photos were few and far between.

Monday, the last day of the Tauck tour, in a tour called 'Berlin Divided and Unified' we visited a number of World War II memorials and saw the changes that restoration and rebuilding have been making to the former east zone. Nowadays it is almost impossible to tell by the architecture which 'side' of the old Berlin you are in, as 'early 1960s communist' has been disappearing quickly as the city is being gentrified and housing prepared for the average 40,000 additional residents per year.

Here are a few photos from the tour:

Berlin Airlift Memorial outside the Tempelhof Airport. The Russians
blockaded truck and train traffic into West Berlin so supplies
could not get into the city. To fight this, the allies sent in
planes instead, keeping the residents in food and coal.

This is one of the actual C47 transport planes was used in the Berlin Airlift, where
the allies were sending 5,000 tons of food, coal and supplies into
West Berlin every day for over a year. It hangs over the entrance to the Science & Technology Museum.

One of the only original pieces of the wall still in its original location. Ironic that they have now
had to put up a fence to protect it - from souvenir collectors
who have been chipping little bits off.

At the Berlin Wall Museum. This is a rebuilt section
so people can see what the death zone looked like, complete
with a guard tower - that was apparently bought on E-Bay
since none were saved when the wall came down.

What the wall would have looked like from the West

And of course no visit to Berlin nowadays is complete without seeing the East Side Gallery. This is the longest continuous piece of the wall still in its original position. Once the wall came down, artists from all over the world were given sections to paint, and some of these have become quite famous.

Our farewell dinner was in the rooftop restaurant at the Reichstag, the German Parliament. We had the chance to take a tour to the top of the glass dome before dinner, to get some very impressive views of the city.

The central column - look at the top mirror in the centre - hey, who's that??

At the top of the dome, still wearing our VOX Boxes
to hear the tour guide.

Our tour directors, Jenn, Milos and Karel

On Tuesday, our last day in Berlin before heading to Bremen, we decided to go for a walk....of course, with us that could mean almost anywhere, and in fact we walked from the hotel in Pariser Platz at one end of the Tiergarten, the huge city park, all the way to the other end, and then down to the huge department store, KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) to look around and particularly check out the food court on the top floor and the food shopping level. Just like in both Harrods and Fortnum & Mason in London, you haven't been in town until you've seen their food shops.

Winged Victory in her horse-drawn carriage. Originally she and the
horses were pointed to the west, but they were destroyed
during the war. When the Russians replaced her, they
had her pointing eastward, facing Unter den Linden,
which was the main street of East Berlin.