Berlin

November 2018

It's perfectly possible to get to Berlin by tea-time but after this trip we're left wondering if it's worth it. Not Berlin, Berlin is fantastic, but undertaking the journey in one hit. The trip from St Pancras, via Brussels and Cologne, is easy enough but it's very long and not very interesting. Next time we fetch up in the German capital it will probably because it's a convenient stopping point between two other destinations on a much slower perambulation around Europe.

That said, we set off for Berlin at 3:40am on a Thursday morning. By taxi. We wanted to get there in the early evening if possible and the 6:47 Eurostar allowed us to do just that, but meant either staying overnight in London or the cheaper option of a pre-booked taxi and a 3am alarm as there are no trains from Fratton that early. The car journey was as smooth as one could have hoped and we arrived at St Pancras an hour ahead of last check-in and very calm.
I was a little worried when booking about the Deutche bahn "print at home" through ticket because it only had one name on it, but a call to the DB helpline was quite reassuring and when I waved the piece of paper at the gate we were issued with official boarding passes (which no-one looked at again) and ushered through security.
The security area has changed since we were last there; there's still the x-ray machine with people faffing about because they hadn't prepared, but after that, passport control has become mostly automated. Actually, that's British passport control because the French are still using uninterested looking officers in booths for the most part.

After an eternity watching an advert for the new Harry Potter franchise film on every screen on a 5 second loop, we finally board our train. It's our first time on one of the new Eurostars, and while there are more facilities (like a charging point at every seat), despite the illusion of more space it still feels a little more cramped than absolutely necessary. By now though, for us, it's just a means to get to Europe and not the exciting new adventure of our first trip. A brief stop at Lille and we're soon in Brussels.
Annoyingly the escalator directly down to through trains is still out of use, presumably for some misguided security reason, so the transit to our ICE to Cologne is more rushed than ideal but we make it with a few minutes to spare and settle in.

The Brussels/Cologne ICE is fast - around 300km/h at times, and much more comfortable. We grab a coffee from the chap with a tray (proper coffee, not SWT Nescafé) and eat some of our packed lunch (it's still only elevenses really). The transfer at Cologne is much more relaxed and we have time to buy a delicious roll before climbing up to the platform. The Berlin train is bang on time although the carriages are numbered in reverse of expectations sending everyone scurrying to the opposite end of the platform from where they were waiting. The journey itself is not desperately interesting once beyond Hannover, and some five hours later, an hour after sunset, we roll into Berlin Hbf the biggest station I have ever seen - it's like something out of Metropolis with criss-crossing tracks on multiple levels.
A taxi whisks us to our apartment hotel near Checkpoint Charlie. Our room turns out to be more of a suite with a kitchenette, very comfortable, well-equipped and frankly a bargain.

Our friend Carrie has recommended a Bavarian style beer hall which is nearby so we head out in search of dinner and (of course) beer. On Charlottenstrasse, near the twin churches and concert hall, is Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt looking suitable popular and full at seven in the evening but they find us a table and half a litre of beer disappears fairly quickly. We go for the "full German" to eat. Following a delicious fresh pretzel and mustard, we are delivered a sharing platter piled high with sausages, meatloaf, roast pork, crackling, dumplings and meatballs mounted on a bed of sauerkraut, and another beer or two. We, unsurprisingly, forego dessert and stagger back to the hotel for a welcome sleep, grabbing some breakfast from Lidl on the way.

Friday

The hotel has a small spa in the basement and after a refreshing swim/jacuzzi we head out.
Just around the corner is the Checkpoint Charlie museum. Checkpoint Charlie was the best known crossing point of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) and this museum documents the post war history of Germany leading up to its construction and the many and varied attempts to cross the wall to escape to the West. It's a bit of an overload on the senses as the displays are packed in a warren of rooms, but it's fascinating to see part of your own history from the point of view of those who lived it rather than watched it on the news. It's housed in a building close to the original guardhouse and opened only two years after the wall went up, an analogue live-tweet of history perhaps.

By now we are in desperate need of a coffee so we are on the look out for something suitable as we head towards the Jewish Museum. At the bottom end of Friedrichstrasse a housing development the other side of a children's park has a massive elephant painted on its wall and there's a good looking coffee shop across the street. One milchkaffee and sly apple cake later and suitably refreshed it's off to the Jewish museum with its intriguing architecture and sensitive displays of Holocaust artefacts; household items left behind by those murdered by the Third Reich. Upstairs in the old building is an exhibition about Jerusalem, at once interesting and frustrating for the non-religious.


We have lunch in the café of the nearby modern art museum, a really nice organic salad, before taking in the exhibition featuring modern German art and a special display of the Novembergruppe. It's always an interesting time spent in galleries showing how a country tells its story in its art. It also gave me an idea for our own art collective (Fire Monkey Arts).

By now we're getting tired so decide to call it a day and go back to the hotel, passing the Bush/Gorbachev/Kohl memorial, for a rest before another night at Augustiner's for a massive schnitzel. And although the schnitzel was more than substantial, with schnitzel there has to be strudel. It's the law. A couple of beers to wash it all down.

Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate is not far, so we wander over. The wide boulevard is having new U-Bahn tracks and station laid under it so the overall effect is rather diminished but you still get a sense of its grandeur. The Gate itself looks its best at night and we're glad we made the effort even though the surrounding buildings have encroached on its space way too much making it look smaller than you imagine, especially in daytime. A busy day over we head back to the hotel. The habitual stop at Lidl for some breakfast provisions precedes a very good night's sleep.

Saturday

We are led to believe there's a flea market by Friedrichstrasse station with its impressive glass canopy but despite searching all around the station we can't find it and decide to carry on our way to Museum Island where we come across ... a flea market! A street full of interesting bric-a-brac, vinyl records and vintage clothing occupies the bank opposite the museums and on quite a chill morning we are also glad of the gluhwein on offer.
The Museum Kart we bought the day before gets us into the Bode Museum on the point of Museum Island. The Bode houses an eclectic collection of sculpture, Byzantine, Rennaisance and Gothic art, as well as a collection of altarpieces, coins and medals. Currently it has a fantastic exhibition of non-European art and makes interesting comparisons between it and so-called high art, asking the important question 'why is non-European art dismissed (even if it's admired) as "Tribal Art"?' something that needs a much wider platform.
The Bode also has a nice café where we lunched before heading off.

Further down the bank from the flea market is an art market which is great for a wander and views of the massively impressive cathedral. Crossing the bridge back onto Museum Island we headed for the Neue Museum, home to the city's Egyptian collection including the object of our visit, the world famous bust of Queen Nefertiti. There are many "world famous" artworks but only a few make your heart truly sing and the Nefertiti is one of those. It is exceptionally beautiful and well worth going to Berlin just to see it.

We're a bit tired now so a boat trip down the Spree appeals. Our bearings aren't completely true yet so we walk further than absolutely necessary to find the right pier but we do and an hour and a half of entirely German commentary later, but suitably relaxed, we head back to the hotel, pausing only to pick up the Chagall lithograph we'd bought for my birthday from a rather nice antiquarian book and print seller on the Gendarmenmarkt.

We have about an hour to rest before dinner at Charlotte and Fritz's, a rather good restaurant we'd booked ahead of our trip. We like at least one pamperful dinner when abroad and this certainly doesn't disappoint, beautifully cooked and presented dishes in elegant surroundings.

Sunday

Being suckers for a good market we get on the S-Bahn and then a tram, passing a significant section of the Wall left up as a memorial, to the Sunday Fleamarket at Mauerpark. The weather's turned a bit damp and the market space is not fully occupied but it's still big enough for a couple of hours worth of browsing and has every imaginable food truck outlet available, including an "Eastern" hot, spicy, milky drink which I initially can't drink it's so hot and certainly can't finish because it's quite unpleasant. Sarah is convinced she saw a different market from the tram and after peering up a couple of side streets in the increasing rain, there it is; the Arkonaplatz market full of the most amazing vintage and 'retro' furniture, fixtures and fittings alongside more regular bric-a-brac. The rain is getting quite heavy now so after exhausting all on offer we head back, picking up some food from the supermarket at the station. By mid afternoon we're back at the hotel and disinclined to go out again. We spend the evening relaxing, cooking and eating a very nice pasta meal, drinking a good bottle of Austrian red wine and watching British telly.

Monday

It's our last day and it will centre around our pre-booked slot at the Reichstag. First up however is the neon-green fronted, not at all hidden, Spy Museum. This turns out to be well worth the visit, more so if you are with younger travellers, chock full of history and interactive displays charting the course of the dark arts of espionage through the ages. There's an elaborate diorama of the "Bridge of Spies" made famous by the Tom Hanks film, code-breaking puzzles, and a dressing up booth! The only odd thing is that upon leaving (through the gift shop, naturally), you have to go back in the main entrance to retrieve bags and coats from the lockers.


There's a massive shopping centre across the road which includes a tube slide from second to ground floor. Wandering through we fetch up at Friedrichstrasse and the Christmas shop we'd seen earlier in the trip. Gifts duly purchased and lunch beckoning, we make our way along Unter der Linden, through the Brandenburg Gate, towards the Reichstag, scouting out the entrance before finding a nice café in the park opposite. It's a hot buffet and the day is warm enough so we sit outside with our meals and beers marvelling at the fattest sparrows either of us have ever seen.

Timed entrance tickets to the Reichstag have significantly cut the queues we had been warned about and our party are soon in the lift up to the dome. It's quite a spectacular structure and the views in the gathering gloom are still impressive.

Our daughter had stayed in Berlin a couple of years ago and recommended we visit the Schwulesmuseum, It's our last afternoon so we decide that's where we'll finish. Looking at the map it seems not far the other side of the Tiergarten but the park is larger than it looks and it takes a while to cross. On the way we pass the Soviet war memorial and a large equestrian statue in its own clearing, and quite a thirst is worked up. The museum itself is a history of LGBT activism and persecution and thankfully has a very nice coffee shop. It's along way back to the hotel and we're out of cash - there's no direct transport route anyway, so we drag our weary feet back past the art installation that has marked "nearly home" for us during our stay. Dinner is at Maximillian's, a slightly smarter version of Augustiner's, which includes a massive salad, another schnitzel and, of course, beer.

Tuesday

I've had the foresight not to book a desperately early train so the morning is not a mad rush, our taxi gets us to the station in good time and our journey back is as uneventful as our journey out, save for the excitement of spotting the Wuppertal suspension railway, and it's not long before we're back in Cologne, then Brussels and the Eurostar back to London. Once again the train from Waterloo is delayed and the arbitrary nature of UK platform allocation precipitates the usual mad rush for seats when the train eventually arrives and less than two hours later we are home.

Carbon saved by not flying: 140kg

Danubian Adventure - part two; Vienna

Day six of our holiday dawns and we're off to Vienna, picking up our tickets, first class this time, from the automatic machine at the station. The weather's turned, there's rain in the air, which by the time we reach the border is hitting the ground pretty hard. Budapest and Vienna are within spitting distance of each other and we roll into the Westbahnhof before lunchtime. Our hotel is six stops on the metro, near the Donaukanal. It looks a bit 1970s from the outside but is very comfortable and with a metro and tram hub right outside, handy for everything. The rain has eased and we wander into the centre and have a look round. I'm trying not to burst into song but there's a post-downpour mistiness and the steady beat of a synth drum in my head.

Just around the corner from Stephanplatz and its dark and brooding St. Stephen's cathedral, so different from its Hungarian namesake, is the Mozarthaus and we go in just as the rain restarts. The composer looms large across the cultural landscape of Vienna but despite this ubiquity we later manage to buy a small bust of Beethoven for our souvenir by mistake!
The museum is a fascinating tour through Mozart's life and times in one of his many Viennese houses with scores, a few instruments even some original décor. It also sets the record straight on the Salieri controversy. The rain has stopped again by the time we leave.

We've scouted out three options for dinner just round the corner from the hotel, but one of them is shut and another doesn't appear to be there any more so we head into the third. It advertises traditional Austrian fare and I'm down for an authentic Wiener schnitzel followed by apfel strudel. Obvious but so tasty. Sarah's main course comes in two halves it's so substantial. It seems a really genuine place, there's an old man and his very small dog at a table by the door and the patron is very friendly. We like it so much we eat here both nights.
A post dinner wander finds us back at the Stephansdom where an art installation is being projected on to the façade, and we stumble across a statue of Johannes Gutenburg, father of modern printmaking and arguably one of the most important figures of the second millennium.

Our second and only full day in Vienna is one filled with art and cake. It's bright and sunny again and we spend the morning in the MuseumsQuartier, principally visiting the Leopold Museum of modern art and being blown away by its brilliant Schiele exhibition as well as a well curated tour through the Vienna secession. After lunch and a quick tour round MuMoK it's time for a little more tradition.

We head off across the Burggarten towards the Opera, pausing to admire the large Mozart statue, and onward to the Café Sacher because today's afternoon tea just has to be the world renowned Sacher Torte. It doesn't disappoint. Wedges of chocolatey, cakey loveliness duly consumed, we catch a tram around the inner ring back to the hotel. It's been a few weeks since Eurovision and Conchita Wurst's famous win, but the trams are all decked in rainbow flags alongside the city standard.


The plan for our early evening entertainment before dinner is to visit the Wiener Riesenrad - cue bouzouki music...

We enter the park and the sounds of Mozart hit us again, this time accompanying the dodgem riders. The Ferris wheel dominates the otherwise modern amusement park and we buy our tickets joining the thankfully sparse queue. Halfway round it gets a little rocky and my hand gets a bit crushed as the vertigo strikes. Otherwise, it's a thrilling end to the day.

Our final day in the Austrian capital is even busier, even though our train leaves that evening. After dropping our bags at the station we spend the morning at the Hofburg Palace with its ridiculous displays of opulence and wealth. There's a museum devoted to the royal silver collection, elaborate place settings and the finest porcelain the Hapsburgs could plunder and a very interesting exhibition on the life of the Empress Elisabeth.
We pass out through the stables of the Spanish riding school, catching some of the white horses being groomed, and on to the Albertina gallery - also part of the palace complex. Curiously there's a large pink rabbit on the canopy and we decide to go in. This last minute decision to visit turns out to be very serendipitous as it's one of the rare occasions that the extraordinary Albrecht Durer drawings are on show, hence the rabbit. But that's not all, the whole collection is stunning.



We had planned to finish off the day at the market getting provisions for the evening, but first we visit the Secession Building. A stunning architectural statement and exhibition space it also houses Klimt's famous Beethoven Frieze. It's breathtaking.
Alongside the market, Vienna's version of the Hollywood walk of fame, the Musik Meile, is little more classy than its American counterpart, a succession of the great and good of classical music are represented; we spot Strauss, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and of course Mozart before we wander off and spend a small fortune on our train picnic. There's a bar with a massive bottle of Aperol on display so we sit a while with a spritz but find we still have a couple of hours spare. We decide to bite the bullet and cram one more sight in so head off to the Belvedere Palace, a large gallery housed in the former summer palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy. It's a little way out of the centre and I have a minor internal panic about missing the train but half way round the tour is the reason we came; a heart-stopping room full of the most sumptuous works of Gustav Klimt. There's a small crowd gathered at the far end and as they move away, there it is; The Kiss in all its golden glory. A fitting climax to a wonderful trip, and one we nearly missed.

Vienna is so beautiful and we're sad to leave but the Cologne sleeper pulls out at 21:40 and we have to be on it. As we wait at the station we're briefly tempted to get back on a train to Budapest but we restrain ourselves and board the EuroNight train as planned. We tuck into our picnic with a glass or two of a tasty red and are asleep not long out of Linz. After a restful night, breakfast is taken as we speed along the beautiful Rhine Valley, waving to our friend Marlene in Remagen as we pass.

We have the rest of the morning to kill in Cologne and as it's right there by the station we visit the famous cathedral before joining the Brussels express for the Eurostar home.

Carbon saved: 210kg

May 2014