Berlin 8 - Goodbye, Lenin

We had already had a peek across the wall and into the former East Berlin earlier in the trip, when we had walked around the posh bits like the Hakesche Hofe (courtyards done in a Art Nouveau style)

and the New Synagogue.

We'd even spotted a buxom German woman who was a walking bratwurst grill, so the former Communist side of town couldn't be all bad, we thought.

Time now for the full-on Stasiland experience, starting with the hideous concrete wasteland that is Alexanderplatz. Surrounded by stark high-rises, its sole decorative features include a fountain surrounded by boozing ne'er-do-wells

and the rather fabulous World Clock which allowed us to check the current time in Mexico Stadt. One of the tower blocks on the square is now a Park Inn Hotel and most of the square is surrounded by shops, including one called New Yorker (specialising in clothes for the non-discerning Turkish gigolo).

All this is overlooked by a massive TV tower.

We searched high and low for our Fraulein Bratwurst, but had to settle for a low rent fish-n-chips style place. You've heard of fish fingers? This place served what I can only describe as fish thumbs.

A tram from here took us deeper into East Berlin. We made the trip in order to stroll back towards Alexanderplatz along Karl Marx Allee, the city's centrepiece of Stalinist architecture. In the GDR days this was the boulevard along which lines of tanks and ranks of soldiers would have marched on May Day in a display of Communist might.

By chance, on the day of our visit it was May Day, but these days it's the Kreuzberg neighbourhood which attracts thousands of radicals, vegans, anarchists and ex-Methodists for a day of drink-fuelled demonstrations. Despite being packed, the tram was peaceful, like the left-wing teens were on their way to a concert and not a borderline riot.

The avenue is impressive because of its symmetry: perfectly matched blocks in the stepped-back 'wedding cake' style facing one another for about a mile.

Plodding along though past identical tower blocks does become tiresome after a point, so we were glad to see the sign for Cafe Sibylle.

When it opened originally in the 1950s, the establishment had the generic name Milchtrinkhalle ('milk drink hall'). These days it feels like a living history museum that does cold drinks on the side. Locals have donated memoriabilia from the GDR days and there's even some old kitchen appliances and furniture so you can get a taste of what it might have been like living along what was then called Stalin Allee.

 

 The wallpaper alone is worth a visit.

Some of the people sat around us looked old enough to have had Communist ice cream in this very spot.

So what better way to end our trip to Berlin than with a Marxist milkshake?? Auf wiedersehen, au revoir, so long!

Berlin 7 - mein hostess with the mostest

Someone say time for ouzo?? A quick word first about the B&B, the aptly-named Berliner Bed & Breakfast in the leafy Schoneberg neighbourhood.

Walking to the B&B in the hot sunshine of early May, it felt as warm as an English summer. The streets of Schoneberg are lined with a seemingly never-ending assortment of cafes, bars, delis and restaurants on the ground level of apartment blocks. It was all extremely pleasant, prosperous and bustling with many places catching our eye as potential places to eat and drink during our visit.

The B&B is on the ground floor of a fine old block, but no-one was in when we knocked at our agreed time. We went next door for a curry lunch, which was a bit watery and came with soup to start instead of the usual poppadums, but it was cheap and filling plus bided the time until 'mein hostess' arrived. At last a woman arrived with her shopping in tow, nearly dragging a decrepit dog along the pavement which must have been the reason for her tardiness.

She took us into the lounge/diner to show us the fridge, kettle, stocks of tea, etc. She didn't know all the words in English so it was like a language lesson for her. Our room at the end of the hall must have been a family suite because it had FIVE beds and two wardrobes, plus an enormous table surrounded by mismatched chairs. Posters of Marilyn Monroe and Breakfast at Tiffanies assured us this was indeed the Hollywood suite.

On the way back out the owner arrived to greet us. He gave us a map, indicating 'this is the circle in which you move' (meaning the main underground lines - I think) and sent us on our way.

For the evening's meal we decided on Ousies Taverna, a piece of Greece transported to the German suburbs. Despite being on the ground floor of an apartment building, the interior felt like an authentic Greek establishment right down to the dusty bottles of wine lining the walls. They must have imported their chef from Greece too because it was the finest Greek meal we've had, even better than the best island tavernas.

The only slight problem is that the secret is out and every table was full or reserved for the evening. We were granted the use of a tiny table right in front of the door as long as we didn't linger.

To start, we were given a huge bowl of olives, each the size of an egg and dressed only in oil with maybe a drop of vinegar. Even the green ones were divine. A salad soon followed, called dakos: stale chunks of crusty wholewheat bread left to soften in ripe tomatoes, garnished with dill and olive oil (a recipe that has since become one of our favourites at home).

More crusty bread and heavenly olive oil was on the table for us, which we washed down with ample amounts of beer. For mains I had a simple bowl of cubed roasted pork in thyme with lemon drizzled over, while Christian had a huge platter of skewered meat, sausage and roast veg like courgette, potato and aubergine with a side of refreshing tzatziki.

Right when I thought it couldn't be even more authentic, our host presented us with two complimentary shots of ouzo (I downed both). All this for only €35, so I gave our host a hearty 'efkaristo' when we left after our allotted hour.

We walked off our meal for a spell, just soaking up the atmosphere of the busy boulevard of shops and eateries on a balmy spring evening. On a whim we went down a side street and pitched up at a random pavement cafe where we sat under a string of fairy lights and sank a couple more pints of a dark wheat beer by the local Schneider & Sons. Drink up, because tomorrow it's time for a proper look around the Stalinist relics of East Berlin!

Berlin 6 - wandering around West Berlin

The Communists got the good stuff! When the city was split after WWII, the old historic heart of Berlin ended up under Soviet control, while the Allies focused their rebuilding efforts of the western half of the city around a district called Kufurstendamm (Ku'damm for short).

As you'd expect from the capitalist western powers, much of the development was given over to shops, offices and neon signs so it feels a bit soulless in parts. One of the chief attractions is the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, or its ruins at least. Built in 1895, it was nearly obliterated by Allied bombing in 1943.

A portion of its clock tower remains as a sort of peace memorial and is flanked by a 1960s carillion.

 

 

The original church has some of its mosaics intact plus a display of photos from its heyday, while a new church next door has huge panels of deep blue stained glass surrounding a dour modernist crucifix.

Calling in at a nearby U-bahn stop felt like stepping back in time, with what initially seemed to be old billboards from maybe the 1920s. On closer inspection, these proved to be clever reconstructions (with website addresses, for instance).

 Still, a welcome change from the usual adverts for scary clowns.

Nearby Potsdamer Platz has been one of the city's largest building sites for almost 20 years, a vast new commercial space which attempts to knit the two halves of Berlin back together. A hundred years ago, this was the Times Square of Europe, crisscossed by 30 tram lines and overlooked by the continent's finest hotels and cafes. Much of the neighbourhood was demolished in WWII before being divided by the Berlin Wall.

Huge sums of money have been spent over the past few years in an effort to return the area to its glory days, with hotels, theatres, casinos, apartments, offices and shops being built by some of the world's best-known architects. The impressive roof shelters a huge gathering space amongst the office blocks, but it's very much a playground for the rich who are content with upmarket eatery chains and overpriced clothes shops.

Potsdamer Platz turns its back on West Berlin's equivalent to the Museum Island of East Berlin, a series of low-slung buildings which house the Kulturforum.

The Old Masters are to be found in the New Picture Gallery, so-named because the building dates from 1998. We had the gallery almost to ourselves and in some rooms it was only us and a guard whose job it was to insist we stood behind a line on the floor away from each painting. The labelling was sparse (just an unobtrusive caption on the skirting boards near the floor) and the floor plan gave no clues on where to find the best stuff, so we tried to look into each and every room. This became a tiresome exercise in back-tracking, which became more confusing because each room is painted the same. I've been in far older galleries which were designed much better.

It was also a case of quantity over quality: entire walls by the likes of Rembrandt, Cranach, Drurer, Hals, Rubens and Tiepolo but very little that could truly be could a masterpiece.

It was a treat though seeing two Vermeers side by side (Young Woman with a Necklace and A Glass of Wine), when you consider only about three dozen of his paintings have survived. By comparision, the museum has 39 Cranachs alone (but then they were a father and son outfit).

They were by no means Vermeer's finest pieces though (one was not entirely successful as a portrait and the other did not have a compelling narrative like you find in his best work).

The Caravaggios somehow eluded us (what was I saying about the lousy layout!) but I was drawn to two Venuses by Cranach (including one that features Cupid being stung by a swarm of bees, yet at the same time he is unwilling to drop the honeycomb he is holding - an allegory for the sweet torments of love), as well as his Fountain of Youth and a copy he made of Bosch's Last Judgement. There was a proper Bosch, but it was a fairly straightforward devotional piece of St John (of Revelation fame).

A canvas by Brugel was a real puzzle. At first glance I took it to be a village of idiots, there were so many odd details. I gathered from the German caption that it was in fact illustrating 100 Dutch proverbs of the time, showing the chaos that would ensure if people did follow all the old adages.

Other Dutch paintings included a cat fight at a bordello and a knife fight at a tavern. Balancing out these bloodbaths was Hooch's nearly photographic The Mother with everything caught in mid-motion.

As for the Italians...all I will say about Canaletto is that he certainly could churn them out. The bits by Botticelli weren't his best. The one work that stopped us in our tracks was a portrait by Moroni. A very powerful and realistic work.

Velazquez and Zubaran represented Spain, while Reynolds and Gainsborough flew the colours for England. Altogether not the finest collection we've seen, but certainly one of the most thorough.

Just time enough the visit the new Holocaust memorial nearby. From the perimeter it looked like a cobbled square, although the grey concrete pillars turn out to be monolithic in size as we walked through them. I've found this aerial view. There are nearly 3000 stones. Each is rectangular and they look a bit like coffins.

Although the tops of the stones are almost level at the top, the ground between them is in fact uneven. As the ground falls away, the stones soon towered over us. Some are nearly 12 feet high and lean at almost imperceptible angles, so there is some chaos amid the uniformity.

The stones stand so close together people have to walk single-file. The stones are laid out in a grid, so we could see across to the other side, but we never knew what we might encounter at each intersection. Other people walked among the stones, but we'd only catch disconcerting glimpses - someone's foot as they strode past, a child's laugh, a couple ahead suddenly disappearing off to the side - which meant at each crossing we worried whether we would collide with someone else. Escaping to the other side and looking back, the tops of the stones appeared more uneven, unsteady even, as it being heaved up by the earth. It's not often a brief visit to a memorial turns into a nerve-shattering experience, so all credit must go to the designers for this unsettling creation.

With the cultural portion of the day over, it was time for a drink! Ouzo, anybody??

Berlin 5 - crossing the wall

Fifty years after the Communists sealed off West Berlin, I'm sure many visitors to the reunified city will be surprised to find there are remarkably few remnants of the Berlin Wall.

Since 1989, the Germans have taken great pleasure in obliterating it and people have helped themselves to chunks of it (I know of a Las Vegas casino where several concrete slabs are now a urinal). What little remains is still the target of souvenir seekers, so this section remains behind fencing.

That's right, a wall for the wall!

The most significant section is now known as the East Side Gallery, the world's largest open air art gallery. There are about 100 panels along a half mile of the old Berlin Wall  painted by artists from all over the world who turned this into an impromptu 'memorial to freedom' right after the wall itself began to be dismantled.

Money is being spent on actually rebuilding part of the wall, with all the paintings being restored using weather-resistant materials.

Not all artists agreed to renovation, while some painted entirely different works.

Although this means visitors will be able to appreciate the artwork for longer, little of it is original and it is still a target for vandalism. But I suppose that's all part of the transient nature of open-air art.

Graffiti is bit of an art form for Berliners and there is certainly plenty nearby, not just on the old wall.

 

 The wall may be gone, but there is still a language barrier!

IF YOU GO 
Closest U-Bahn station is Schlesisches Tor on the U1 or a short walk from Warschauer Straße (U1, S-Bahn) and the terminus of tram line M20. Look for the red brick turrets of the Oberbaumbrücke which cross the river nearby.

Berlin 4 - just photos from the Bode Museum

Berlin 3

At the heart of Berlin is the 'museum island' of Museumsinsel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. All these years after re-unification and the buildings are still being renovated while the East and West Berlin collections are being pieced back together.

There are five museums, the Altes (Classical antiquities), Neues (mainly Egyptian artefacts), Alte Nationalgalerie (19th Century art), Pergamon Museum (ancient Middle East) and Bode Museum (sculpture). We visited only the latter two and I think the ticket seller was miffed that we had passed on the newly rebuilt Neues Museum which is packing in so many crowds that visitors are allocated a timed entry. Maybe next time?

The Pergamon Museum is a bit like a theme park for ancient architecture, with several huge setpieces where it feels you have travelled thousands of years back in time. The namesake of the museum is the Pergamon Altar, a Greek temple built nearly 2200 years ago in what is now Turkey. These days its steps are a handy spot for pouting Eurotrash teens to congregate en masse.

Similar in some ways to the Acropolis in Athens, there is a distinct difference in scultpural styles. In the waning days of the Greek influence on the Mediterranean, the stripped-down and idealised Classical forms were replaced by Hellenistic fashions. Just look at all the curls, the drapery and the tortured poses.

Another highlight of the museum is the Gate of Miletus from Roman times, where again visitors have the opportunity of walking around buildings which are thousands of years old.

Most stunning of all are the blue gates dedicated to the goddess Ishtar, dating from the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II about 2600 years ago in what is now Iraq.

The glazed bricks are decorated with wild bulls, slender dragons and even unicorns while a procession of 120 lions stretch about 90 feet away from the ceremonial entrance.

As impressive as the gate stands at nearly 50 feet high, this is only the shorter of the pair of gates that stood in the middle of ancient Babylon.

The much larger inner gate remains in storage, too large for the museum to rebuild. In addition, the original processional way was about a half mile long.

This illustration gives some indication of the structure.

Plenty more sculpture and carvings are found in nearby rooms, although overall we found the museum fairly compact and well worth the admission price.

 

On to the Bode Museum, a gorgeous domed palace sat at the tip of the island. Stuffed with sculpture and altarpieces, the museum's main focus is religious art.
 
For anyone more used to the stark interiors of English churches, it is a novelty seeing such colourful and extravagant devotional pieces, but after awhile we were overwhelmed by the sheer number of fat babies and tortured saints (St Vitus cooked in a pot, St Bartholomew flayed, Mary Magadelene clothed in her own matted hair during her years in the wilderness, etc etc).

Still worth a look if you have the energy, because there are also an abundance of beautiful artworks throughout the building.