Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 12 - On Our Own Again - Berlin's Turn

As much as we enjoyed the "cruise" and all the places we saw on the bus tours, it was really great to be on our own again. This is really our favorite way to travel - let loose in an interesting big city and stumble our way - oops, I mean explore on our own.

After breakfast, we walked around the corner to the segway shop where we made our reservations the day before. The company we used is named: 2 Wheels Tours (Berlin). They were terrific. We had just 3 of us in the group. Our guide's name was Luca. And off we went.

We had deliberately chosen the shortest itinerary - an hour - for assorted reasons, not the least of which was to maximize the time we had in the afternoon to start hitting the museums.

Our first stop was Check Point Charlie. Of course, we've heard several times now that this Check Point Charlie was completely fake. Luca added the description of the tense standoff between US and Soviet soldiers, literally standing and pointing guns across the "border" from each other for hours and hours until a behind-the-scenes agreement was finalized.

Our next stop was Potsdam Platz - a major public square before WWII, devastated by bombing, and then bisected by the wall. In the square were sections of the wall interspersed with informational sections. The wall sections were covered in chewing gum. Ew.

We were off again to our next stop. We did not take any photos here - it was the location of Hitler's bunker.

On our flight to Prague, we actually did talk about where Hitler's grave was, if there was one. Neither of us could remember either way.

Luca told us that after the war, the Allies tried to blow up the bunker, but it was so well fortified that it would not be destroyed. The alternative was to bury it, pave over it, and ignore it. Which is what was done. It was a nondescript place for many, many years. The site remain unmarked until 2006, when a plaque and some information was put up at the site.

We asked Luca if there was a grave of any kind. He told us that Hitler had left instructions for his body to be cremated, which apparently happened, but not very well. When the Soviets took over that part of Berlin, they absconded with his skull and took it to Moscow, where it resides to this day. However, for a very long time the Soviets spread conspiracy theories that the Allies had his body, or he was still alive and well in places like South America.

According to Luca, the skull was positively identified as Hitler some time relatively recently, though wikipedia disagrees with this.

The best (and ironic) part - the Holocaust memorial is just a block or two away. As I mentioned in a previous blog, there are 2,711 granite steles (pronounced "steelies") ranging in height from flat to the ground to twelve feet high. The architect provided no explanation; instead he expected people to derive their own meaning.

Our last stop was supposed to be the Reichstag, but police officers told Luca that the path we were supposed to take was blocked to segways. He didn't try very hard to find a different way there - we headed back to the company's store front, and we were done!

Despite being told by our hotel's concierge that the Reichstag was "completely booked through August 12", we decided to just go there and see what the story was for ourselves. Good thing we did. There was a booth for obtaining timed tickets to climb the dome. Though there were no more available times for Sunday, there were plenty of slots available for Monday! We reserved 7:15 p.m. - our last view of Berlin before heading home on Tuesday.

We had lunch in the cafeteria/restaurant across from the Reichstag. It was kind of a relief to have something other than meat and potatoes.

After lunch we decided to tackle museums. Our first museum was the Pergamon - some parts of it still under reconstruction, we still spent a couple/three hours there looking at Egyptian antiquities.

There were some pretty amazing reconstruction of the gate at Miletus:

And here is a floor mosaic:

This is a bronze jug in the shape of a bird:

The upper floors of the Pergamon was an exhibit of Islamic history and art.

This is a prayer niche:

This looks like a prayer niche, but it was a wall in the home of a Jewish family:

And this is a beautiful dome ceiling:

We were kinda done after this. We went to dinner at the Italian restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was awesome. And not meat and potatoes!

Tomorrow: Last Day Of Berlin - the Reichstag or bust!

Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 11 - Whirlwind Berlin

Driving into Berlin on Friday, we caught a glimpse of things to come.

This morning is our Panoramic Berlin tour - 4 hours dashing around Berlin. Before the bus got underway, Benne popped onto the bus and announced she was saying goodbye! Obviously a move to avoid a bunch of emotional separations (she knew we'd all become rather attached to her and somehow expected to just take her home with us), in an instant she was gone! Quite devastating!

At least this morning's tour guide's English is colloquial, as in - he didn't sound like he was reciting a memorized speech, and the phrases he used were natural and clear.

Head's up about Berlin - there's a ton of very large, very impressive looking buildings here. Some of them are churches. Some of them were churches at some point. Many of them used to be palaces. Most of them have been totally rebuilt since WWII. As clear and thorough as our guide was, I simply could not absorb all the info without taking written notes.

Here are a few photos, not in any particular order (because I don't remember the order):

The Holocaust memorial:

This is about 2 blocks down the street from the location of Hitler's bunker (now paved over as a parking lot for two huge apartment buildings), and not far at all from the Reichstag (German parliament building). Peter Eisenman, an American Jewish artist, designed the memorial. It's 2,711 granite blocks that are very close to the ground by the street, but as you walk through the stones they gradually increase in height until the blocks are 12' tall. The artist stated that he wanted each person to come to his/her own conclusion as to the meaning of the memorial. I know I have mine. What do you think?

Holocaust Memorial

Berlin Wall:

We saw the wall several times. The first time was this piece that has been painted with "graffiti" - it's called graffiti, but it looks much more like a deliberate work of art:

Decorated piece of the Berlin Wall

The real Berlin Wall: this is a part of the wall that was left the way it looked in November, 1989:

And of course, Check Point Charlie, which is in fact totally fake. Facing us is the photo of the last American to stand guard at Check Point Charlie; on the other side is the photo of the last East German solider to stand guard.

Our guide told us he remembered when the wall went up when he was a little boy. He also remembered seeing President John F Kennedy drive down the street where he lived in an open car motorcade. 

One more fun fact - I know that I've heard all these years that when JFK made his impassioned speech supporting the West Berliners by saying: "Ich bin ein Berliner!" that he was actually saying "I'm a jelly doughnut". But our guide said this was nonsense - that everybody he knows and he himself would say exactly the same thing to say: "I am a Berliner". Well, put that myth to rest!

And of course, the Brandenburg gate:

It was a great bus tour, even though it was Everything-I-Ever-Wanted-To-Know-About-Berlin-While-Standing-On-One-Foot.

After the tour, we talked to the hotel concierge about getting into the Reichstag to walk up the dome. We had already asked him once already, and he had said it was completely booked. But this time, we wanted to know about making a reservation at the restaurant in the dome. The concierge, who had already made it obvious that being helpful was not on his list of things he does, insisted that the Reichstag was completely booked up, including the restaurant. There were no slots available until next Sunday. That sounded weird, but the concierge had already spent way too much time answering our silly questions and had moved on.

Then we walked around the corner to a segway tour company and reserved a segway tour for Sunday morning at 10:00 p.m.

By this time it was already going on 3:00 p.m. - too late to go anywhere or do anything, because our "Berlin at night" tour was scheduled to leave at 7:00 p.m. So we had a chunk of time to kill in the afternoon, which wasn't a terrible thing.

The tour guide for the "Berlin At Night" tour reverted to the exact kind of guide that was now getting on my last nerve - her English sounded like she was translating everything from German into English in her head as she was speaking, always a good way to sound stiff and awkward. She pointed out some "moh - say - icks" (mosaics), and my brain got stuck on that word until I could figure it out. By then we had long since moved on from moh-say-icks. Would we like to "make some photos"?

All the while in her artificially cheery sing-song voice that just sounded like nails on a chalk board to my ears.

The tour included dinner, which was at a micro brewery. Guess what the main course - pork shnitzel! If Benne were here, this never would have happened. Our food preferences would be already known! Our alternative was beef goulash. I'm so looking forward to non-German food.

The meal was mediocre, at best. So much for being a micro-brewery, the people who asked for beer all received the same standard-issue beer. No selection necessary, we've picked it out for you.

After dinner, it was dark enough to start seeing some of the buildings lit up:

Here's the Brandenburg Gate again:

At the end of the tour back at the hotel, we handed in the electronic headsets we'd been schlepping around for a week. Other than our transfer to the airport on Tuesday, we were officially back on our own. 

Tomorrow: Segway and some museum that we haven't figured out yet.

Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 10 - Return to Civilization or Onward To Berlin

After our last breakfast on board ship (I will miss the Maitre 'd and the servers hovering like hummingbirds), onto the bus we went. Today's tour guide was Haika (no idea how to spell that). Even more confusing, the male bus driver's name was Helga. Which previously I've associated with women. What do I know.

It was a 90 minute drive to Potsdam. Since I had snagged the very first row seats, Haika took to talking to me directly for the entire time, making it extremely difficult to fall asleep. Her English was colloquial, which was great. I think I've reached information overload -  not much of what she said actually sank in.

The most fun part of the drive was the drive on an autobahn. Not that our bus went particularly fast - the bus' engine is engineered to go no faster than 100 km/hr (about 65 mph). This is how the speed limit thing works:

• If the speed limit sign was blue - that speed limit was a "recommendation" (typically ignored).
• If the speed limit sign was red - then that is the enforced speed limit that people actually stick to (penalties are pretty high).

So there might be stretches of the highway with a red speed limit (it dropped to 60 km/hour at one point), interspersed with blue speed limits. Amazingly enough, immediately after a blue speed limit sign pops up, all the cars jump into hyper drive leaving buses and trucks in the dust. It was fun to watch.

We first drove through Sanssouci, a community of castles of sorts. There are 6 rather impressive looking castles in Sanssouci, but we didn't stop at any of them - yet.

We continued on through Sanssouci and arrived at Potsdam. Whereupon communication broke down a little bit. What we heard: "Meet at 12:30. There's cafes over there and a bathroom over here". Somehow we sort of assumed there would be some touring first?

What we should have heard: "We are not touring anything here. You have free time till 12:30. Go get lunch and come back here".

I came out of the bathroom to find everybody but Andy and our cruise friend, Ken (the New Yorker). Everybody else was gone.

We wandered around for a bit until we found an open cafe with tables in the shade. We had an entertaining time figuring out the menu. The waitress was very accommodating. I had a brie and tomato sandwich - it was great!

Here's a few photos from Potsdam:

By now the day had gotten quite hot. Back on the hot bus we went, and we turned back to Sanssouci.

We switched guides at this point, to a British woman who was our local guide for the castle itself. We did our best to hide in the shade.

Here is a photo of the outside of the castle:

And these are the gardens in front of the castle:

We then proceeded to enter the castle for the tour of the inside. Keep in mind - it was now full afternoon sun and G0d awful hot outside. We were entering a building with zero air conditioning or air circulation of any kind. Good times.

Some time in the last week I had bought a paper fan at a museum. Between that and my dorky walking stick/seat, I was able to finish the tour. About half way through, a bunch of people had to leave because it was just too hot. Even the tour guide admitted that recently she had almost fainted. Ok, then! 

Considering all that, I actually have no idea what the guide said about any of the rooms. Some of them were sitting rooms, some bedrooms, some music rooms - it was all very much Versailles-like.

Here are some photos of the interior rooms. I have no idea what their functions were. 

To liven things up, we discovered this rather alarming bust of a black person - it really couldn't be scarier or more racist if it tried:

At the very end of the tour, there was this one interesting painting - an Andy Warhol version of the original portrait of Friedrich the Great (he sorta resembles George Washington, I think anyway):

Freidreich the Great, Andy Warhol version

Even though it was still incredibly hot outside, in the shade it was much more comfortable than in the castle. I might suggest to Viking that perhaps the castle tour should be in the morning when it's cooler.

Time to get back on the bus and on our way to Berlin at last.

The first landmark was the Bridge of Spies:

Just a hint of the fascinating history to visit in the next few days.

Our arrival at the Berlin Hilton went as smoothly as Benne could make it. We have two more tours tomorrow with Viking and then we are back to being officially on our own for the last couple of days.

We had dinner in the hotel, after which we asked some questions of the concierge, followed by locating a chocolate shop and a segway tour company.

Tomorrow: Panoramic Tour of Berlin

Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 9 - Worlitz Gardens

Today was slated to be a relatively easy and relaxing day. All we had on the docket was a tour of the Worlitz Gardens (pronounced Verlitz).

Only about 30 minutes away, our tour guide, Alexander, managed to talk non-stop and yet not say anything intelligible. This has been the plague of almost all the tour guides so far, with the notable exception of Nigel at Wittenberg.

What I managed to glean:

• A German king named Frederich (there seemed to be more than one of them), or maybe other people, built these gardens at some point in the past, possibly in the 1700s.
• There was a synagogue on the property, built at the same height as a church to show that the religions were equal.
• Which of course was utter nonsense (we’re talking Europe in the 1700s, and specifically Germany after Martin Luther). But apparently the Jewish community enjoyed less oppression here than elsewhere. Woohoo!
• The palace on the grounds housed the rich guy’s wife and a couple of mistresses. I think that’s what Alexander said. Hard to tell.
• The lake on the property is very nice. There’s a family of swans living there - they have 6 or 7 almost full grown signets. It was fun to watch them.

Here’s a link to actual information about the Worlitz Gardens at Dessau.

At some point we had to make a choice - follow Alexander for a tour of the Manor House (apparetntly that’s what it was called?), or take a boat ride on the lake. For 95% of us, it was a no brained. An entire hour out on a boat without listening to Alexander. Who could turn this down?

Better yet. For once the weather was fantastic - it was not only not G0d awful hot under a blazing sun, it was a bit overcast and pleasantly in the 70s.

Unfortunately I didn’t catch the name of the guy rowing the boat. He apologized for his perfectly functional English. There were about 20 of us enjoying the lake, the water lilies, the swans, and the ducks.

From the boat we could see Benne magically appear on the shore by the dock. We all seriously wondered how she constantly does that - one second there’s no Benne, next second she’s standing next to you. We decided that there were in fact multiple Bennes.

Once our hour of peace and quiet was over, there was still a little time before boarding the bus. We spent the time looking for a bathroom. Once again Benne magically appeared sitting on a bench, who gave us directions to the bathroom. We told her our theory that there were many of her, which she thought was hilarious, and wished it were true.

Here’s some photos:

Manor House - the middle floor with the big windows was for the wife; the other floors with smaller windows were for the mistresses

Synagogue (no longer in use)

Worlitz Church

Worlitz Church Nave

Worlitz Church pipe organ

View of lake and gardens from church tower

That was pretty much it for the day. Unusually non-hectic. There was actual down-time after lunch, which I used to catch up on these blog posts. At 3:30 was an ice cream party on the upper deck - another flight of stairs up. And I *know* I checked the deck plans of this ship and there was an elevator somewhere! It’s been a bit annoying without one.

It was beautiful sitting up on the upper deck in the shade, watching the river go by.

There was a “future cruises” spiel, followed by disembarkation procedures, followed by dinner.

We had forms to fill out waiting for us in our stateroom after dinner. At 9:00 p.m. there was a performance of Renaissance actors in a short skit and interacted with the audience - they were great! 

Then I stayed up too late working on blogs.

Tomorrow: Disembark, Potsdam, and then: BERLIN Yey!

Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 8 - Wittenberg or Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Martin Luther But Were Afraid To Ask

We woke up Wednesday morning to an overcast and cool day. How refreshing!

And it stayed that way the entire morning for our walking tour of Wittenberg.

Not being a super fan of Martin Luther myself, I wasn’t at all sure how interesting this was going to be. Turned out to be absolutely fascinating, mostly due to our super star tour guide, Nigel. In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t really talked about the tour guides. This is because they were literally nothing to write home about. Up until now they’ve been almost uniformly mediocre, at best. Besides getting past their accented English (which sometimes sounded like they were translating directly from German in their heads: “We will have good conditions inside”. What does that mean? The building has A/C  and it will be comfortable.), they all have memorized their speeches, which they recite perfectly and perfectly boring.

But Nigel was different. He comes from Ireland, so his English is, well, English. Plus he’s an entertaining person, making the potentially tedious history come to life.

We started at one end of Wittenberg at the Luther House. The end of the tour would be the church 3/4 of a mile away at the other end of town, and we had 2 hours to get there.

Luther House

This Luther's table, with the original table top. They really should dust it every once in a while:

Martin Luther's table (original table top)

At the Luther House, Nigel explained how Martin Luther became a monk (his father wanted him to become a lawyer), then became a professor of theology in Wittenberg, and eventually how he came to post his 95 Theses on the castle church door:

Castle Church door where the 95 Theses were posted

Interesting side note: posting things on that door was a common way for the monks to communicate with each other. And, the likelihood of Luther doing it himself is pretty small - he most likely had one of his students do it.

Another side note from Nigel: Other people declared heretics were arrested and executed and yet Luther was not. He was protected by the Prince Elector of the principality where Luther lived. But this also meant that Luther could never leave his home principality, because otherwise he would be arrested and executed.

Here is a link to some more info on Martin Luther. Without listening to Nigel tell the story, it really isn’t the same.

Lest we think Martin Luther was all goodness and light, we were reminded of his enthusiastic anti-Antisemitism, as well as the general population. This was a stone carving on the cornerstone of a church - highly antisemitic image that was par for the course for the time. And this kind of thing was not unique to Meissen - they could be found all over the country. After WWII, many communities decided to take them down. In Meissen, they decided to leave it to remind them of their past.

Antisemitic cornerstone

Instead, the opted to add a holocaust memorial - in cross representing the church, the secrets of the holocaust bubbling up through the cracks. Secrets cannot stay secrets forever.

Holocaust memorial

After a break, we continued on to the Castle Church where Luther is buried. We did not visit Luther’s grave - inside the castle church where apparently he was contractually obligated to be buried.

The tour seemed to end far too soon - before we knew it, we were back on the bus to the ship.

We decided to sign up for an optional afternoon tour to Torgau, a town about an hour away by bus where the first Lutheran Protestant church was built (as opposed to retro-fitted Catholic Churches) and where Luther’s wife is buried.

Unfortunately, by the 2:00 bus boarding time the sun had come out and the temperature soared into the upper 80s, making the Torgau tour a bit more of a challenge. Our tour guide Mathius, reverted to the pre-Nigel level of mediocrity.

One fun shout out to Viking: there was an older gentleman (never did learn his name) in our group who had wanted to go to Torgau to visit a cousin he hadn't seen in many years. The tour guide (Mathius) and the bus driver, figured out how to make a slight detour to take the older gentleman to the street where his cousin lived. The gentleman and his wife got off the bus, and they strode off into the afternoon heat.

We first stopped in St. Mary’s church, where Luther’s wife, Katarina is buried. It wasn’t a long walk, but the cobble stoned streets combined with the heat made it feel like 2 miles.. Here are some photos of St. Mary’s church:

Katarina's grave in St. Mary's church

Nave of St Mary's Church

Next we went to the town square with the first built-from-scratch Lutheran church. For some unknown reason, there were bears (not kidding, bears) living in the space below:

.

Bear

This is the first church built as a Lutheran Protestant church, as opposed to retro-fitted Catholic churches:

First Protestant Church (Castle Church of Torgau)

Andy climbed up to the top of the tower of attached castle and took some photos from up there:

Torgau Castle Courtyard

The last thing we visited was the spot where WWII came to an end - where the Allied forces met the Soviet forces on the field:

End of WWII

While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, the older gentleman we dropped off before the tour was returned to us by his cousin. They had not seen each other in 70 years! I thought it was great that the tour guide and bus driver figured it out to make this reunion happen.

We then headed back to Wittenberg and dinner.

After dinner Benne planned a crazy “Name That Tune” kind of game that, let’s just say, just got a bit crazy. But hilarious.

Tomorrow:  Worlitz gardens

Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 7 - Long Winding Road to Wittenberg

An early day for all of us, and even earlier for Andy, who got up before 5:00 a.m. to go running. We were instructed to put our bags outside our door by 8:00 a.m.

Fortunately, it's not very far to Meissen from Dresden. It was originally supposed to be an actual stop on the cruising itinerary, now relegated to a pass through day trip.

The day was promising to be even hotter than previous days. It was great to spend the morning inside an air conditioned building.

Meissen porcelain has been produced in Meissen since the early 18th century. It's still being made by hand in the same factory. We walked through 4 demonstrations showing how the porcelain goes from start to finish.

This photo shows the last stage - adding color to the fired pieces. Behind the artist are sample plates at the different stages. On the second row (right by her head), the 3rd plate from the left is the last stage before the final firing. The dusty purple color of the rose turns bright pink during the firing.

Very beautiful porcelain - and very expensive. Nothing there really caught my eye, thank goodness. Except for this guy:

This elephant was made in the early 1700s, soon after the factory opened. Unfortunately, the artists who made him had never seen an actual live elephant, and of course, photographs didn't exist. So they created him from descriptions.

There's lots of things that are anatomically wrong - a couple you can't see from this angle. Which ones do you see?

After the Meissen tour, we were brought to the Ratskeller Restaurant for lunch - yey! more beef and potatoes! It was just ok. Meat and potatoes is wearing very thing these days.

There was an optional walking tour after lunch. The temperatures were now approaching 100 degrees; I opted to hang out at the restaurant and chat with people on the tour.

Here are some photos Andy took along the walk. At some point I'll come back and put captions on the photos as to what they are:

Fremmel 

After the walking tour, we climbed back on the bus and we were on our way to Wittenberg - another 2 hours away. The bus rides are also beginning to wear a little thin.

We arrived at our new ship, the Beyla, at around 5:00 p.m. The entire crew was out on the gangplank holding umbrellas to give us a bit of shade as we boarded the ship. It was great to be not moving! 

Unlike Dresden, this time we were not docked anywhere near the town center. We were a little out in the boonies, with nothing but grass, trees, and assorted wildlife - very peaceful.

Dinner was "German Night"! A buffet of - more meat and potatoes! The new maitre'd helped us figure out which items were not pork. It wasn't easy. To add to the festivities, we had live music - a clarinet and accordion duo, belting out German folk songs. 

After a really, really long and very, very hot day, it was a bit too much for me. I couldn't hear myself think. There was a game night scheduled for 9:00 p.m., but I just crashed in the silence of our stateroom. Andy had a great time.

Tomorrow: Wittenberg (btw, it's pronounced Vittenberg).