Monday, July 11, 2005
Berlin
I have been to my Mecca. Berlin represents everything that I love about 2oth Century history - WW2, the Third Reich and the Cold War. So many things in this city remind you of it's sordid (and not so long ago) past, yet it is very much in the stage of redefining itself as a modern city.
I am not one big on walking tours but I decided to take the FREE tour advertised by the hostel. I always look at walking tours with disdain; they tend to be large groups of camera-toting grey haired tourists getting herded through all the usual tourist traps by an unenthusiastic guide who keeps the flock together by raising some sort of colored stick in the air (usually an umbrella). However, this tour was different (unless I have been brainwashed and have become one of them!!!). The guide was young and, to steal a line from Seinfeld, was filled with "unbridled enthusiasm". He was a young American studying Cold War German history in Berlin and really knew his stuff. I knew all the things he was talking about (I am so SMRT) so it made the stuff he was saying that much better. And the group that he was herding around were from hostels; this means that they were young, didn't have to take pictures of every single thing or stop for the toilet or an air-conditioned coffee shop every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, most did have cameras.
Anyway, we covered a lot of things that made me drool with historical hunger:
Berlin Wall - the only remaining bit standing is about 100 m long.
classic Nazi and Cold War architecture - nothing like the aesthetic appeal of straight lines and grey concrete the Reichstag - German parliament
the new Holocaust memorial - again, a bunch of grey slabs of varying heights covering one city block
the Brandenburg Gate - symbol of Third Reich and Cold War.
etc, etc, etc.
There were a few things that I would have missed if I were to do it on my own. For instance, we stood over Hitler's bunker, which is now filled in and covered by a parking lot of an apartment building.
I spent the next day revisting a few places that we skipped over. I stood in line to walk up the glass dome of the Reichstag. It is one the touristy things that you must do in Berlin. And it's free.
Berlin is good. Next stop: Prague.
I am not one big on walking tours but I decided to take the FREE tour advertised by the hostel. I always look at walking tours with disdain; they tend to be large groups of camera-toting grey haired tourists getting herded through all the usual tourist traps by an unenthusiastic guide who keeps the flock together by raising some sort of colored stick in the air (usually an umbrella). However, this tour was different (unless I have been brainwashed and have become one of them!!!). The guide was young and, to steal a line from Seinfeld, was filled with "unbridled enthusiasm". He was a young American studying Cold War German history in Berlin and really knew his stuff. I knew all the things he was talking about (I am so SMRT) so it made the stuff he was saying that much better. And the group that he was herding around were from hostels; this means that they were young, didn't have to take pictures of every single thing or stop for the toilet or an air-conditioned coffee shop every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, most did have cameras.
Anyway, we covered a lot of things that made me drool with historical hunger:
Berlin Wall - the only remaining bit standing is about 100 m long.
classic Nazi and Cold War architecture - nothing like the aesthetic appeal of straight lines and grey concrete the Reichstag - German parliament
the new Holocaust memorial - again, a bunch of grey slabs of varying heights covering one city block
the Brandenburg Gate - symbol of Third Reich and Cold War.
etc, etc, etc.
There were a few things that I would have missed if I were to do it on my own. For instance, we stood over Hitler's bunker, which is now filled in and covered by a parking lot of an apartment building.
I spent the next day revisting a few places that we skipped over. I stood in line to walk up the glass dome of the Reichstag. It is one the touristy things that you must do in Berlin. And it's free.
Berlin is good. Next stop: Prague.
// posted by Mr. Muir @ 12:19 p.m. 
