Written By Chris Titus

This past weekend, Nessa and I traveled to Berlin, Germany. The five hour train ride from Prague went smoothly.

The first half was passed in pleasant conversation with a retired couple from Buffalo, NY. Both were former teachers. Their son has been living in Germany where he participates in the US Olympic Bobsled program. There wasn’t much to see from the train. Along the way, we sped past a nice castle pictured below.

After Dresden, our new friends left and were replaced by a couple of Germans who kept to themselves.

We arrived at 3PM and made our way to the beautiful Hotel Arta. I give this place a one thumb down. For such a modern city, I was surprised to find such old and cold feeling accommodations. The linens were clean, but if you pulled them back, the pillows looked like they belonged in a WWII museum. The bed was an U-bed, not like the ‘U’ in U-Bahn or U-Boat, for which the ‘U’ is short for unter, meaning under (ground or water). An U bed is shaped like an U, meaning you ass is a meter unter your head, leaving your back in knots the next morning. Breakfast was the typical Euro buffet style - hard boiled eggs, a platter of cold cuts, breads, cereals, juice, tea, coffee, etc.

Since we were both a little sick, we didn’t do much on Friday night - walked the city and turned in early.

On Saturday, we hopped on the Berliner Stadt-Rundfahrt (Berlin City-Circle Tour). It is a great way to start your day. The tour makes 16 stops around the city. You can hop on and off as often as you like. And, there is a bus at each stop every 15 minutes. See map below:

Each bus offers a guided tour (headphones in multiple langauges) and moves slowly enough that you can capture some nice pictures.

We disembarked at stop #6 - The Jewish Museum. This was a continuation of an idea conceived in 1933 before Hitler’s rise to power. In 1938, the Gestapo closed the museum and confiscated all of its assets. The new museum was designed by Daniel Libeskind, a Jewish-American architect. He successfully beat out 165 competing designs and boasts an impressive portfolio, including winning the competition for the masterplan to rebuild the World Trade Center site in NYC.

The museum and the Garden of Exile are pictured below. The garden is seven rows of seven columns, slightly slanted to create a feeling of imbalance to replicate the feelings encountered by people thrust from their normal lives to a constant state of fear and uncertainty in the ghettos. Many of the museums architectural attributes were subtle, yet had a profound impact on you when entering a room, garden, etc.

A not-so-subtle example was the Fallen Leaves exhibit located in the Memory Void, one of the empty spaces of the Libeskind Building. This installation features “over 10,000 open-mouthed faces coarsely cut from heavy, circular iron plates cover the floor.” It was possible to walk on the exhibit.

In other rooms, there were artifacts, photos, and video clips that gave some insights into the persecution, propaganda, and atrocities committed.

Nazi Propaganda Movie

After the Jewish museum, it was great to get outside into the sunshine. We realized we made a mistake by spending the nicest part of the day in a museum.

While we waited for the bus, I watched some guys kicking the ball around. It made me want to suit up and get out on the field too.

The bus passed some interesting architecture as it made its way through the city.

Here are a few embassies bordering the Tiergarten (Animal Garden - a park without animals

Below are a few sculptures we passed:

We decided to exit the tour bus again at stop #10 - Sea-Life (the aquarium) - along the river Spree. This is a section of the city that was rebuilt in the old style of Berlin. During WWII, the majority of Berlin was destroyed. In fact, all citizens were required to remove debris in the days following the war in order to earn their rations.

And, it seems as if the reconstruction of the city never let up. You can see cranes in every direction.

From here, we went for lunch at an American restaurant and celebrate quitting our teaching jobs to head back to America. They did a very good job of imitating American quality hamburgers and fries.

We then hopped back on the bus and headed to the KaDeWe, the largest department store in Germany.  The sixth floor is a gigantic, upscale food court that offers thousands of different types of sausages, cheeses, and pastries.  We bought a few and sat at a cafe in there to indulge before heading to Check Point Charlie.