After last night's interesting excursion, any vague notion I may have had of getting up in time for a hotel breakfast was wasted. So my restorative strong coffee and selection of breads with wasp-attracting strawberry jam and Nutella was taken a few doors up the street, in the sunshine.
My work routine back in the UK usually means very late to bed, and very late up; it so happens this really suits having a lively time in Berlin, which is the original twenty-four-hour city.
I had a plan: go to the big shops of West Berlin. The U-Bahn chucked me off several stops early (cf last year's holiday blog - this is becoming a habit).
So I emerged into the dazzling sun right where just over twenty years ago was no-man's-land and the Wall: Leipziger Platz and Potsdamer Platz. It took me a couple of wandering minutes to get my bearings and work out which way to walk.
I decided on a meandering route along the southern edge of the Tiergarten, Berlin's great urban park (think Bois de Boulogne, Central Park or Hyde Park). This took me past a number of new embassies, specifically those of South Africa, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. The architecture of embassies are a great way of expressing your country's style and character abroad. Shame Great Britain, then (see last year, again). Sadly I missed the Scandinavian complex.
I was somewhat taken aback on reaching the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche to discover what should hav
e been the bomb-ruined remains of the old church (irreverent Berliners call it "the hollow tooth", next to the "powder box and lipstick" modern church and bell-tower) appeared to have been replaced by a monstrously ugly block of flats, which on closer inspection seemed to be some sort protective cladding, presumably whilst restoration works are underway.
The Kürfurstendamm was just too packed with tourists to make for any enjoyment, and the shops are the same ones you can find in London or Paris. I came, I saw, I was disappointed.
So I walked up the smelly edge of the zoo towards the Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten, then followed the train tracks through the Tiergarten again, up towards the Strasse des 17 Juni, but keeping inside the park. Berlin is sandy, and the ground often keeps the moisture, so from some recent rain there were muddy puddles to avoid in the shady areas, despite the heat of the day.
I skirted round the Siegessäule, the Victory Column, and headed straight for the Brandenburg Gate, that great, glorious, powerful and historical symbol of Berlin, through which armies have marched, which has been fought over, claimed by the Russians, and is now the happy centre of the city once more. But before reaching it I stopped as a noisy procession, or series of floats and followers on foot, was escorted past by police. I don't know what the protest was about; I suspect a political faction, possibly anarchists from the state and attitude of some of the participants, a few of the younger members of whom I witnessed, at close hand, square up to impassive, body-armoured police parked nearby. It never seemed dangerous, but thrillingly close to danger. I'm reading Isherwood* at the moment; there were faint echoes.
And so to Pariser Platz, the new-built square just on the western side of the great Gate, at the edge of which I remember in 1978 standing, behind steel barriers, to observe the Brandenburger Tor at a distance, and through it, the white strip of the Wall. But today, in the sunshine, it is teeming with street artists and dancers, tourists with cameras, horse-drawn carriages ... and life! Zest! Zing! There's a video on YouTube, or will be shortly, because I was one of those tourists with a camera.
I toyed with the idea of visiting a Kennedy exhibition in one corner of the square, but there were no admission prices on display, and besides I was tired, and had walked a long way already. I wanted my hotel bed for a nap! So I popped down the new underground station and onto Berlin's latest U-Bahn, the U55, just three stops to the Hauptbahnhof; then the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, and my line U2 to Senefelderplatz, a couple of hundred metres from my hotel.
I did indeed nap, fought the netbook to get some photos loaded, Skyped with Steve, then headed off to The Bird for a very late meal.
Please, if you come to Berlin, visit The Bird. If you're on your own, sit at the bar, chat to the American and English staff, get talking to strangers. I spent a happy couple of hours next to two Americans who were engaged in a half-hearted drinking contest with great 1.5 litre glass boots of beer; and then chatting at length to Dara, a young Dubliner doing the Interrail thing. Imagine the voice and mannerisms of Father Dougal crossed with one of the hairier Avett Brothers (for looks).
Then burger and fries consumed, off for a drink or two ...
Upon returning to my hotel, I discovered that I couldn't get online, so this is posted a little late.
*I brought Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Novels with me: Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, partly because my long-held desire to read them was recently re-ignited by the BBC's Christopher And His Kind, and because the time seemed just right for this trip.
My work routine back in the UK usually means very late to bed, and very late up; it so happens this really suits having a lively time in Berlin, which is the original twenty-four-hour city.
I had a plan: go to the big shops of West Berlin. The U-Bahn chucked me off several stops early (cf last year's holiday blog - this is becoming a habit).
So I emerged into the dazzling sun right where just over twenty years ago was no-man's-land and the Wall: Leipziger Platz and Potsdamer Platz. It took me a couple of wandering minutes to get my bearings and work out which way to walk.I decided on a meandering route along the southern edge of the Tiergarten, Berlin's great urban park (think Bois de Boulogne, Central Park or Hyde Park). This took me past a number of new embassies, specifically those of South Africa, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. The architecture of embassies are a great way of expressing your country's style and character abroad. Shame Great Britain, then (see last year, again). Sadly I missed the Scandinavian complex.
I was somewhat taken aback on reaching the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche to discover what should hav
e been the bomb-ruined remains of the old church (irreverent Berliners call it "the hollow tooth", next to the "powder box and lipstick" modern church and bell-tower) appeared to have been replaced by a monstrously ugly block of flats, which on closer inspection seemed to be some sort protective cladding, presumably whilst restoration works are underway.The Kürfurstendamm was just too packed with tourists to make for any enjoyment, and the shops are the same ones you can find in London or Paris. I came, I saw, I was disappointed.
So I walked up the smelly edge of the zoo towards the Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten, then followed the train tracks through the Tiergarten again, up towards the Strasse des 17 Juni, but keeping inside the park. Berlin is sandy, and the ground often keeps the moisture, so from some recent rain there were muddy puddles to avoid in the shady areas, despite the heat of the day.
I skirted round the Siegessäule, the Victory Column, and headed straight for the Brandenburg Gate, that great, glorious, powerful and historical symbol of Berlin, through which armies have marched, which has been fought over, claimed by the Russians, and is now the happy centre of the city once more. But before reaching it I stopped as a noisy procession, or series of floats and followers on foot, was escorted past by police. I don't know what the protest was about; I suspect a political faction, possibly anarchists from the state and attitude of some of the participants, a few of the younger members of whom I witnessed, at close hand, square up to impassive, body-armoured police parked nearby. It never seemed dangerous, but thrillingly close to danger. I'm reading Isherwood* at the moment; there were faint echoes.And so to Pariser Platz, the new-built square just on the western side of the great Gate, at the edge of which I remember in 1978 standing, behind steel barriers, to observe the Brandenburger Tor at a distance, and through it, the white strip of the Wall. But today, in the sunshine, it is teeming with street artists and dancers, tourists with cameras, horse-drawn carriages ... and life! Zest! Zing! There's a video on YouTube, or will be shortly, because I was one of those tourists with a camera.
I toyed with the idea of visiting a Kennedy exhibition in one corner of the square, but there were no admission prices on display, and besides I was tired, and had walked a long way already. I wanted my hotel bed for a nap! So I popped down the new underground station and onto Berlin's latest U-Bahn, the U55, just three stops to the Hauptbahnhof; then the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, and my line U2 to Senefelderplatz, a couple of hundred metres from my hotel.
I did indeed nap, fought the netbook to get some photos loaded, Skyped with Steve, then headed off to The Bird for a very late meal.
Please, if you come to Berlin, visit The Bird. If you're on your own, sit at the bar, chat to the American and English staff, get talking to strangers. I spent a happy couple of hours next to two Americans who were engaged in a half-hearted drinking contest with great 1.5 litre glass boots of beer; and then chatting at length to Dara, a young Dubliner doing the Interrail thing. Imagine the voice and mannerisms of Father Dougal crossed with one of the hairier Avett Brothers (for looks).
Then burger and fries consumed, off for a drink or two ...
Upon returning to my hotel, I discovered that I couldn't get online, so this is posted a little late.
*I brought Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Novels with me: Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, partly because my long-held desire to read them was recently re-ignited by the BBC's Christopher And His Kind, and because the time seemed just right for this trip.
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