Cologne was an unusual destination for us. Niether of us really ever wanted to go here and we didn't really know that much about it let alone the sights it had. The reason we picked it was because it seemed like the easiest place to do a Rhine River cruise from which is what we were after.
We arrived in to Cologne train station in the afternoon from Caen, France. Upon arrival we realized that we weren't the only ones headed here for the weekend. Cologne was hosting a "Gay Pride Parade" the same weekend we had booked. There were men and women hugging and kissing everywhere which is fine by me but then it turned into men in fishnets, mini skirts, six inch heals and a hell of a lot more.
Cologne is home to Germany's biggest cathedral, the Dom. It's free to enter and check out the church but if your wanting to climb the 509 stairs to the top you have to pay 2.5 euros. We decided to take it easy that afternoon and just walked through. The church itself is more than impressive but it's also home to an interesting shrine. The Shrine of the Magi. This shire was bought here centuries ago from Milan and is supposed to hold the bones of the three wise men. Interesting! You can't see them in the shrine so it's kind of up to you if you believe it. That evening we went down to the parade area where food stalls and beer tables were set up and tried our first German sausage. I know that sounds suss but it is what it is. After dinner we just sat back and had a few long over due beers whilst looking at the sceanery.
The next day we just went for a walk around Cologne and enjoyed the small streets, parks and Gingerbread houses. On the way back home were ended up walking into the Gay Parade. There was leather, skin and undies flying everywhere as they all danced to the mega loud techo that belted from there floats.
On our last day we got up at the crack of dawn and caught the train down to the small town of Koblenz where our boat would departfor our Rhine River cruise. Taking us down the river was the Grand Old Dame Paddlesteamer Goethe. She was a lovely boat!After taking a nice leasurily walk along the shore we boarded our boat with 15 minutes to spare. As we grabbed our seats on the front of the boat it was then that I realized I left my sunglasses 700 meters down stream. Now I must say that I'm a little dissapointed with my Fitness World membership as the three sessions I did, did not prepare me for a 1.4 kilometer run in 10 minutes. But the good news is I have my glasses.
The cruise itself was amazing. Something worth doing! The boat just snakes it's way down the Rhine Valley past Wine Fields, lush mountains, small towns and dozens of castles. We finished our trip at the small town of St Goar which is home to the biggest and best castle on the Rhine, Berg Reinfels. After exploring the castle it started to rain. So what else do you do in Germany when it rains? We sat on a covered veranda and had a few local brews. What a pefect end to Cologne. That afternoon we caught the train back to Koln.
We left for Berlin the next day.
Berlin
Day 1 & 2:
Today is day 2 of our Berlin stay and I think I can safely say that this is one of my favourite spots in Europe so far. I get a buzz from being in the same spot that something historic happened & Berlin seems to have that everywhere. It's finally good to put some sights to the history that the world has heard so much about.
After getting off at the wrong train station stop yesterday we managed to make it to our hotel about an hour later than planed. After settling in we decided to go for a walk to the famed East Gallery. The East Gallery is the best preserved section of the Berlin Wall. Our hostel (Wombats Hostel) is situated in East Germany but still quite a walk from the wall itself. The weather has been doind some crazy things and this was no exception. On the way to the wall we had blue skies but by the time we got there a huge storm cloud had come over. 15 minutes later we had blue skies. Go figure!
The wall today is covered in all types of Grafitti which is a common thing all over Berlin. As we walked along we even came across some young girls trying to chip of pieces for a memento. If only they knew the wall is full of Asbestos, not to mention a federal crime if your caught hacking away. The wall has definitely seen better days and I hope for historic purpose that it makes another 18 years, but it doesn't look good.
Today we decided to do one of the New Berlin tours. New Berlin tours is a company that offers free 3.5 hour walking tours to most of Berlins biggest sights. This tour was possibly the best day tour I have ever done. Our tour guide was an American call Jared who majored at University in Modern Political Issues & boy did he know his stuff.
We started our tour at the Brandenberg Gate which kind of governs the rest of the area with unwritten laws. The rest of the buildings around the gate are not allowed to look better than the gate itself. Therefor all the buildings with in close proxcimity are quite plain. Right next to the gate on the left is the American embassy. They had no quams about making there embassy look plain. There only request was that they wanted a 70 foot securit area right around the Embassy so they asked the German government if the Brandenberg Gate could could be pulled down and rebuilt further down the road (typical). The other famous building in the area is the one that Michael Jackson dangeled his baby from. The history the gate holds alone is amazing. Napoleon pulled down the statues in the early 1800's and took them back to the Lourve in Paris. It managed to survive WWI & WWII & was even one of the check points for the Berlin wall when the Soviets took over East Germany.
From here we went to a small car park which is also known as Hitlers Bunker. There is nothing visibly from street level here but this is the spot where Hitler spent his last few days going crazy before him and Eva Braun committed suicide. He even killed his dog so the allied armies wouldn't get him. Apparently he cried and couldn't watch as his dog died but he had no worries killing 6 million jews. We also check out the near by Jewish memorial which is quite big. The memorial is 2711 cement blocks of varying hights sent out for self interpretation.
We also went back to a differnt section of the wall near one of the last remaining Nazi headquarter buildings. This is one of the most hated buildings in the city as it's now the Berlin tax office. Just around the corner from here is Check Point Charlie where we heard all kinds of East Berlins Escape stories. Some of the stories really making you think how hard it would of been.
There was one story about a young pregnant women from East Berlin who had complications with her pregnancy so she had to go to the hospital in West Berlin to get treatment. After giving birth she went back home for some rest. She then woke up to be great by the news that a wall had be errected between East and West Berlin and she would never she her child which she left in the hospital again. Apparently her baby died at age 10 having never set it's eyes on it's mother.
The next story was about a young East Berlin boy who managed to trick the Soviet crossing guards into letting him cross by telling them severlal lies. First he put on a Bavarian accent to fool the first guard and told him the first check point kept his papers. Then as that guard stormed off to give the first check point guard what for. A second guard then came up to the boy. He asked him what is going on and then he told the new guard that the first guard was annoyed with him because he is from West Berlin and he didn't bring any papers. After pleeding with the 2nd guard to make an exception and let him cross into East Berlin with no paper work. The guard said where do you live? And the boy said only about 3 minutes down the road (pointing to West Berlin). The boy said "should I run back home and get my paper work?" And the guard said "yes, it would make it a lot easier for everyone". The East Berlin boy then walked to freedom into West Berlin.
Another story had a man taking his date from West Berlin across the boarder then leaving her there and taking his real East Berlin girlfriend back across. Only the girl he left in East Berlin was the daughter of one of the high up West Berlin Government Officials. She was allowed back into West Berlin after her father paid a hefty bribe to the crossing guards. The man & his girlfriend who planned the whole thing went to jail in West Berlin. Which after they served there sentence they were set free in West Germany. Happy ending I guess.
The other place that I was really interessed in seeing was the sight of the Nazi book burning. Unfortunatley this square was filled with huge tents setting up for Berlin Fashion Week. Oh well next time I guess.
I've really enjoyed today and Berlin immensely and can't wait to see what else it holds. We're thinking of going out to one of the first gas chambers ever used by the Nazis tomorrow. It's about 30 minutes away but an unmissable sight they say.
Day 3: Sachsenhausen
Yesterday we went out to the Sachsenhausen Nazi & Soviet Concentration Camp located 35 kilometers north of Berlin. I'm not sure what I was expecting to see or experience but it didn't hold the shock factor that I expected, even though it detailed all the horrible horrible things that went on within the walls. I guess you know what to expect when you go to a place like this. We saw the work fields, living quarters, execution trench and the mass graves but there weren't that many photos to take your imagination into a place like that. Not surprisingly I guess considering it was a concentration camp and not a fashion parade. Still I would say it's well worth a visit if you come here. We did do the audio guide which was good but I think it may of had too much information. We had only planned to spend 2 hours here but ended up being there for 5.
Day 4:
After having a few drinks last night we decided to have a bit of a sleep in today forgetting that we still had a few sights to see, but hey... we're on holidays. We really only saw a couple of things today but it wasn't because of the sleep in. It's because there is so much history at each spot that you will end up spending 3 hours at what looks like a plain old building but before too long you find out that this building is the reason Hitler rose to power.
Today is day 2 of our Berlin stay and I think I can safely say that this is one of my favourite spots in Europe so far. I get a buzz from being in the same spot that something historic happened & Berlin seems to have that everywhere. It's finally good to put some sights to the history that the world has heard so much about.
After getting off at the wrong train station stop yesterday we managed to make it to our hotel about an hour later than planed. After settling in we decided to go for a walk to the famed East Gallery. The East Gallery is the best preserved section of the Berlin Wall. Our hostel (Wombats Hostel) is situated in East Germany but still quite a walk from the wall itself. The weather has been doind some crazy things and this was no exception. On the way to the wall we had blue skies but by the time we got there a huge storm cloud had come over. 15 minutes later we had blue skies. Go figure!
The wall today is covered in all types of Grafitti which is a common thing all over Berlin. As we walked along we even came across some young girls trying to chip of pieces for a memento. If only they knew the wall is full of Asbestos, not to mention a federal crime if your caught hacking away. The wall has definitely seen better days and I hope for historic purpose that it makes another 18 years, but it doesn't look good.
Today we decided to do one of the New Berlin tours. New Berlin tours is a company that offers free 3.5 hour walking tours to most of Berlins biggest sights. This tour was possibly the best day tour I have ever done. Our tour guide was an American call Jared who majored at University in Modern Political Issues & boy did he know his stuff.
We started our tour at the Brandenberg Gate which kind of governs the rest of the area with unwritten laws. The rest of the buildings around the gate are not allowed to look better than the gate itself. Therefor all the buildings with in close proxcimity are quite plain. Right next to the gate on the left is the American embassy. They had no quams about making there embassy look plain. There only request was that they wanted a 70 foot securit area right around the Embassy so they asked the German government if the Brandenberg Gate could could be pulled down and rebuilt further down the road (typical). The other famous building in the area is the one that Michael Jackson dangeled his baby from. The history the gate holds alone is amazing. Napoleon pulled down the statues in the early 1800's and took them back to the Lourve in Paris. It managed to survive WWI & WWII & was even one of the check points for the Berlin wall when the Soviets took over East Germany.
From here we went to a small car park which is also known as Hitlers Bunker. There is nothing visibly from street level here but this is the spot where Hitler spent his last few days going crazy before him and Eva Braun committed suicide. He even killed his dog so the allied armies wouldn't get him. Apparently he cried and couldn't watch as his dog died but he had no worries killing 6 million jews. We also check out the near by Jewish memorial which is quite big. The memorial is 2711 cement blocks of varying hights sent out for self interpretation.
We also went back to a differnt section of the wall near one of the last remaining Nazi headquarter buildings. This is one of the most hated buildings in the city as it's now the Berlin tax office. Just around the corner from here is Check Point Charlie where we heard all kinds of East Berlins Escape stories. Some of the stories really making you think how hard it would of been.
There was one story about a young pregnant women from East Berlin who had complications with her pregnancy so she had to go to the hospital in West Berlin to get treatment. After giving birth she went back home for some rest. She then woke up to be great by the news that a wall had be errected between East and West Berlin and she would never she her child which she left in the hospital again. Apparently her baby died at age 10 having never set it's eyes on it's mother.
The next story was about a young East Berlin boy who managed to trick the Soviet crossing guards into letting him cross by telling them severlal lies. First he put on a Bavarian accent to fool the first guard and told him the first check point kept his papers. Then as that guard stormed off to give the first check point guard what for. A second guard then came up to the boy. He asked him what is going on and then he told the new guard that the first guard was annoyed with him because he is from West Berlin and he didn't bring any papers. After pleeding with the 2nd guard to make an exception and let him cross into East Berlin with no paper work. The guard said where do you live? And the boy said only about 3 minutes down the road (pointing to West Berlin). The boy said "should I run back home and get my paper work?" And the guard said "yes, it would make it a lot easier for everyone". The East Berlin boy then walked to freedom into West Berlin.
Another story had a man taking his date from West Berlin across the boarder then leaving her there and taking his real East Berlin girlfriend back across. Only the girl he left in East Berlin was the daughter of one of the high up West Berlin Government Officials. She was allowed back into West Berlin after her father paid a hefty bribe to the crossing guards. The man & his girlfriend who planned the whole thing went to jail in West Berlin. Which after they served there sentence they were set free in West Germany. Happy ending I guess.
The other place that I was really interessed in seeing was the sight of the Nazi book burning. Unfortunatley this square was filled with huge tents setting up for Berlin Fashion Week. Oh well next time I guess.
I've really enjoyed today and Berlin immensely and can't wait to see what else it holds. We're thinking of going out to one of the first gas chambers ever used by the Nazis tomorrow. It's about 30 minutes away but an unmissable sight they say.
Day 3: Sachsenhausen
Yesterday we went out to the Sachsenhausen Nazi & Soviet Concentration Camp located 35 kilometers north of Berlin. I'm not sure what I was expecting to see or experience but it didn't hold the shock factor that I expected, even though it detailed all the horrible horrible things that went on within the walls. I guess you know what to expect when you go to a place like this. We saw the work fields, living quarters, execution trench and the mass graves but there weren't that many photos to take your imagination into a place like that. Not surprisingly I guess considering it was a concentration camp and not a fashion parade. Still I would say it's well worth a visit if you come here. We did do the audio guide which was good but I think it may of had too much information. We had only planned to spend 2 hours here but ended up being there for 5.
Day 4:
After having a few drinks last night we decided to have a bit of a sleep in today forgetting that we still had a few sights to see, but hey... we're on holidays. We really only saw a couple of things today but it wasn't because of the sleep in. It's because there is so much history at each spot that you will end up spending 3 hours at what looks like a plain old building but before too long you find out that this building is the reason Hitler rose to power.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)