Museums

 

Berlin is renown for its Museums. Numerous, extensive in their archives, and many of excellent quality. Clearly another reflection of the depth of thought given to much of German Culture as well as its long-term access to wealth.

 

I will be in Berlin for some time so have obtained a long-term pass to all of the "State" museums to enable me to browse at my leisure without the usual constraints of the more common 3-day pass.

 

Yesterday at the Altes Museum, a grand building in the centre of town. Today at the Kultureforum (below) which by comparison has the most bland architecture. "Even" the ordinary church next door (right) was far superior.

 

The collection of paintings and other works of art was vast and first class. The exhibition at the moment is on Cranach.

 

Below is an alternative depiction of Adam and Eve with a bit of a Germanic edge.

A young girl engrossed in a classic painting, listening to the audio guide, mother just behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A regal procession through 15 century St Peters Square.

 

And (below) from the same time the well known debauchery of the cardinals.

 

Squabbling over whose turn?

 

A contrast to this week's discussions in the Vatican when cardinals were embarrassed to hear personally of the joys of intimacy from an Australian couple in a very long-term marriage. History does get forgotten.

 

Berlin is known for its erotic clubs and lifestyle. This could be a painting from some of its milder days.

 

On the way home from the museum, whilst having dinner at the famous Hasir Restaurant (The birthplace of the ubiquitous dönner kebab), another of Berlin's frequent protests, this time against the rather esoteric proposed free trade agreement across the Atlantic.

 

Kreuzberg

There is the Thursday indoor Street Market - a good selection of street food.

 

A missing bike, with even the rear hub cleanly excised from the locked rim.

The kanal

And a summary of life in Berlin, near a door on the way to my local cafe.

 

Köpenick

"Köpenick is a historic town and locality that is situated at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree."

It is about 11 kms south-east, a short ride, from Kreuzberg. On the way is the Soviet Memorial. This occupies a large space.

 

 

Köpenick was worth a short ride. Pretty, photogenic but difficult to get good camera angles.

Berliner Mauerweg 2

All bike rides need a purpose (some famous French cyclist), so the 2nd stage of my ride around the boundary of the former West Berlin, essentially up the middle of Berlin, was to visit Lübars. "One of the most authentic and oldest villages (1247) in the outskirts of Berlin, it looks the same way it did some hundred years ago." This would date it near the beginning of recorded settlement in Berlin, although not old by European standards.

Dicke Marie

 

 

 

Lübars is located on the northern edge of Berlin and I was expecting to see an old "authentic" village. But what I saw was just a neatly kept peri-urban green location with lots of quality equestrian facilities - a disappointment but a few kms further on to the west I saw

"Dicke Marie"

that is still just alive and as old as those long decayed and absent first buildings in Lübars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And an interesting bridge.

 

It is worth highlighting that Berlin has many water based living places, from those on the many kms of kanals and rivers, to those on the various lakes and sees. The next stage of my Mauerweg will continue on the western side of Berlin that has extensive amount of waterside homes and facilities.

 

 

Random Images

These flower boxes stood out in Neukölln.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sculpture nearby.

 

Berlin Orientation

BerlinBerlin is a city in one of 3 City States, among the total of 16 States in Germany. It is located at a latitude 52 degrees 30 minutes north. By comparison Melbourne is 35 south and Hobart 43. So at the moment as autumn advances the sun is staying fairly low in the sky and the locals are taking every opportunity to soak up the sun whilst it is still warm.

Berlin is divided into boroughs and subdivided into localities.

The route of the Berliner Mauerweg

A closer look at the inner boroughs. I am in Kreuzberg, soon to be moving to Moabit in Mitte.

 

 

The Wall

 

On the way to the wall

 

Berliner Mauerweg

After 2 days of walking, that was enough, the bike was assembled. Day 3 was a ride and I enjoyed the freedom we all experience on a bike, presumably the same type of liberation the women of the 19th century enjoyed when they took to cycling and were no longer confined to the walking radius around their european village.

Where to go for my first ride - along the route of the Berlin wall "Berliner Mauerweg ". My apartment is very close to the Mauerweg so I covered about ⅓ of it - approx 60 kms of the southeast part. The total length is 170 km so there will be another 2, possibly 3 days to complete the circumference. Very little remains of the wall and none of it on my first section. The geography/environment clearly identifies most of the wall's route and typically the former West Berlin has better buildings whilst the former East Berlin has blander architecture or open fields, although the other 100km or so not yet seen will be another matter as it includes the section through the city's heart.

There are the occasional information signs to mark points of interest. The location of the 450 espionage tunnel from the west to under an eastern communications centre, the location of the road for the west's garbage trucks to a dump in the east, the border crossing to allow passengers from the west access to the airport in the east (much cheaper airfares, and a source of $US for the east), and poignantly, selected locations with photographs where people were killed whilst attempting a border crossing.

October 2nd was a fitting time to start riding the Berliner Mauerweg. October 3rd is the anniversary of German Unification and a public holiday. This year is the 24th anniversary although the wall was opened nearly 25 years ago in late 1989. The road each side of the Brandenburg Tor (gate) is the site of a Volksfest for a few days. Nothing remarkable, just the usual activities of a fair with German wurst and bier.

I have pretty much settled in, various sundry errands done, all 6 weeks accommodation organised. Some sundry images.

Celebrating German Unification with beer, music and bikes.

 

They have a way with words

 

The kanal near me

A busker with his own handcrafted instrument

 

Berlin 1st impressions

A few days settling in including walking the streets to overcome the usual jet lag. I have been here briefly twice before so I am familiar with the place in the usual superficial sort of way. And also, as I am here for 6 weeks, there is no hurry to race from someone else's ideas of highlight to highlight. This visit will include some of the museums et al, but as the weather is now in its last sunny days of autumn the museums will wait for the colder and rainy days ahead.


I am in a room rented via airbnb in the suburb of Kreuzberg near the border with Neukölln. These are the areas I have been walking.

The park opposite is the local centre for drug dealers - all of African origin and apparently all fairly harmless, they could equally be selling sunglasses or souvenirs if it was a beach or in the centre of town but the locals apparently want drugs. The place also has many Turkish migrants and numerous Turkish places to eat, so all in all a bit rundown but with character and budget food.

My current ritual is up early and a short walk south into Neukölln that is like your average family suburb of 5 story apartments. Good for a morning coffee and to observe the continuous flow of mostly cyclists on their way somewhere - there are many children being taken on bikes presumably to daycare or to their grandparents. This place is good for a morning coffee with the morning sun, but this photo was taken in the afternoon from the cafe across the road with the afternoon sun. You might notice that the bakery is in a building with some character and presumably is one of the minority that survived the bombing - the building to the left is much blander by comparison and clearly post WW2.

And then there is recycling as only the Germans can do it. It is omnipresent. On one of my occasional visit to the usual German supermarket (there are at least 3 chains all clones of each other and distinctly cheaper than Aldi in Australia, and none so far like Woolworths or Coles) I noticed the price I was charged for the bottled mineral water was very much larger than that advertised. It included a large deposit €0.25 per bottle. To receive a refund of the deposit you put the empties into a machine (in every supermarket) that scans the barcode on the bottle (eg type of plastic), crushes the bottles, and then prints a docket to obtain a refund from the cashier.

 

To Berlin

My next excursion to Europe has begun - to Berlin for 6 weeks. Unlike my recents travels this is not a journey traveling from place to place, but rather a visit to experience a single place, to look, to see a little more of daily life and not to be continually involved with the logistics of finding a place to sleep each night, unpacking and packing each day, the issues that are part of a journey.

Beginning with a flight with Qatar Airlines that is rated 5 star and one of the few major airlines that goes to Berlin even though it is the major tourist city in Germany. Berlin air travel still suffers from the legacy of a divided city with 2 airports neither of which is very good and the new airport is still under construction years after it was due to be completed.

 

 

 

Qatar flies via Doha with its large brand new terminal, built to host the demands of the World Cup in 2022 so during my transit it was largely vacant with the finishing touches still being applied.

 

 

 

 

 

For some reason that the average passenger does not get to understand, this airline boasts a 5 star rating - my experience was that it is very much like most other airlines in economy, ok as far as it goes but nothing distinctive. So I find that annoying - loudly telling us they welcome their various categories of VIPs and also telling us up the back that those up the front are being given the world's best service whilst we get none of it, not a skerrick. Discretion would be better although I sense the class divide in Qatar runs deep.


Then the arrival at Berlin Tegel airport and a shuttle bus from the plane to one of many low key boutique arrival rooms each catering for a single flight at a time with passport control and luggage collection. This is where you get to see the luggage being offloaded onto the conveyor belt at close quarters. As I was waiting for my bicycle in its cardboard box to appear I observed the burly German luggage handlers giving full force, to the point of violent aggression, to all the suitcases and other sundry luggage - only the most sturdy survived intact, those guys were fit and strong. As it turned out, my bike box (an optimum size specially cut and taped to the minimum practical dimensions - put this down to experience) was sufficiently big and heavy to be difficult to throw like the others, and it also fitted on the normal luggage conveyor belt, and survived completely intact and able to be reused for the return journey. And to top it off it fitted in the back seat of a regular sedan taxi avoiding a wait for a rare maxi taxi. For those interested 108cm x 30cm x 74cm - both wheels and rear dérailleur removed, with one wheel each side of the frame.

 

Some Haiku Traffic Signs

 

In the Saddle again - June 2014

A journey through Europe. 6 of us start touring on the Rhine near Frankfurt.

We begin with a few days getting orientated in a Viila in Nierstein, then head south initially exploring more treasures of Germany.

Kalispell Montana

We are in deep north Montana on the southern edge of the Glacier National Park. The region is called Flathead County, which has Flathead Lake, Flathead River, and Kalispell means flat land above the lake. So, what is the origin of the name Flathead? My searching failed to find an answer but is probably from a local geographic feature named by Native Americans.

The place is 92% white and not wealthy and has no State taxes. So far limited edible food, but I have found one place.

My first task was to get from here to Australia, with a possibility of riding in the van with the group for 3 days and flying from Helena, the capital of Montana. Both had bad choices so I am here, relaxing writing this stuff and flying from the local airport, without air traffic controllers, via Seattle, San Francisco to Los Angeles, then direct to Melbourne.

Curiously the name of the airport does not help, but more critically it has two 3 letter codes to identify the airport. International convention requires that all airports have a single unique 3 letter code but here we have 2 : FCA for Flathead County Airport (from which Alaska Air operates), and GPI for Glacier Park International from which Delta operates. Note, there is only one airport - and to add to the confusion, GPI is not unique as it is also assigned to Guapi Airport in Guapi, Colombia.

I fly from FCA if you are interested - I was vitally interested as initially it appeared there were 2 airports.

Next morning I farewelled the riders and staff and headed for the Espresso shop across the road - its name looked promising. They don't sell the familiar sizes of course, so I asked for a small cappuccino but was asked whether I wanted it wet or dry? WTF.

You see a dry cappuccino is an American shot (added hot water) plus 10 oz of milk froth. I had a mostly wet one - like the flights from here, best of 2 bad choices, although cold beer is sold next door with a huge choice.

Having done that I could relax and go to the local Northwest Montana Annual Rodeo last night.

We started in compulsory fashion by singing both the Canadian and US National Anthems.

 

The usual activities with people on horses and doing things with small cattle, and as a warm up 6 & 7 yr olds riding on the backs of sheep. This was conditioning for when they get older and graduate to cattle.

 

 

There was eating and drinking. An 8 yr old boy near me had a 64 oz cup of soft drink, and many others were eating stuff off paper plates that looked like varieties of sludge. I endured a little hunger.

The best bit was bareback relay horse racing by native americans in which each rider had to ride 3 laps and change horse each lap. Sadly midway through the 3rd race one of the riders was hit by another horse whilst changing horse, and obviously in need of attention, but the white officials who initially made a brief remark then completely ignored the rider writhing in pain on the ground. Medical attention arrived belatedly some time after the race finished and all the cheering subsided. I left soon after.

Today, another attempt at coffee - after all they are using familiar words, not just plain coffee or brewed coffee. City Brew is just up the road with many 4 star reviews. No more, it tries to be like Starbucks but better. I will be home in a few days.

They showed me the small 12 oz paper cup, and when I asked if there was anything smaller they suspected I was an alien. I settled for a small cafe latte - hot, liquid, pale brown.

The Italian standard for cappucino is a 25ml (1oz) shot with 125 ml whipped fresh bovine milk ( 4.5 oz) in a 160 ml cup.

 

Going-to-the-Sun Road

This is one of the USA's great tourist roads. Located in Glacier National Park its sole purpose is for scenic drives and is only open during the summer driving season. At other times it is very deep under snow. Just before Logan Pass at the top there is a place called Big Drift where the snow drifts get to 100 ft and snow clearing is not done with your average snow plough.

As it is narrow, winding and has no shoulders, there are restrictions on cyclists so they do not interfere with the driving pleasure of the Americans. Currently they are near the end of a major reconstruction of the road which creates uncertainty about cycling restrictions.

Near the beginning of an 11 km climb of 600 m along the flank of the mountain on the right. A modest climb on a normal day and a delightful ride, but with my asthma at the moment it was my limit and was my 2nd last day on the bike for this tour.

Cresting Logan Pass. Just back is a car park for walkers exploring peaks like this one.

The view from the start of the descent.

On the way down. I was beside the river below after a wonderful car-free spin down the hill at about 45-50 kph for 20 kms. Note the red "jammers" buses rebuilt from the 1930s. It appears period costume is popular with passengers. The fast riders enjoyed their descent at about 70 kph

Adjacent to Glacier National Park, over the border in Canada, is Waterton National Park that is spectacular. The 2 parks are collectively named the Glaciers International Peace Park, or some such. Anyhow if you have an urge for an icy winter wonderland holiday, in remote cold continental America, this should be on your list, particularly the hotel overlooking the lake, which presumably has very thick ice cover in winter

It appears to be a region where the US and Canadians are very friendly to each other.