We departed Sydney on
Sunday evening on Etihad. In what must
be one of the more pleasurable experiences in life we were upgraded to first
for the first leg (15 hours) to Abu Dhabi.
The adverts with Nicole Kidman are not a lie. You do get a seat and separate bed! The food is terrific. Etihad is a dime = New York vernacular for a
10 out of 10.
We reached our hotel (the
Arte Luise Kundtshotel) in the afternoon
to discover we were right next to the train lines, no sound proofing, and the
trains ran every 4 minutes. The room had
complimentary earplugs and half the room had a lowered ceiling plus the carpets
were wet from a recent cleaning. Needless
to say the Welsh dragon arose and two room switches later we made it to room 522
which was a great room. No noise, high
ceilings, dry carpets.
The hotel was located
in Mitte about a 10 minute walk from the Brandenburg gate. We went to see it and then strolled down the
Main Street Unter der Linden till we found some where to eat. We lucked out and found the Café Einstein a
classic old style German restaurant which is actually in Tripadvisor’s list of
top 20 attractions. Probably the best
German food we had all week. My
schnitzel was superb if enormous.
The next day we our
first tour of Berlin. All the sights are
in the old east Berlin and that is where you want to stay. The tour was done by a New Zealander Mike who
works for Insider tours and he was terrific.
We finished at around 4 which gave us time for a short rest before going
to the Philomonic to hear our first concert.
We had tapas at Volver which was a Spanish restaurant across the street
from the hotel and again highly recommended.
Great pimentos de Padron. The
concert was interesting and part of the Berlin Music Festival. The orchestra was the Swedish Radio
orchestra. They played two pieces: Dances of the Earth by Sir Harrison Birtwistle
and Songs of the Earth by Gustav Mahler.
When the orchestra appeared for the first piece with 8 percussionists I
realised this was going to be a night of different music. Still no regrets, very interesting crowd and
great acoustics.
The next day we did a
day trip to Dresden. In a recent poll by
Germany’s leading newspaper Dresden was voted by its readers the most beautiful
city in Germany. The palaces are
spectacular and it located on the Elbe river.
The guide took us through the Dresden bombing in 1945 where the allies
first sent down flares to pinpoint the targets, then high explosives to blow
off the roofs, followed by incendiary bombs to create a firestorm. Some 25,000 people died and of course this
regarded as war crime by the allies. I
pointed out to the guide that this technique was first used by the Nazis in
1941 in the bombing of Coventry and was so successful that from then on the
allies discarded trying pinpoint bombing and adopted the Nazi technique
instead. They perfected it by the time
of the Dresden bombing. After the 2.5 hour coach trip, followed by a 2.5 hour
tour we decided it was time for lunch and had a terrific Italian meal on the
town square. They served gluten free
penne so SWMBO was content. On the way
there we heard heard the saga of the newBerlin Airport which has been an
unmitigated disaster some 8 years late and 300% overrun on costs. The first attempt had only half the necessary
gates for traffic load and only six toilets.
Puts the proposed Sydney Airport into perspective and gives you a new
perspective on German efficiency.
On the train ride back
we learned how the train system works.
You buy the tickets and before you get on the train you validate them at
a stamping machine on the platform.
Unfortunately we on our return journey to the hotel several inspectors
got on the train and we ended up being fined 60 euro each. This is one of the problems of using
TripAdvisor rather than Lonely Planet.
Thursday was our first
guide free day. We wanted to do the
Reichstag dome tour. When we arrived at
we discovered you had book a time and the queue to make that tour was 2 hours
long. So we gave that a miss and visited
the Topography of Terror museum which is about the rise and actions of the
Nazis. Credit to the Germans, nothing
was held back and there are multiple school tours underway. The line is that the people fell under the
spell of a brilliant psychopath and they must ensure that they do not allow
such an event to happen again. This was
backed up with a visit to the Jewish museum whose architecture is quite
stunning. That night we had a meal at
Brechts named after the playwright who was a frequent visitor. Not cheap but
great food and ambiance, on the river, in house piano player, etc.
Up bright and early Friday
morning to secure a place in the dome tour.
We managed to get a slot at twilight that night and only queued for 15
minutes. We decided that we would go to
Museum Island. You can buy a day ticket to visit all the museums on the island
you want and we did 3. The first was the
Art Gallery where the show was ImEx which was an exhibition contrasting the French
Impressionists of Paris with the German Expressionists of Berlin. We were there early and there was already a
45 minute queue but we were told that this was the show of the year by a person
who had queued 3 times previously and failed to get in. By the time went in the queue was estimated
to be 4 hours long! It was a great
exhibition for the impressionists alone.
There must have been at least 100 of their paintings.
Then we went to the
Neus museum where we saw the golden hat and the bust of Nefertiti. This was followed by Pegameon museum where we
saw the gate of Ishtar. Great museums
and of course the Germans were outstanding archeologists. As you looked at the exhibits you realised
that if they were in Middle East museum now they would probably be blown up. We had a reasonable lunch and then staggered
back to room for some rest before taking on the Dome.
This is again a must
do. The dome is transparent to signify
what government should be and the German Parliament look up at the dome and see
the people walking around the dome. This
is done to ensure that the politicians realise that people are on top and not
the politicians. Again this is a must
see if you come to Berlin. You can book
the tour on the Internet but the process time is 5 working days.
On Saturday we decided
to return to the Gendarmerie market which is the most impressive square in
Berlin. The concert hall is flanked by
German and French Churches. While we
were there a wedding was underway. The
party came out and every was given blue and white heart shaped balloons to
release. The bride and groom were then
given a white doe e each to release. Then 10,000 demonstrators marched by protesting
for gay rights and pro-choice. Just what
you want for a wedding.
We then went and has
another great meal at Gandymede which is a French bistro next to Brechts. Great charteaubriand.
That night we were
again at the Philarmonie where we had the pleasure of seeing Sir Simon Rattle
conducting the Berlin Philarmonic.
Simply brilliant. The hall was
packed but luckily after a 5 minute walk I managed to get a taxi.
On Sunday we did our
final tour to Potsdam. Another famous
place where they held the Potsdam Conference at the end of WWII and Frederick
the Great built Sans Souci palace.
Famous Frederick quote “I speak
Latin to God, French to my court, and German to my horses.” On his grave are dozens of potatoes. He is famous for introducing the potato to
Germany. He start growing them in a plot
guarded by soldiers. He instructed the
guards to let the people, thinking they must valuable, steal the potatoes. The other sight we saw in Potsdam was the Glienicke
Bridge. According to our guide this is
going to be the most visited site in Germany in the next 12 months as it is the
scene for Speilberg’s new film “Bridge of Spies.”
The next morning we
were off to Tegal Airport. The bus stop
to the airport is just out side the hotel so we thought we would take it. It turns out there was a massive jam in the
centre so the buses being rerouted so we ended up catching a taxi.
In summary Berlin Is a
great city. It just over took Rome as
Europe’s third most popular destination.
Keep off the German food by eating other cuisines. Validate your ticket before you get on a train.
If you decide to try the Arte Luise ask for rooms 521 or 522.
Chris Golis
Australia's expert on practical emotional intelligence
website: www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgolis
Email: cgolis@emotionalintelligencecourse.com
mobile: +61-418-222219
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