On leaving Maastrich, we were on our way to Berlin via Cologne and Hannover. In Cologne we wanted to see the massive cathedral - and yes it was massive. In fact it was humungous! It was miraculously left untouched during WWII, when everything around it was pretty much flattened. Some say that the Allied Airforces used it for navigation, so didn’t destroy it.
Hannover was put in to break up the trip to Berlin – although it turned out to be a big day, as it was more driving hours than we what we had planned on. Once we found the little village where our motel was, just outside Hannover, we headed off to the city centre to meet up with a guy who had stayed with us earlier in the year – Bjeorn, a 25 yr old High School Teacher. He was the guy who cut the trees down out the back of our house – well they were the neighbour’s trees actually. We had a lovely evening catching up with him and his girlfriend Steph (even though it took us a considerable time to locate the central railway station without a detailed map - and Gloria wasn’t much help either).
The next morning, before leaving Hannover, we visited the Herrenhausen Gardens, which are famous baroque gardens set out in very formal patterns. The grounds cover several hectares, and are a maze of manicured gardens, water features, statues, and woodlands.
By early afternoon we on our way to Berlin. German autobahns are really something else – no speed limit, three lanes, and no tolls. Our wee car was going 140+ most of the time, which was what we needed to do to keep up with most of the other people. Even then we were getting passed by cars which would have been doing 200+. We even had one of those little Ford Ka’s pass us at one stage!
Some useless information – did you know that trucks are not allowed on the roads from Saturday lunch time to Sunday night. This is bliss, as there are hundreds of trucks on the roads in Germany apparently coming from the huge port in Rotterdam and going to their particular country. They all have regulated speeds and a black box in every truck, so you NEVER saw a speeding truck and they were mostly in the far right lane. They did cause a fair bit of backlog though when one of them decided to overtake another truck, as it blocked up two lanes for about 3 kilometres.
Getting more comfortable with driving on the right side, we arrived in Berlin and at Niki’s place around 5.30pm. This was a good reunion, as Niki was one of our first Couchsurfers back in April last year. When Niki stayed with us she told us lots of things about her life in Berlin, like when she was an undercover cop in the crowd when Ronald Reagan made his speech in the late 80’s in front of the Nuremberg Gate about The Wall having to come down.
No sooner had we arrived, and Niki suggests that we go down to the nearby lake for a swim. This sounds great as it had been quite hot that day. We grab our swimming togs and ask if there is somewhere there to change. Niki said yes but not to worry, that bathers were optional… We caught each others gaze and with our eyes said ‘hmmmmm this could be interesting’. Down at the lake, sure enough there are a few women topless and the ‘odd’ man nude. Then we look around to see that everyone is just changing on the banks of the lake and there don’t appear to be any changing sheds anywhere. There is the occasional shy person changing in the bushes, but it actually looked a bit silly. So what the heck, if you can’t beat em, join em. The swim turned out to be perfect after a long day in the car. It was amazing to think that swimming in this lake was in the outer suburbs of Berlin and all you could hear was the sound of people and kids. After our swim, we had supper on the tiny balcony of Niki’s flat and had an early night.
Tuesday was our designated day for housework. We did washing, wrote emails and diaries, and found some more accommodation for further ahead in our trip. That afternoon we found a wee chocolate shop up the road that made coffee. The woman couldn’t speak any English, but between us we managed to get 2 café lattes. A couple of minutes later the woman ran out of the shop and returned quickly with the man from the shop next door. He spoke introduced himself in English and offered to interpret for us should we need anything else from the chocolate lady. This was a delightful experience.
That night, Niki took us on quick walk through the main centre of the western part of the city. We walked through the Bahnhof Zoo railway station (which she told us featured in the movie Christian F and was part of the inspiration for U2’s Zoo TV). We also wandered along Kurfurstendamm and checked out all the sites. She then took us to a disco that is a favourite of the “more mature and single” age group. We spent a couple of hours there and had quite an education.
Niki then took us on a drive around the old East Berlin, which is a strange mixture of old boring GDR buildings, magnificent old architecture, and ultra modern constructions. We saw the Siegessaule (an impressive monument commemorating Prussia’s victory over France), the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gates, Alexanderplatz (the main square of East Berlin), and the remarkable TV tower built by the East Germans to prove their technical ability could rival that of the West.(but it was actually designed by the Swiss or was it Swedish, anyhow it wasn’t designed by GDR)
The most unusual site we visited (and easily the creepiest of our trip), was a place called Kunsthaus Tacheles. It is an old pre-WWII building that was built as a shopping complex in the Jewish sector. Most of it got bombed, leaving only the front part intact. There was graffiti over every inch of it’s 5 stories, and there were hardly any lights. Once around the side of the building you could see that the back end of the building didn’t exist. It was full young people, mostly artistic types selling their wares, with the rest of it crammed with small spooky ‘bars’, all full of people and selling beer (and whatever). We were clearly a little out of place, but given Niki is a local, and knowing her previous employment, we felt confident enough to walk on through.
On Wednesday, Niki took us touring around the city. We started off at the Documentation Museum for the Berlin Wall. This is where the only complete part of the actual Wall is left, together with the secondary wall on the East side, and the sandy “Death Strip” in the middle. There is a tower to climb and look over the area, and it also has all the terrible facts (and photos) about The Wall. The experience was made all the more real for us, as Niki told about her days patrolling the area when the Wall was operational, and what it was like driving the road that linked West Berlin with West Germany (and praying that the car wouldn’t break down half way along).
From there we headed over to the Brandenburg Gates, but access and views were limited because they were setting up the village for the World Athletics which were due to start that week.
While Niki went to work, we wandered around the western centre again for a couple of hours. We walked through the Kaiser-Wilhelm church, which was heavily bombed during the War, but left as it was as a monument. We sat and listened to a performance of classical music in the new cathedral built beside it, which is quite magnificent with its floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows entirely covering three walls.
As we were wandering around the area, we came across a group of NZ athletes, and it turns out that they were from Dunners. In fact, one of them lives in Mornington. It was quite strange hearing the NZ accent after so many weeks – we could see why the locals were giving us a hard time about it (“are you going to take your slice of breed to beed?’).
Thursday morning saw us on the road again, heading south to a little village called Siebigerode in the old East Gerrmany.
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