Dresden October 2010

Part of the palace in Dresden; the Zwinger palace and a statue of Emperor Augustus.

We left Leipzig reluctantly, that Monday morning, October 18. We walked to the train station, which was right across the street, dragging our bags behind us, had our usual breakfast and then boarded the train to Dresden about 11:00am. It was a fairly short ride to Dresden, just a couple of hours. We were staying at an NH in Dresden, but I wasn't sure how close to the old town we were.

It turned out that we were nowhere near the old town. We were in an area out in the boonies, in among car showrooms and repair shops. What an rundown area! It was interesting,though, because the apartment buildings lining the streets were being renovated piece by piece. Old, rundown, grey apartment buildings were being transformed into newly stuccoed, painted ones. It reminded us that Dresden was part of the old East Germany, and renovations from the Soviet-style block apartments were less than twenty years old.

The NH hotel - a Spanish chain in which we have stayed several times - was a very nice one, but so far out from town. We figured that this area had enough space for big tour buses to be parked, so tours used this hotel to house their groups. Indeed, there were several tour groups staying at this hotel while we were there.

We checked in and found out that a tram straight into town was just "up the street, a few minutes walk". We were suspicious of these directions " just a few minutes walk", because the walk was usually at least ten minutes duration. However, we unpacked and walked up to the tram stop. It was not too bad, I must say, but at least a ten minute walk in good weather.

We bought a week tram ticket at the stop and waited for the #3 tram. Sure enough, it was only a few minute wait and then we were on our way. The ride into town was really a nice ride, and it took us over the river Elbe with a magnificent view of the city: the opera house, the castle, the churches. It was really worth the inconvenience of being so far from the city to be able to see this view everytime we rode the tram.

We got off where we thought it might be the way to the old town, and made our way through restaurants, cafes, shops and more churches. We came to the square and lo and behold, there was another NH hotel, right at the edge of the square. "Why didn't we stay at this NH hotel?" Jack wanted to know??? I didn't know either, except that maybe it was more expensive than our hotel? I would have to check it out. In the meantime, we spotted an arcade, which is a shopping mall, and made our way toward it. We also spotted a bankomat, for future reference for cash. We were off to a good start.

The arcade was a three-story glass building, with everything imaginable inside: stores, restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores and even a post office. There were stores outside the arcade also, the upscale stores we had seen in Berlin and in Leipzig. This place was thriving. We found a food court in the lower level, full of places to eat. Jack spotted a good bratwurst stand and we ate there almost every day. So did everyone else; it was always full of people, either taking a break from shopping or starting their day with a hot cup of coffee and a bratwurst roll or a plate full of fried potatoes and schnitzel.

I had heard about Dresden all my life; what a beautiful city it was and how it was burned to the ground by the Allied bombing, mostly in hopes that the German people would be so disheartened that they would press their government to stop fighting. That didn't work, so the whole city was destroyed. Then after the war, the Soviets took over and they didn't much like the Germans either, so they did not try to restore the city at all. They just threw up some cheap housing and probably some factories and didn't worry about the old town. It wasn't until Germany was reunited in 1990 that West Germany started pouring in millions of German marks into Dresden, to restore its beautiful churches, opera house, palaces, etc. So all of the reconstruction was really less than twenty years old. What was surprising though, was that the buildings looked old and worn out. It turns out that the stone they used for the restoration is loaded with some kind of chemical which turns black with just a bit of air reaching it. So the buildings looked like they needed cleaning, and they were really pretty new.

There were photographs all over the city, showing the total destruction of the city, the mounds of bombed-out buildings and the half buried churches, etc. But now the city was recovering and

tourists were coming back to the city. We figured out that there are many West German tourists coming to Dresden now, to see how the city has renovated itself. There are lots of Europeans coming to this city and enjoying its beautiful sites and museums.

We made our way to the tourist information center, because we wanted to see what music programs there were in the ten days that we were in the town. We immediately bought tickets to the opera and to a ballet, and we also found out that Kurt Masur, the famous German director, was going to direct a Mozart at the St Nicolas Church, so we wanted to hear that. We also bought tickets to the Messiah at that church. We wanted to hear the music, but we also wanted to visit the the opera house and the church where the concerts were to be held.

We were not disappointed; the opera house is just beautiful. I brought my camera the second time we visited to get a chance to capture the beauty of the building. The first concert was Giselle, the ballet. It was a modern approach to this classic ballet, but it was very beautiful and we enjoyed it.

The second visit to the opera house was to see Rossini's "The Girl from Algiers". I looked it up on the computer so we would know the story. It is a story about a beautiful girl who is kidnapped by a Turkish shiek who wants a younger woman for his harem. But the girl works hard to bring her boyfriend to the palace to rescue her, and sure enough, she tricks the Turkish sheik and she escapes with her boyfriend after some shennanigans. It is a light-hearted comedy and it was fun to watch. The leading tenor, the boyfriend, is a Mexican from Vera Cruz, so I felt like we had a neighbor in the cast. His voice was beautiful and he was really expressive, and the crowd loved him. I think he got the biggest applause of all the singers.

When we left the opera house, we just had to cross the street and wait a few minutes for the tram to take us to our hotel. What an easy way to get back and forth to these downtown venues.

During our stay they were working on the tram lines so several times the trams were rerouted into the city. So we got to see different views of the city and really got to know our way around. We also had to find the stamp store to find some old covers, so we investigated new trams for the ride. As we rode the new rides, we would be on the lookout for interesting places to eat or other sites that we wanted to come back and investigate.

A big draw for the city is the Zwinger Palace, a complex of buildings, connected by a beautiful garden. This was the place where the royalty lived, and they have restored it to its former splendor. The days we were there were sunny and bright, so we were able to get some good photographs.

One of the most interesting collections we saw there was the China collection. In the late 1600's the Dutch and the English had established themselves as sea traders, and they brought back beautiful porcelain and jade from China. These pieces were very costly and therefore very popular with the aristocracy and rich middle class. Many of these pieces are shown in one of the wings of the Zwinger palace, and they were unbelievably beautiful.

There were many shipwrecks during those years, so much of the porcelain was lost. That gave the German emperor Augustus the idea to start his own porcelain factory. So, about the year 1702, the German factory of Meissen was established. He hired local pottery artists, who passed down the craft year after year. They gradually designed their own "china" and it became more and more beautiful and precious. Now it is just as expensive and exquisite as the original china.

We took the train to the Meissen factory, right outside Dresden, and took the tour of the factory. They have artists showing how they make the porcelain and how they decorate it. The job looks very tedious and no room for errors. Their showroom had many examples of their work for sale, from dishware to tea services to elaborate decorative pieces like clocks and lamp bases, etc. We bought a few small cups for some friends, and I picked out a small plate for myself.

Later on, in stores in Dresden and in Vienna, we saw the Meissen porcelain in the window, with pieces that were worth thousands of dollars.

Our time in Dresden went much too quickly, and before we knew it, we were packing our bags and boarding the train back to Berlin for a couple of days before we left for Krakow. Dresden is a beautiful city and it is great to see it in its former glory and so many visitors there to enjoy it once again. I would recommend a visit to Dresden to anyone who wants to see a beautiful part of Germany.

Leipzig October 2010

Bach, his gravestone, and the Rathhaus in Leipzig.

October 7, 2010, we were on our way to Leipzig. We spent more than a month in Berlin, and I think we were ready for a new adventure. Leipzig was only an hour away, and our first class seats on the train were perfect. We actually stopped in Wittenberg, the home of Luther and his 95 objections pinned on the wall of the Schloss Church. We leaned out to see the huge bell tower of the church and remember our day in Wittenberg a couple of months earlier.

We got to Leipzig at 1:30pm and hopped a cab to take us to the Novotel Hotel. The journey was all of about two minutes - the hotel was right across the street from the bahnhof! We did not realize it at the time. The cabbie was fine with the short ride. There were several hotels in a row just across the huge street in front of the train station. We found out that Leipzig was the publishing center of the medieval world and had conventions galore in those days. It is still a center for conventions; hence the row of huge hotels so close to the train station.

We settled in to our hotel room and then took a stroll around the city. This was a far cry from Berlin, for we were in the middle of everything: shops, restaurants, churches, opera house and concert house. We were loving it, mainly because it was hard to make our way around the city of Berlin. Here, everything was in walking distance. We were in heaven.

Leipzig was completely demolished by the Allies in the second world war also, so all of the buildings that we investigated were restored to their former beauty. It looked like an old town, but it was really just about twenty years old. It was part of the Soviet bloc from the 40's to the 90's, and only since Germany was reunited was it returned to its former glory.

We learned that the revolution to end the separation of east and west Germany actually began here in Leipzig. They had meetings in the St. Nicholas church in the square every Wednesday, until they meetings were broken up. Finally, the people of Leipzig met in the square in front of the opera house and demanded that they be set free. Protests then started all over Germany and the wall came down, etc. It must have been so exciting in Leipzig to be the start of the peaceful revolution and the reunification of Germany.

We strolled down the pedestrian area of Leipzig and found dozens of great stores and places to eat. It was a great first day and we were excited to explore for our short ten days that we would be here.

We wanted to make sure to attend as many concerts as possible here - so the next day we went to the Gewandhaus to get tickets. That night they were performing Hindemith and Bruckner - two composers we were not that familiar with but we were willing to hear them. As I mentioned before, the orchestra worked themselves to death on these two pieces! The night was wonderful, and the music was glorious. We had great seats and tried to soak up the pieces as much as possible. They were modern pieces, so to speak, so they used every instrument in the orchestra, which was fun to watch. After the concert, it was an easy walk back to our hotel.

Saturday was devoted to discovering Thomas Kirche, the church where Bach was choir master for over twenty years, in the 1700's. To think that this church was still here and still vigorous in the community was just unbelievable. We happened onto a choir concert - the St. Thomas choir was not in town at the time, but they had a German choir performing that afternoon, so we stayed to hear them.

The church itself is not that imposing, though it stands majestically in a square all by itself. The German choir actually sang what is known as an English evensong, with some hymns and some psalms. They were really good, and the Rutter, the Stanford and the psalm were excellent. I was really impressed.

There were lots of restaurants all around Leipzig, so we tried several of them. The Indian restaurant was good and very close to our hotel. On Sunday we attended a string quartet concert at the Gewandhaus, in one of the smaller concert halls. These guys: first, second violin, viola and cello, worked away at some beautiful Beethoven. Again, we had great seats and were able to see their communication and their enjoyment of the pieces. It was a wonderful morning.

The weather in Leipzig was getting colder, but it was very sunny there. I began to realize that I needed a coat to get through the winter, so I went in one of the big department stores they have there and bought a coat. Jack had tracked down a stamp store to pick out something for our friend Rick, so we met at the pub across from the St Thomas Church, supposedly where Bach used to frequent. It is a very comfortable little bar, and it has great pastries as well. We ended up there many times during our stay in Leipzig.

We found a great breakfast place not far from the hotel. I was never sure what the name was, but it had a huge elephant over the entrance of the cafe, so that is what I called it. We went there on Oct 12, Jack's birthday, and splurged with a champagne breakfast. That evening we had a great dinner at one of the restaurants, Augustus House.

Later on in the evening we watched CNN as it mentioned that the Chilean miners would be rescued the next day, the middle of the evening for us. We watched Euro News for hours during the night, as they were covering the entire rescue live. What excitement as each one was pulled to the surface. It is one of my most moving memories of 2010. I wrote each of their names down in my notebook and watched their families wait to see them in the capsule.

The next day we visited the photography/modern art museum; it is a very interesting building in the middle of one of the squares - very modern and about five stories high. Inside, there are probably only about three stories, because each one was huge. A lot of times modern art needs huge spaces, and they have built this museum to house big exhibits. With so much modern art, the building is really the star and the so-called art is either weird or boring.

We found a great place to eat breakfast - don't laugh: in the train station. They have made the bottom two floors of the train station a beautiful mall, with stores and restaurants and cafes. The upper most floor is for the trains. Jack loves his bratwirst in the morning, and I am satisfied with a roll and a cup of coffee, so everyday but Sunday we marched across the street and had our breakfast. On Saturday morning we wanted to buy our train ticket for Dresden, so we went up to the higher level. We immediately noticed that there were dozens of policemen - everywhere. We got our tickets and our breakfast and walked back to the hotel. At this point, there were dozens of police vans parked in front of the train station. They had closed the streets around our hotel and lined up van after van along the street. We asked the hotel people and they said that the neo-Nazi groups had staged a demonstration for Leipzig, so the police were out in full force. They even had police forces and vans from Berlin for crowd control. They were not allowed to have a parade, just give speeches at the stand that was set up for them. All day long we heard the droning of the speeches, and lots of people milling about. Fortunately for the city, it rained heavily all day, so maybe that also helped with crowd control.

During this time the Texas Rangers were playing the Yankees in the American League Series to get the honor of going to the World Series. I got up early everymorning to get the score. Jack's cousin Marg, who is a big sports fan and watched each of the games, gave me a rundown of what had happened the night before. The Yankees always intimidated their opponents, but I was hopeful that the Rangers would be able to hold on.

One of the most enjoyable things we did was visit the Bach museum, right across the way from his church. It had just been renovated and it was beautiful. Besides being able to listen to any of his compositions on headphones, in a nice area with comfortable chairs, we learned a lot about the man himself. It turned out that he was quite a musicologist and traced a lot of the pieces that his family had written and transcribed them for posterity. He also did an extensive family tree and worked out the family history for many generations.

Our last day in Leipzig was one to just enjoy the city; we had breakfast at our Elephant House and then walked around to take in the sights once more. I had always heard of this city but never thought I would ever get here. It seemed so far east in Germany, maybe old and hard to get to. I never dreamed it was so pretty and so vibrant, and the people so friendly and warm. It was one of my favorite cities. Tomorrow we would travel to Dresden and experience its beauty, but today I was very happy in Leipzig.

Berlin and Leipzig - Music

German flag atop the Reichstag. Old Prussian Guard House that is now a peace memorial on Unter den Linden Strasse.

I decided to combine the music we heard in Berlin with the Leipzig music.

On Sunday morning at 11:00 we went to the Berlin Concerthouse in the Stadmitte area of town to hear the Carl Emmanuel Bach chamber orchestra. Jack had gotten great tickets, and we were seated on the first row! This concert house is beautiful - smallish but decked out in the beautiful red velvet seats with twinkling lights everywhere. The downstairs was full of people that morning, ready to hear some Bach and Mozart.

The chamber group marched in right at the appointed time and stood for the whole concert. The official name of the group is the Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra, with Hartmut Haenchen as the director. There were two musicians on each part: two first violins, two seconds, two violas, a cello and a bass violin. For some of the pieces there was help from some woodwinds.

The first piece they played was a modern take on Bach: ArvoPart Collage on B-A-C-H. It was fun and weird, but then they got down to business with a J.S. Bach (1685-1750) cantata, a W.F. Bach (1710-1784) symphony in dminor, a J.C. Bach (1735-1782) symphony in gminor. What a treat and they all enjoyed what they were doing so much.

Then the featured soloist came out: Karl Leister, clarinettist. They played a Mozart clarinett concerto, with the famous adagio movement. I am sure everyone would recognize the beautiful piece, even if they didn't know the name of it. I recalled that in the movie "Out of Africa" this adagio was heard on the little phonograph that Dennis gave Karen.

Because of the structure of the concerto, we could not clap for this movement - we have to sit there and only clap at the end of the whole piece. I noticed that German audiences do not jump to their feet so much at the end of the piece as the Dallas audiences do, but they continue to clap and clap and give several calls for the musicians. That is what happened at the end of this concerto. So the group gave us an encore. And the encore was this adagio movement of the Mozart - it was even more beautiful than the first time. This time we clapped up a storm. I thought what a wonderful thing this director did by playing this movement again and giving us an opportunity to clap especially for it. Maybe they do that all of the time, but I had never witnessed that before.

The next concert we went to was at the Berlin philharmonic, near Potsdammer Platz. We ate an early dinner at the arcade, then walked over to the concert hall with everyone else. I mentioned before that the hall was really a strange one - very modern but the orchestra is almost in the round. Our seats were perfect - almost like box seats - up a little high and to the right and not behind anyone. We could see the director's face as he turned to the cellos, so we were not exactly behind him. The acoustics were very good.

We heard two pieces that night. The first was from an opera: "Juliette" by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). The Mezzo soprano was Juliette and most of the singing. The Tenor was also a featured singer. It was a beautiful set of pieces, quite modern, so all of the orchestra was put to work.

The second piece was Antonin Dvorak's Symphony nr. 7 in dminor. This piece was fantastic, and the entire orchestra worked hard on it. It had everything - so much to watch besides listening to the music. When it was over, the audience again clapped and clapped, not standing but great appreciation for the musicians. Even when it looked like the evening was over and the musicians were gathering their stuff and heading out, as we were, some people kept clapping until the director came out again, for another call. The audience certainly knew what they were doing.

During the intermission, we went downstairs and had a glass of wine. We noticed that most of the audience was made up of older people, but there were some young people mixed in also. We wondered if young people had given up on classical music, but not in this town.

When we got to Leipzig, the first thing we did was to get some tickets to concerts. The first one we picked was the Gewandhaus orchestra, with director Herbert Blomstedt. They were playing Paul Hindemith's Symphony " Mathis der Maler". This piece was a musical tribute to one of Grunewald's paintings on the Crucifixon. If you know the artist, you know that his paintings are usually very stark and bloody. And this piece was very descriptive. There was every conceivable kind of instrument playing, including all kinds of percussion.

The second piece was a Bruckner. Mind you, we probably would have preferred some Bach or Mozart, but we were only in Leipzig about ten days, so our choices were numbered. Anyway, this Brukner, one of his romantic symphonies, was a beauty. And again, every musician in the orchestra was playing almost all of the time. It was quite a treat.

Another concert we went to in Leipzig was to hear the Leipziger Stringquartet. Just four guys, one on a part. This concert was in a smaller chamber, and we had great seats again, in the front row. We could see how they communicated with each other and who the leader was, and how much they enjoyed what they were playing. They played all Beethoven that morning, and they worked hard on every movement of every piece. They were wonderful.

We also went to an organ concert at the great hall in Leipzig. They have a Schuke organ at the Gewandhaus. The organist was Michael Schonheit. He played Bach, of course, and Mendelssohn. The Bach was my favorite. The organist was very good, and we really enjoyed the concert.

I have tried to give a picture of Berlin by describing topics instead of a chronolgy. I hope I have given a flavor of the city. We never could figure out whether we liked the city or not. It is so huge and has so many neigborhoods that are different from each other, it is hard to describe Berlin as one city. It has gone through a century of defining history and it is still trying to get its bearings as a unified city once again. I would recommend anyone to visit there, but have at least a couple of weeks there to really get a feel for the city. Seeing all of the sights is one thing, just letting the city's atmosphere sink in is another.

Berlin - its buildings

Photos: far left - Bauhaus museum.

Middle: Mexico embassy in Berlin.

Right: Soviet TV tower,showing the Pope's revenge of the cross made by sunlight hitting the tower.

Berlin has many beautiful buildings, some restored to their original, and some completely new. I would like to describe some of these buildings and their significance to the city.

The first "building" I should show is the TV tower that the Soviets built in the eastern sector of the city. This tower is so huge that really, no matter where you are in the city, you can catch a glimpse of it. It is located on square known as Alexander Platz, a huge area with stores, eating areas and parks, and of course, the Ubahn station named for the Platz. I am not sure how lively it was during the Soviet era, but now it is full of people and places to shop and eat.

The TV Tower is really huge when you get close to it. It is a very tall tower, with a silver ball near the top. I think they actually had a restaurant in that silver ball once upon a time. The weird thing is that when the sun hits the ball, a silver cross appears on the ball. Everyone thinks that is pretty funny, since the communist's did not believe there was a God. Having the symbol of Christianity show up on their magnificent TV tower was very ironic. It is called the Pope's revenge.

I have already talked about the Reichstag, but this building is really a standout, and the glass dome makes it a must see for tourists. Museum Island is also a wonderful place to visit just for the buildings. There is also a Gendarme Marked square, located in Stadt Mitte. During Napoleon's time, the square housed the French army. Now it is a beautiful square, with the Concerthouse of Berlin, with the French Hugenot Church on one side, and the Lutheran Church on the other.

Berlin is full of shops and department stores, but the most famous one in KaDeVe, a huge department store in the Western part of Berlin. This department store has been in existence since the mid 1800's. We visited it and it is almost as good as Harrod's Department Store in London. Its nine floors are full of wonderful merchandize and boutique departments. On the top floor is the food market. Everything is up here: wine, sushi, desserts, meats, vegetables, pastries, exotic food from everywhere. Every area has a little bar where you can savor the food that is on sale there. It is beautifully done, and it was teeming with people the afternoon we were there. We poked around and looked at all of the displays, perfectly situated and lavishly decorated. Of course, Jack preferred to eat at the brotwirst stand outside, but we had a great time looking at everything in the store.

There is an area behind Potsdammer Platz where the national picture gallery is located. This building is a wonderful place to exhibit their rich collection of fine art. The building itself, on the outside, is a disappointment. Too much concrete and not enough greenery in front of the building. It is very near the Concert House of Berlin. This building is nondescript on the outside, and we were not sure if we liked the inside either. The orchestra is almost in the round, with seats running up and around the orchestra. Not so sure about the acoustics either.

Another building that is very interesting is the Bauhaus museum. The original Bauhaus school is now in Deshau, a small town west of Berlin. This school of design was very popular in the 1920's, with famous architects in charge, like Mies Van der Rohe, Gropius, and Corbusier. But the Nazi's considered their creations as degenerate and closed the school. Now Berlin has the museum of many of the works from that era. We had studied the architecture in our art history class, but the school also designed furniture, china, weavings and various other things for the home. The museum building itself is typical of a Bauhaus creation, very sleek and modern.

While we were in that part of the city, south of the Tier Garten, we walked around to see the many embassies. The "big guys" of America, Britain, Russia and France, had their embassies near the Brandenburg gate, but the rest of the world had its embassies down the road, in this more beautiful are. We saw about 20 different embassies, and the countries went all out to design the building as part of their culture. The Egyptian embassy was very beautiful, as well as the Spanish one and the Italian. The Mexican embassy was especially lovely. I have a photo of that one.

There is a famous street connecting the Brandenburg Gate area to the Stadt Mitte. It is called Unter den Linden. The King of Prussia planted numerous Linden trees down the street. They were removed decades later when the street became one of the most traveled, so that tram lines could be laid. It still is a very wide, beautiful street, with huge, baroque buildings on either side. One of the most famous was the Prussian guard house,designed by Schinkel. It is now a museum of peace.

There are hundreds of other buildings that are significant in some way, but I picked out a few to describe and give a flavor of Berlin.

Berlin - Photos of the Topography of Terror

Far left: Grey coffins row at Jewish memorial.

Left: Jole at the top of the Reichstag dome, overlooking Berlin.

Below: outside musuem of the Topography of Terror. Behind the posters is a portion of the Berlin Wall.

This area housed the German building that the Nazi's used to plan and carry out the expulsion of the Jews, in Berlin and coming from all over Europe.

There is also a museum, to the left of the photo, that further explains the actions of the Nazi's and how they systematically rounded up and sent the Jews away to concentration camps.

The photo of the Jewish memorial is hard to explain. The city block is full of the concrete coffins, representing the six million Jews that were killed. This walkway is only one of the narrow paths through the rows of coffins. People can walk through this, I guess to feel the magnitude of how large this exhibit is, and there are only 2000 coffins.

Berlin - The Topography of Terror

Far left: ramp for the dome of the Reichstag.

Above: the dome of the Reichstag

Left: German flag over the Reichstag.

Berlin's history is made up of the Nazi era and the Soviet era. I have tried to give a picture of the Soviet occupation and the Wall. Now I want to talk about the Nazi era, when the Nazi's came to power in the late 1930's, when they cleared the city of the Jewish inhapitants, and what the city of Berlin has done to remember and regret.

The Reichstag, a beautiful building in the 1900's, was a great threat to Hitler, so it mysteriously burned to the ground in the 1930's. Hitler never stepped inside of the building, though it was the seat of the German government. It was a heap of ruins for decades. During the time of Soviet occupation of Berlin, the West German government was located in Bon, Germany. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, the government was moved back to Berlin from Bon. The government needed a place for government rule, so they restored the original building, the Reichstag.

After lots of arguing and planning, they chose a design and agreed with British architect, Norman Foster, that the building needed a dome. He designed and built a glass dome to sit on top of the Reichstag, and now it is the center of tourism in the city. After we passed through the security, we took an elevator to the top of the building and then started walking up the ramp to the top of the dome. We could see the whole city as we walked round and round, and when we reached the top, we went outside to see the expanse of the city. This ramp is so big and wide that one does not get closed in or nervous about the height of the dome. I think that the dome looks down to the parliament hall below, so one can see the German government at work from above. The dome is really a wonderful addition to the building.

Near the Checkpoint Charlie is a museum and open area named the Topography of Terror. This actual city block, where this open-air museum is located, housed the actual government building in which the Nazi's planned and carried out their eradication of the Jews and other undesirables of the German Reich. There are several plexiglass poster boards which trace the Nazi grab of the government and its bureaucratic establishment of agencies specifically designed to strip the Jewish people of their businesses, their homes, their money, and then to send them to Poland or somewhere east for eventual imprisonment and death. It is very scary that all of this Nazi work was carefully planned and set out in documents.

The Germans are very good bureaucrats, I guess, so when the Nazis were in power, they made sure that they set up appropriate agencies and kept very detailed records of what they were doing. All of these preparations for killing more than six million people were carefully documented. That is the scary part of this whole exhibition. The Nazis were very systematic at what they were doing and how they carried out the orders of Hitler and his henchmen.

It takes a long while to see all of the museum that describes the Nazi era because there is so much to look at and think about. Touring this musem is not like visiting one which exhibits artifacts of a people: bowls and jewelry and sculpture, etc. This is a museum set up to try to explain the stripping of possessions, the expulsion to foreign lands and the eventual killing of millions of people, for the simple reason that they were Jewish. It really takes your breath away to look at the photos of the Nazis in charge, because they look like us. I am not sure if the German people will ever understand how they let such a man as Hitler take over and eventually ruin the lives of so many people.

The museum tries to explain the inability of the German government that was in power before Hitler to overcome the hardships of the first World War, and then the stock market crash of 1929, which forced even more Germans to be out of work and penniless. The people wanted stability and someone to help them feel good about themselves, and Hitler was the man that stepped in and took care of them. Once he started his reign of terror, I guess they just couldn't stop him.

Another site to see is the Jewish memorial near the Brandenburg Gate, called the Memorial to the Holocaust. Berlin wanted to build something as a memorial, but it took several years to come up with an appropriate symbol. What they built is quite impressive: it is a full city block of about 2000 plain, grey concrete coffins above the ground. Each one is different from the next; some very tall, some short. No markings on them at all. There is an underground museum which documents stories of many Jews from Berlin who were imprisioned in the well known concentration camps and then later killed. The memorial speaks for itself; as you look out on the huge expanse of stone coffins you try to take in the amount of destruction of so many people. Then when you go to the museum, you see individual people and descriptions of their lives. The six million have faces, and they looked like ordinary, happy people with their families and friends. These sights are hard to take in and understand.

I will turn to happier sights of Berlin in my next post. Stay tuned!

Berlin - The Wall

Top photo: Atrium at the Sony Center at Potsdammer Platz.

Middle photo: the bricks marking where the Berlin Wall existed throughout the city.

Bottom photo: A view of the Bradenburg Gate.

Berlin's history about the Berlin Wall is still very much a part of the city sights. Our first stop was to visit Potsdammer Platz, where the vibrancy of Guilded Age Berlin had been thriving. We found many photos of the square back in the early 1900's, where tram traffic moved back and forth, where people streamed across the streets, and where large buildings held many stores, cafes and hotels.

We bought photos of this area after the Allied bombing completely destroyed it. Then the Wall went up right through this area about twenty years later. Now, twenty years after the Wall came down, Potsdamer Platz is again a hugely vibrant area, with brand new buildings that rise many stories in the air, where there are several luxury hotels surrounding the square, and where shops and restaurants are full of shoppers and visitors.

Sony has built a huge theater there, within the confines of a beautiful atrium, with light shows, cafes, places to explore and much more.

There is a brand new arcade, which is like a mall. The stores are wonderful, everything you could ever want to buy. It has lots of places to eat and sculpture throughout the arcade, and even a huge grocery store to get supplies on the way home. We loved to go in there for a bratwurst and a croissant (Jack the bratwurst and me the croissant). There were several very good restaurants that we frequented for lunch and dinner. There were also the chain restaurants, as in Tony Roma, all around the arcade.

There was a live theater at the end of the block, near the Sony theater. In the front of the Platz, there was always some kind of demo on selling something or giving away goodies.

Across the street from the Platz are huge new buildings where businesses are housed - everything from Price Waterhouse to DHL, and not all businesses are American. There are several European logos to be seen there.

Through all of this was the ever-present rememberance of the Wall - a brick line on the sidewalk that was the demarcation of the British and the Soviet sector. The brick line runs down the street, all the way to the Brandenburg Gate.

Just on the edge of the Platz is a remnant of the Wall, and then we saw how tall this thing was. It is well over six feet tall, so there is no way to see over it except to get a ladder or stand on someone's shoulders. Thick and ugly it was. I was shocked. Of course it was covered in graffiti over its ugly concrete gray facade.

We walked down to the Brandenburg Gate - all restored now to its former glory. We also have photos of the Gate at the time of the Wall, and the area was a wasteland. Right inside the gate stands the newly restored American embassy. The Adalon hotel, a luxury hotel before WWII but destroyed during the Allied bombing and neglected during the Soviet occupation, is now fully restored to its beauty and, I am sure, its high prices for a room.

The new British embassy is right around the corner, and the Russian embassy is down the street. The French embassy is also in the vicinty.

The Brandenburg Gate draws hundreds of visitors almost everyday, taking photos and buying souvenirs from the hawkers.

Not far from the Brandenburg Gate is probably the most famous checkpoint of the Berlin Wall era - Checkpoint Charlie, separating the American from the Soviet occupation areas. All around the area are big poster boards, showing photgraphs of what it was like in 1961, when the Wall went up. Down the street they have saved one whole block of the Wall, with all of the grafitti all over it. They have also saved a block in the neighborhood to what it looked like in the twenty years of the Soviet occupation: completely barren, with weeds and pieces of concrete strewn about - probably a building was there and it was torn down by the Soviets for security purposes. They had to be able to see everywhere to make sure that noone was sneaking over the Wall.

It was hard to take all of this in, especially since all of terror and hardship of a people happened during one's lifetime. We walked around and saw local people who probably lived all through this, and we wondered what kind of stories they could tell.

This area of Checkpoint Charlie is a huge tourist draw - tour buses always driving up and down the streets, and knots of people reading the information on the wall and snapping photos. Jack was at this very checkpoint back in the early 60's. His dad, who was in the military, was sent to this area when the Wall went up, and so the Luehrs family moved to Germany for three years. Jack, his mom and his brother Bruce had visited eastern Berlin one cold afternoon, and he said it was spooky, with all of the security measures and the Soviet soldiers everywhere. He said when they entered, their passports were taken from them until they returned back through the checkpoint.

The whole Soviet sector of the city is now trying to revive or regain its former stature. Rich places, like the Stadt Mitte and the area near the Brandenburg Gate, are already back to normal, with thriving shopping, eating, luxury hotels and apartments. The concert house is now a thing of beauty and the churches on the Gendharme square are magnificent.

Other neigborhoods, especially those east of Alexander Platz, deep in the Soviet sector, are still trying to restore themselves. They were the working class neigborhoods of Berlin before the War and the Wall, so they are trying to maintain that image while being a vibrant and safe area to live. We visited the neighborhood way up north in the city, where they have a Saturday market, and walked around, after enjoying a bratwurst and a beer. The place was full of young families, parents walking the strollers, others playing in the children's playground. Some of the apartment buildings had seen better times, but others, right next to them, were newly painted and regenerated.

I thought that Berlin would try to eradicate the remnants of the Wall, but they celebrate its demise and how they eventually overcame the Soviet control. And they want others to see how it was and how they have bounced back in such a short period of time to become the great city that it used to be.

Berlin - Museums

There are at least nine museums that are a must to visit in Berlin. The first five are co-located in what is known as Museum Island. This cluster of five museums was the gem in the golden age of Berlin, at the start of the 20th century. Then all kinds of things happened to them: the Nazis confiscated a lot of the art as "degenerate art". Then the air poundings of the Allies destroyed the buildings. When the Soviets took over after the War, they actually took a lot of the paintings and sculpture to Russia for awhile.

When the Soviets decided to restore some of the museums, they returned a lot of the art. And since reunification of Germany, the museums have been completely restored, one by one, so they are in their previous glory. Their history is, in itself, an amazing one.

Museum 1: our first stop was the Pergamon museum, which houses not only the Pergamon altar, but a Roman facade from the western coast of Turkey, and the gates of Ishtar. To have these three magnificent pieces of ancient sculpture in the same city is breathtaking, but to have them in the same museum is really unbelievable. We had studied the Pergamon altar in one of our first art history classes that we took at Southern Methodist University several years ago. I never thought I would be in Berlin to see this gorgeous piece of work, but here I was, standing in front of it, taking in the larger than life figures.

This altar was designed and constructed in the 200 BC era, during Greece's Hellinistic Age, later than the 400 BC Golden Age of Athens when the Parthenon was constructed. It was located on the western coast of what is now Turkey,though it was all Greece until about the 1930's AD. It is not far south from the city of Troy, right on the coast. When Jack and I went to Turkey in 2008 we visited the site, which is now called Bergama. The ruins of the great city are still there, and we walked all around the site, climbing down and then up where the amphitheatre ruins are, and standing on the site where the Pergamon altar was built.

German archaeologists had gotten permission from the Ottoman Empire sultan to do excavating, and I guess part of the bargain was to take most of what was found. The altar is huge; think of a mansion with stairs that look like about three stories high. The relief figures are all around the altar and up the inside of the altar steps. In Art History speak, these relief figures are different from the classical figures of the Parthenon: they are much more emotionally expressive; their arms and legs show bulging muscles and straining poses. The scenes depict the fight between the gods and the satyrs, so the whole scene is of frowning and desperate men and women, determined to be the victor over the other.

The altar stairway is huge; and this was just one of the altars of the grouping. Again, one wonders about having Greek sculpture in Berlin, but the Germans saved the ruins from complete degredation. Since we had been to the windswept coast of Turkey we only had to imagine how all of this fit together. We visited the museum and this room a couple more times before we left Berlin.

The other rooms in the museum were just as fantastic - the facade of a Roman library and the Ishtar gates. They also had many other relics of the past: burial stele and sarphogagi and burial statues. We wandered through the rooms, just awe-struck at the age and the beauty of these pieces.

Museum 2: the next museum to visit was the New Museum. We wanted to see the head of Nefertiti. We knew that the city was working on restoring these museums to their former glory, but part of that restoration was the changing scene of the venues of certain collections. The Egyptian collection had been housed in several different places. The guide books told us the collection was now housed in the Old Museum, so off we went. However, we found out as we got there that the collection was now in the New Museum! Fortunately, all of these museums are in walking distance of each other, so we turned around and entered the New Museum.

We have seen a lot of Egyptian artifacts in many museums, but this one held the head of Nefertiti, so we went looking for her. The museum saved a special room for her, a circular room at one of the corners of an upper floor. This piece was made as a model for sculptures throughout the Egyptian country, since she was the wife of the Pharoah Amenhotep IQ, who changed his name to Akenaten. It was painted and in seemingly perfect condition. Her eyes are made of jewels, but one of them is missing, so when I looked at the statue straight on, it was a bit distorted because of the one missing eye. But the shape of the head and the neck made it a gorgeous piece of work. We stood there, taking it in, when a guard came up to us and started telling us about the head and why the German government had this piece. He said that the Egyptians really didn't want it because it was only a model made of some kind of plaster,not the usual marble or stone. It had literally been passed around for many years but the German government felt that it was a beautiful rendition of a very famous wife of one of the most powerful Pharoahs, so they wanted to give it a special place in their museum. This head draws many visitors to Berlin.

Museum 3: the Bode museum is another gorgeous building on the island, one that was designed and built by Bode, a rich German industrialist, at the beginning of the 20th century. The building, also destroyed during WWII, had just been completely restored. It is a beautiful Baroque building, with huge rooms, 30 foot ceilings, and marble staircases. The art in this building is not much to speak of - mostly 18th German scenes, but the building itself is just exquisite.

Museum 4: the Alte Museum is another beautiful building on the opposite side of the island. It is not a large museum, but its rooms are huge and beautiful. It houses mostly sculptures, which are copies of the famous Greek and Roman ones. We didn't see many new pieces, but strolling through the building was an experience in itself.

Museum 5: the Painting Gallery is across the street from the New Museum. It is probably the least monumental of the museums but it is impressive in and of itself. Most of the art here is German, not too memorable, but they have two whole rooms of David Caspar Friedrich, a German artist living from 1748-1850. We were introduced to his art in our art history survey class. He paints mostly dark, wintry scenes of mountains, lakes, trees, etc. The subject matter is not important in itself; it represents the futility of life and the darkness of getting to the end of it. A lot of his work is kind of spooky, but the detail is good. Artists didn't start going out into the scenery itself to paint until Monat and the Impressionists - in the early 20th century, so one has to believe that all of his nature is by memory.

We went to about five other musuems, located all over Berlin. We visited the art gallery near Potsdamer Platz. We had to return to this museum more than once. There is so much art one cannot take in everything in one afternoon. It has a fabulous collection of all famous artists from every era. We saw Rafael, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, some Spanish artists, all of the Impressionists and even some British art.

The modern art is located in two different places: one museum designed by Mies van der Rohe is near Potsdamer Platz in his signature minimalist building. Since the whole building is glass, the art is located in the underground portion of the building. There was another modern art museum, in a former Hamburger train station, near the Hauptbahnhof. The building was the usual Renaissance/Baroque design, but once we got inside, it really looked like a railway station - huge, and I mean huge, open spaces where the modern art could be set up. A lot of modern art tends to be gigantic, so this was the place for it. We also went upstairs and the building in the back stretched at least a mile and half, with rooms full of the weirdest stuff you have ever seen. Some of the German modern artists were very odd - I am thinking Beuys and even Raushenberg (though he was born in Port Arthur Texas). Anway, these rooms could hold huge displays. We had three semesters of modern art at SMU but still, some of this stuff is really weird. There is an exhibit at the Ft Worth modern art museum, a film that shows a man digging a post hole. It just loops and loops - well, I found a similar film in this museum. Either it was the same artist, or someone copied from someone.

We went to the photography museum that is dedicated to the Helmut Newton. This museum was very interesting; it had a lot of his memorabilia and all of his photographs he had taken, for the covers of magazines and for his own shows. His wife was also a photographer, so lots of her photos are on display also.

Let's see, what other museums. We went to the ethnology museum; German archaeologists loved to go to places like Bali and Mexico and islands of South America and sponsor digs. They evidently made arrangements with the host government to take some findings. The display of Mexico was about the Mayan ruins. They were beautifully displayed. The museum also had huge boats from islands I had never heard of - it was a great museum, and one that takes a long time to wander through. Really, if we had the time, we could have spent a few days there.

The museums dedicated to the history of Berlin I will describe in another post.

Berlin - Transportation

The first thing to learn about Berlin is the transportation system, unless you have a private driver who can take you everywhere. I love subways, so I was looking forward to learning all about it. The first thing I learned is that the subway system - the Ubahn - is not an "it". There are two systems which are separate but meet in certain stations.

I was used to the Paris metro, which I thought was confusing enough. But that one is pretty simple, compared to the Berlin system. In Berlin each line is numbered, and the signs direct you by the numbers only. Then I had to learn the destinations of each line, which is similar to other subway systems; they are named by the end of the line. So first we had to learn the numbers and then the names of the lines to figure out which direction to head.


Since we were going to be in Berlin for several weeks, we decided to buy a monthly pass. In the little station near our hotel we punched in our requests - these machines are also in English - and got a card, saying that our money was lost in the machine and we would have to go to some address to redeem it - no subway ticket, just a voucher. Of course we had no idea where in Berlin this addres was, so we were very frustrated.

We had already learned that there are not always information booths in every station, so we must have asked which station to go; I can't remember now. Anyway, we rode the U2 toward Pankow to Alexanderplatz to find the subway information booth to find out what happened to our money and get a monthly pass.

It was there that we found out there were two companies running the U and the S. Jack did his best to communicate our dilemna, but the BVG man just directed us to another office where we could buy tickets from a real live person. So we trudged up steps and down steps, trying to stay out of the way of the streaming people going this way and that. The signs are clear if you know what you are looking for. We found the ticket office and Jack waited in line to find out about the ticket and where to go to redeem our voucher. The amount for the monthly tickets was 100 euro, so we couldn't just forget about the money.

While he was in the office I was over in the corner, trying to make out the map that the BVG man had given me. A young woman stopped and asked if I needed help. In English? I asked. Of course, she said. She explained the two systems, one literally on top of the other and how to read the routes, etc. She was very helpful and I thanked her profusely. By that time, Jack had the tickets and the directions to the BVG office.

In Paris and London there are machines to enter the metro, where one pushes in the ticket and it pops out on the other side and the gate opens to let you through. In Berlin there are none of those things. We are supposed to carry around our tickets but everyone just enters the subway station and goes to the cars. There are subway police who ride the rails and check tickets, and there are signs on every car, saying that if you don't have a ticket you will be fined 40 euro. It is nice not to have those machines to walk through - the traffic runs more smoothly. Are the Germans more trustworthy to buy the tickets? I wondered at the philosophy of each country.

We learned a lot that day about the system, since we had to report to an office in some god-forsaken part of Berlin - somewhere we never went again. It was way on the east side of town, in a huge office building, near the Soviet TV tower, that I remember. The people were very nice and returned our money. I noticed a few days later in our little local U station that the machine where we had lost our money had a sign saying "out of order".

I carried our monthly tickets in a safe place in my purse during the whole month and only once did we meet a subway policeman - on a Sunday - and he found someone who did not have a ticket and was escorted off the train and made to pay the 40 euro. Since a day ticket is about 6 euro, it is worth it to pay for the ticket.

We were going to be in Berlin for the first week of October, which meant we needed a weekly ticket after September. I persuaded Jack for us to go back to Alexanderplatz to buy the weekly ticket at our leisure, and then when the first of October rolled around, we could stamp it in the machine, to show when we started using it.

On October 1, we went to the subway station for our daily field trip and I remembered that we had to stamp the ticket. We got on the train, enjoying the sights, when we were aware that there were subway police checking tickets. The woman checking our tickets, I swear, was disappointed that we had it stamped correctly! I guess we just looked like dumb tourists who did not know the ropes.

The two sets of subways are very efficient and always on time and, during the week, coming every few minutes. On Sundays the trains do not run as often. One Sunday we noticed all kinds of subway police, with German shepherd dogs. They were riding the rails that day because one of the German soccer teams was playing and all the fans were riding subway out to the olympic stadium.

Once we understood the signs - and the long German street signs end mostly in "strasse" so you just read the first part of the sign - we were able to navigate everywhere we wanted to go. The stations themselves are huge - in Paris everyone just gets off the train and goes out or goes to the connecting train - but here the stations are very long and there are shops to buy snacks and papers and postcards or to eat lunch or buy magazines. The stations that connect the U and the S are huge, and we had to be careful to follow the signs to go up or down or around. We had to know where we were going before we read the signs so we knew what to look for. One time we got on the wrong train because I did not know the name of the destination. By the time I pulled out my subway map and studied it, we were at the next station so we hopped off and tried again.

The next big step in learning how to get around Berlin was to figure out where we wanted to go and then figure how to get there. We had museums, places of interest and neigborhoods on our list of required visiting, so the first thing to do was to get a detailed map which had the U stations superimposed to make our journeys easier. We soon learned that it would be necessary to walk a long way once we arrived at the appropriate subway destination. There is just a lot of walking in Berlin, no matter how good the public transportation is. We really were not prepared for how long the blocks were, but I think we got used to them and accepted the walks as good exercise.

The U2 was our primary U bahn that we rode during our two week stay at our first hotel. This hotel was more or less in the middle of the city, so it was connected to most of the tourist sights that we were interested in. It was a horizontal, east/west line, and the S line looped around the city and then headed out to the suberbs. When we stayed in the eastern part of the city, we had a more complicated route to get around, since the U5 ended at Alexanderplatz, so we had to transfer to the U2 or the S. Traveling around Berlin is just long and complicated because it is such a huge city. Now I need to talk about what we saw - unbelievable history in the city and they are still working on construction projects all over the city to build it up to its former glory.

Berlin Part 1 a short history

August 30 came and it was time to visit Berlin. I have wanted to see this city for many years, since the Wall was torn down. I really did not know what to expect, except a lot of new buildings where the old ones had existed. I wondered how the eastern part of the city would be like twenty years after the Soviets had disappeared. There were so many things to learn about the city and I was ready.

I have tried to organize the topics of this city: the geography, the subway systems, the places of interest, the museums, the Nazi history, the Soviet history, the neigborhoods, the shopping, the restaurants and bars, the music, the new buildings, and the people. Those are 12 topics that I would have to hit upon to give anyone a feel for the city. Was I up to it??? I wasn't sure. But here goes.

Berlin has been the center of German history for about four hundred years. Bismark was from these parts, and when Germany actually became a country, the city of Berlin was chosen to be its capital. Along with the political business of the city came the social activity; as a result wonderful hotels and restaurants and museums and concert halls thrived here.

The German government directed the WWI activities from here, and Berlin was especially hit hard when the Germans capitulated. The Weimar government tried desperately to gain control in the 1920's, but government after government failed and chaos reigned - just in time for Hitler to step in and create some kind of stability. The people of Berlin were so worn down and aching for something to work that they embraced Hitler and his ideas - until they realized that maybe his ideas were not all that great. But it was too late, and they just went along with him and kept their mouths shut.

When the war started they thought it was a good idea and were all for it for years, until the Allies started getting their act together and making some progress, and the Soviets were inching their way west to control Germany. Then the Allies started bombing Berlin - and other places - to smithereens. Berliners were really suffering and needed help, so after the Allies destroyed Berlin they started the airdrops to save the people from completely starving to death.

Then relations with the Soviets became so bad that they built the Wall and the cold war started. Berliners overnight were separated from friends and families; the situation continued for almost thirty years until the Wall miraculously came down. From that time on Berlin has worked to become one city again, with brand new buildings, restoration of old buildings as they looked in former years, rebuilding of subway systems, etc. The restoration that started about twenty years ago is still very much underway all over the city. There is a vibrancy in the city which can be felt today.

We wanted to feel it all and investigate as much of the city as possible. We weren't sure how long to stay but decided on about five weeks. We have only one week left and we feel the loss of having to leave already. We have seen and experienced so much and everyday is full of exploring, looking, studying, feeling and photographing. In the following entries I will try to describe what we have seen and what we have felt about this big city.

Gottingen/Magdeburg Germany

We decided to stay in Gottingen an extra week so Jack could get to the doctor and even to a specialist. It turned out that the second set of pills that his doctor gave him worked and Jack was able to sleep at night. His head was not stopped up anymore. Miracle. I don't know what the doctor gave him, but they were probably some kind of steriod, don't you think? Anyway, he did not have to go to the other doctor and we had a few more days to relax or to drive through the countryside. We did a little of both.

Jack found some great- looking beer mugs to send to his beer-drinking buddies in Dallas. We found a Mailbox store - UPS - in Gottingen, so he went from bar to bar, checking out the glasses and deciding on three nice ones. He spent a small fortune sending them to Texas, but the reactions of his friends were great, so he was satisfied with his effort. And all of that beer drinking was fun too, as we checked out different beer glasses.

We finally got back to Wartburg. We had gone there a couple of weeks before to see Luther house and Back house, but we still needed to see the castle. Fortunately we picked a beautiful day to travel. We got there in record time, parked at the bottom of the hill with the rest of the tourists, and trudged up to the castle. This place has been here since about the 1200's, as a castle for German princes when they were carefully guarding their territories from each other. The castle has been restored and only guided tours are allowed. We waited for one in Engish. It was pretty interesting; it was more fun to look out the windows to see the extraordinary views from all sides. You can just imagine the enemy sneaking through the forest, trying to overcome the defenses of the castle. Even now the land around the castle is dense forest - I wondered how cold it would be in the winter with the layers of snow on the trees.

In the 1500's, after Luther pinned up his 99 objections to the Pope, he was a hunted man. He was told to explain himself and then he was excommunicated, which meant that any bounty hunter could go after him for a price. One of the German princes took him into his care and gave him a room in this castle as a hideout. While he was there, Luther translated the New Testament from the Greek to German, so he kept himself busy while he was being protected.

The castle has a large meeting room where they have concerts and other get-togethers to this day. (I will have to add photos at a later time; I am not at my notebook computer but at an internet cafe. Sometimes these hotels where we stay have wireless, but it is very expensive to use it).

A few days later we drove to a preserved Benedictine monastery west of Gottingen, near the little town of Munden. This monastery has been preserved also, which I find interesting since most of the catholic churches were turned into protestant churches in Germany. But these monasteries are usually out in the country in beautiful settings. This particular monastery is still very beautiful and the chapel is restored very faithfully.

The town of Munden is really a touristy town, with lots of restaurants and lots of tourists. The setting is just gorgeous, near the river and next to a forest. We had a great lunch there and enjoyed walking around the town and even getting some postcards. We have really been very lucky with the weather also - blue skies and lofty clouds and in the 60 degree range.

After more than a week in Gottingen we were ready to move onto our next stop, Magdeburg. This town is not far from Berlin, so it was deep in east Germany, so we were very interested in how the town would feel.

It turns out that this town was bombed extensively by the Americans, so there was nothing much left of its former buildings. We saw photos of the main street back in the early 20th century. It was a beautiful city, with tall baroque-type buildings lining its main streets. Everyone of them were destroyed by Allied bombings. Now those same streets had huge modern offices and new stores. The tram system ran in the middle of the street, with auto and bike traffic on either side. The downtown looks newer than many American cities, with very nice stores and cafes, bars and restaurants.

The large hotel where we stayed was also a focal point for a lot of parties and celebrations. One Sunday we came in from a drive out in the country to see the lobby filled with couples dancing to the music of someone, like Lawrence Welk maybe. There was not a person younger than 65, and they all seemed to be having a great time.

We visited the churches that the city had restored; they were huge and beautiful once upon a time. They have spent quite a bit of money making these churches look as they did before the war.

We made a trip to Wittenburg to see the church where Luther pinned his 95 objections to the pope, back in 1519. Wittenburg is a nice little town which now has tour bus after tour bus descending on it everyday. I was amazed that so many American tour groups come to visit this town. So many of these tours are church groups, headed by their minister who schedule times to preach in this church that Luther made famous. I saw one tour bus that had a sign in its window: Reformation Tour. I guess Protestant groups think this church is their beginning, so they want to step foot inside and savor the history. The Catholic church does not give so much attention to all of this, and why should they? It was just the beginning of the end of Roman Catholic domination in the world.

The town itself has adjusted to its famous place in history by outfitting itself with lots of restaurants, bars, hotels and cafes, parking areas and souvernir shops. This particular day one of the art galleries was selling plastic molds of Luther - about four feet tall. The gallery had filled the entire platz with about 800 of these Luthers, some red, some green, some blue. I will have to include the photo I took of these guys in my next post.

Seriously, the church where Luther started the reformation was indeed quite impressive. He was probably an earnest young man who was horrified at all of the richness and decadence that he witnessed when he visited Rome, the seat of the mother church. And he also heard from the German princes who were disgusted at so much of their money going to Rome to build St. Peter's. It wasn't a coincidence that he was protected by a German prince when he got into trouble with the Pope and had to hide out later. I am so glad to see the church where the Reformation started.

I guess we were ready to see the big city, Berlin. We turned in our car in Magdeburg and then took the train to the Haupbonhof. Oh, my goodness. This city is huge! More later on what we found during our five weeks there.

Jever, Germany Aug 2 - 6, 2010

Here we were in northern Germany, and guess what? It looked like Holland! Of course, it did, since it was part of the flat country on the border of the North Sea. We had no trouble finding the little town of Jever, and the hotel was on the main drag, so we drove right up to it. The owner was there to guide us to the parking area in back of the hotel. But oh my gosh, she nor her husband spoke a word of English. Right away Jack had to use his German, which is very good, by the way. But immediately he had to think German. He had bought a handy little dictionary, and it was by his side from that time on.

We walked into the small town to find a restaurant and some schnitzel! I was looking forward to eating schnitzel and pomme frites, so we found a typical place and had a nice meal. We walked around the shopping area; everything was shut down for the evening, so we could just look into the windows.

Our hotel was a very nice one; it looked like a huge family home, with beautiful furniture and accessories. Our room was a little one in the back. It was very adequate and comfortable and we had a good night's sleep. We reported to breakfast in the morning in the dining room; this breakfast came as part of the fee. It was a big dining room, with about ten tables, so we met all of the other hotel guests. I don't think a single one of them spoke English, but they were very friendly. I couldn't imagine why people would come to stay in this small town; but I think it was just a jumping off point for more outdoor activities, like hiking or biking.

Our first assignment here in Jever was to find the small town of Sandel where the Luehrs family came from sometime in the early 1800's. Jack had visited there with his family back in the 60's when they lived in Germany. Cliff, Jack's dad, had driven up there to find his relatives' graves before they had to report to Bremerhaven and the military ship that would take them back to the States.

Jack remembered it as a wind-swept, desolate place. As we drove through the countryside, we did not see that kind of scenery. These small towns had pretty little houses, lush green countryside and very good roads. It looked like Germany was very prosperous, at least in this part of the country. There were rolling hills, filled with corn or wheat, or dairy cows munching on the grass. Everything looked so peaceful and pleasant. I have included some photos of the cows, the land full of crops, and the dozens of modern wind mills. Many of the dairy barns had solar panels installed on their roofs. At least in this part of Germany the people seemed to be well off, though they probably worked very hard in the fields.

We drove to Sandel and found the church; no Luehrs there. We found a maintenance man and asked him about the name, etc. He said he had never heard of that name. We began to study the map. Jack had remembered that his dad always said Sande, not Sandel. Sande was another small town, not far from where we were but closer to the harbor. We drove over to Sande and found another church. Lo and behold, we were in the right place. There were lots of Luehrs in the church cemetery. The name Luehrs in German is really Luhrs, with an umlaut on the "u". We spent the next several minutes taking photos of the different headstones. I was so glad that we found this church; I think Jack was glad that he was able to trace his relative, though we wandered why they moved from this beautiful country to Michigan, many years ago.

We found that the church was open. Jack remembers that his dad found a Wilhelm Luehrs name on the list of those from this parish who had died in WWII. Cliff's first name was William. Sure enough we found the plaque and the name. The fact that there was a William Luehrs fighting against a William Luehrs in the Second World War was very sad indeed, but I am sure that this example was one of millions throughout the world.

We took several more photos the spot - I even found a woman named Cornelisen buried there. My maiden name is Cornelison, so similar that I had to take a photo of that grave also.

The next couple of days we traveled the coastline of northern Germany, someplace I never expected to see. It is really like Holland, especially the windmills and the low, flat countryside. We drove to the North Sea; there were lots of people spending their last days of their holiday biking, hiking, camping and just enjoying the scenery. When we got to the sea I was shocked - there was no sea! It was mud flats everywhere. The North Sea is so tidal that it literally disappears. Then I realized how the Dutch and the Germans were able to claim so much land and hold back the sea because of the intermittant disappearance of the water.

We spent about five days in this area and then we were heading south and east to Hameln, the city of the Pied Piper fame. I spent my last hours studying the map and marking a plan to get there. I planned to get a better map as soon as we got to a bigger city.

Jack was experiencing an allergic-type problem: his nose was completely stopped up and he could not breathe. I thought he was allergic to something in the air or the cool, rainy weather, and I insisted that he take some of my allergy medicine. But none of that seemed to help. We were just in Jever for a few days, but he was really suffering and wondered if he could stay in this kind of atmosphere. He was very discouraged and wondered if we should just head back to Dallas, if he was going to be in such pain.

We decided to skip Hameln and go directly to Gottingen to see if we could find a doctor.

Gronningen, Holland July 28 - Aug 2, 2010

Well, we were expecting a short trip up north from Arnhem to Gronningen - just about fifty miles. The train station in Arnhem was torn up, but only for those trains that were going south. We were told that we could hop the train with only one train switch north to Gronningen. We got to the train station fairly early, about 10:30, bought our tickets and trudged up the stairs to the platform.

After a few minutes, all of the train information blanked out and we were standing there, wondering if anything happened, or was it just a momentary glitch. Jack said, oh, nothing is wrong. I, the pessimist, decided to ask the conductor. He told me that the electricity went out about five kilometers from the station and there was no way to get to Gronningen from Arnhem that day. All these trains run by electricity, of course. I said, please come and tell my husband, because he will not believe me if I tell him the trains are not running.

The nice trainman explained it all to the two of us: the trains could not run from this station, period. We would have to take the bus to a neighboring town, board that train, go to Utrecht, and then change again in Utrecht. We had a good idea of the geography of Holland by now, and we realized we were not headed north but just zig-zagging from west to east and back again. Eventually we would be someday heading north. The trainman even helped us drag my suitcase up the stairs and around the station to the bus.

We took a half hour bus ride to the little town of Ede, hopped on that train and headed to Utrecht. We had been in the Utrecht train station many times, so we knew our way around. I wasn't sure of the next leg of the trip. I asked at the information desk; he directed me to track 11. We headed down there. I asked another train - woman this time - about this train. She said, yes, get on this train and get off at some town, but be sure to get on the last cars of the train. The front cars would be going to Belgium, but the last cars would be going north to Gronningen. I followed her directions to the T; at this point Jack was not sure where we were headed but somehow he trusted me.

We finally got to Gronningen and to the hotel. We thought that we would have a pleasant trip north; it ended up as an adventure. But we were safe for the night. The hotel was very nice, another NH hotel. It was in easy walking distance of the town, and we immediately found nice restaurant for our evening meal.

The next day we headed into town and looked up the tourist information bureau to see if they had a walking tour. They did and off we went, looking up at this and down at that. This town is so far north that I thought noone even lived here, but it is a very lovely town, with lots of nice restaurants, a pretty good town hall and a nice cathedral. We checked the cathedral first and found they had Friday noon organ recitals, so we made plans to go. This was a university town, and they have a pretty big music school.

We took it easy here; there wasn't too much to see and we had actually come this far north to get a car and drive into northern Germany. We enjoyed our few days here, wandered around the town, explored the markets and had our usual wine break in the early afternoon.

The town had its usual pedestrian walkway with its stores of shoes, eye glasses, electronics and telephones. But the stores were, as a rule, very junky and I would not buy anything from any of these stores. The merchandise was just not interesting, and the clothes stores were really bad. I am not sure why I say that, except the presentation was just not interesting.

We took our walking tour and saw a lot of the university buildings; school was not yet in session, so this part of town was pretty quiet. It was a pretty little town, and we enjoyed our time there. But we were ready for our next adventure: getting our rental car and driving over to Germany. I had gotten a pretty good map and so I was ready.

We got up early on Monday, August 2, got a cab to Hertz rental company, got the car - little Ford Focus hatchback - and off we took to Germany. It was a beautiful day and we were in good spirits. We had enjoyed our three months in Holland. It is a beautiful little country with lots of history, lots of canals and lot of windmills. We were glad that we had taken the time to explore Holland, and we had a good appreciation of its art and and its geography.