The last time I was Berlin, it was only ten years after Reunification. I remember learning in the main train station that the second language among older Eastern Germans was Russian and not English. It was really easy to distinguish between the two regions' buildings. This time, it was a completely new experience. Our apartment was in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, a delightful area for an evening walk and drink. There was a cafe and bar on the entrance floor of our building that was packed every morning and evening.
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| Nathan on the balcony of The Reichstag |
Our days involved seeing the political and artistic sites. We began with a walk from Potsdam Platz to the Holocaust Memorial. We continued to The Brandenburg Gate and ended the promenade with The Reichstag. You cannot enter the offices and halls, but the staff permit and encourage everyone to walk up the glass dome with an audio guide. The view of the city from the balcony and then from inside the dome greatly impressed us. Our second and third days were museum focused: Pergamon, Egyptian Museum, German History Museum, Topography of Terror, Jewish Museum, and Checkpoint Charlie. Nathan took much pleasure in seeing the Ishtar Gate of Babylon as he had seen the original site during his tour in Iraq. Unfortunately only ruins of the original structure remain; Saddam Hussein had built only an architectural disaster with a palace there. My favorite Berlin Museum was The Topography of Terror. It is a much newer museum that is located where the Gestapo and SS Headquarters once stood (destroyed from the Allied firebombing), just north of the Niederkirchnerstrasse portion of The Berlin Wall
. The permanent exhibitions contain photographic and written history of the Nazi Regime. It is their message to the citizens of Germany that they will never again succumb to such hateful propaganda. The many exhausting hours we spent in all of these sites required luxurious treats upon completion. Both afternoons, we enjoyed well-earned breaks at
Fassbender and Rausch. As the rest of the food was not memorable (Berlin is better for ethnic food), this was the culinary highlight for us.
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| St. Thomas Church in Leipzig |
Despite the fact that it is not a highly recommended tourist destination, I wanted Nathan to see Leipzig. It is only an hour train-ride from Berlin to Saxony on the Elbe, so a day trip is very feasible. I would claim that Prague serves as the prime destination for Baroque music, but Leipzig housed the arguably most famous Baroque composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. I had previously visited St. Thomas Church where he taught and performed weekly. Unfortunately when we arrived, it was closed for services, so we instead toured the Bach Museum. After dinner, we attended a concert at The Gewandhaus which is home to its symphony, one of the oldest in the world. Not surprisingly, it was a concert dedicated to Bach, specifically The St. Matthew Passion.
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| The River Elbe at night |
Onward, we reached the capital of Saxony, Dresden. Unfortunately, most people today know of it for the intense firebombing that Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. recounted in
Slaughterhouse-Five. However, there is so much more that one can discover in their Baroque history at the Zwinger. Augustus the Strong presented himself as Saxony's equivalent to Louis XIV albeit no man could be as arrogant as the one who claimed, "L'état, c'est moi." Augustus II collected artifacts and possessed more than 20,000 pieces in his porcelain inventory (which his staff accurately recorded). The Green Vault was an even more impressive collection and well worth the €10 entrance fee. Though it had been destroyed from the war and subsequently confiscated by the Soviet Army, the Germans completely reconstructed his treasury into two exhibitions in 2006. The Historical Green Vault contains elaborate treasures such as ivory, bronze, and rare gemstones. As Nathan described it, it was impressively useless. However, when you are a king, you must show off your greatness, no matter how useless you and your monarchy are.
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