Seven years of living in Europe and I’d not once made it to Germany. And I had concluded that for all intents and purposes, I probably never would, unless an occasion demanded it.
“But you can’t leave Europe without seeing Berlin,” a friend exclaimed, aghast. “Berlin is awesome.”
I was unconvinced. Germanic food had never really appealed. During visits to Vienna and Salzburg, I had initially attacked the gulasch, sachertorte, sauerkraut and apfelstrudel with gusto. But prolonged consumption of dumplings, stew and offal had left me nauseous, plump and err… longing for a Marks & Spencer salad. And a country known for punctual trains, dour burly, efficient folk (permit me the stereotypes, please!) and the shrill synthesized electronic beats and heart pounding bass of techno was quite the antithesis of my ideal café (con leche/au lait/latte)-quaffing people-watching foodie-fuelled break in one of the laidback, emotionally volatile Continental nations.
Still, there was that undeniable slice of history that Berlin inhabited. I’d been fortunate enough to visit Moscow, St Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, Versailles, Rome, Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam and London, of course. It was time to venture to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
Architecture
It has been 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And to my newbie tourist eyes, the formerly divided city is seamless. Public transport effortlessly and efficiently transports you to anywhere throughout the capital – although I was told that apparently the trams tend to service the city’s east and the U-Bahn the city’s west.
It has, like all great capitals, amazing architecture, the old and the newer results of the post reunification construction spree. A German friend said that twenty years ago, the large, corporate style Potsdamer Platz (PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Sony building are nearby) did not exist. The Reichstag, awe-inspring on the approach from the Holocaust Monument, has been given the ubiquitous Norman Foster touch; a glass dome with a stairway spiralling upwards from which the Bundestag discussions can be viewed (London’s City Hall, anyone?). Daniel Libeskind’s extension to the Jewish Museum – thought-provoking, sad and at times disconcerting – provides another striking architectural statement. And the Brandenburg Gate will always impress.
Then there are the majestic, nineteenth century tenement houses of the quiet, leafy Prenzlauer Berg district (formerly East Berlin), home to the artists and intellectuals from Berlin, and other countries fleeing the high rents of London, Paris and New York, not to mention the (seemingly) masses of children which have earned the district the nickname of ‘Babyberg’, and an abundance of lo-fi hipper than thou clothing and homeware boutiques, second-hand stores, baby and children’s clothing stores, cafés, restaurants and bars.
The only evidence to me of the city being once wholly and totally divided was Checkpoint Charlie; Russian and American soldiers symbolically holding the flags of their nations (both probably German in reality); boards lining the pavements and telling the history of the Wall and moving accounts of the people who have died trying to cross the Wall from East Germany to freedom. Still, teeming as it was with snap-happy tourists and their cameras (I happily joined in), and surrounded by stalls selling ‘Cold War memorabilia’ (read: tourist tat) and Starbucks-style cafés (including an Einsteinkaffe! At Potsdamer Platz, I spotted a Balzac Café), it was hard to imagine that a wall, ranging in width from 5m to 100m and an even larger idealogical gulf ever existed.
Prejudice
While idly sipping my organic Tiger Spice chai latte one semi sunny afternoon in Prezlauer Berg, I noted a casually-dressed good-looking chap in his late 20s/early 30s emerge onto the pavement, hand in hand with two well-dressed little girls, about knee-high. Following him were another pair of well-dressed little girls, also holding hands. Wow, these Germans have a fabulous social security system, I mused. Or he’s the scion of an old, well-connected, well-to-do German family. Or he has some ridiculously enviable new media job which involves minimal work and large amounts of money. Or he’s a drug dealer. Or…
These thoughts ceased as another pair of well-dressed little girls appeared, hand in hand. Then another. And another. And finally, another casually-dressed good-looking chap appeared, hand-in-hand with and bringing up the rear of the outing with the last pair of girls. Oh, they’re both teachers! I realised, relieved. And then oddly felt guilty for thinking otherwise. Male teachers, all but hounded out of the job by societal prejudice and paranoia, are a rarer than rarer breed, in England.
Potsdam
A slight hiccup with the S-Bahn – I took an express train – which landed me in Brandenburg instead of Potsdam. Finally on the train bound for Sanssouci Park, I was confronted by a stout female ticket inspector who demanded the fare. I proffered my Berlin-Sanssouci ticket and tried to explain that I had taken the wrong train, had hopped off at Brandenburg station and had simply waited in the station for the right train and therefore should not be liable for the fare. But she was having none of it. Her lack of English defeated me and I thought paying (admittedly only 5,10 euro) easier than dealing with this bulldog of a woman.
Frederick the Great built Schloss Sanssouci as his summer palace and scattered the surrounding park and gardens with other pavilions and palaces, notably the Chinesisches Haus (trans: Chinese House), a combination of French Roccocco and Chinoiserie styles. It is also decorated with golden statues of supposedly Chinese men and women, playing oriental instruments. The German sculptors of these statues clearly modelled them on folk which were close at hand, as the statues’ features – prominent foreheads and noses – are clearly not Chinese by any means!
The extensive grounds – which includes a vineyard cultivated by Frederick – were ideal for soaking in the long-missed European sun, watching a family of cygnets, overseen by Mum (or Dad), swimming by, eating my first (and only) wiener and stumbling across Chuck Norris grafitti.
* * *
Two point five days is hardly long enough to get to know or enjoy Berlin, in particular its plethora of underground, unmarked bars. I’ll be back.
*Which is how John F Kennedy meant to address the people of West Berlin on 26 June 1963, of course.
Nice and interesting writing, and am glad that you made it to Berlin once before leaving old Europe. At ground level it is indeed often hard to notice that the city was once divided. However, up on the TV tower, the division of the architectural styles is very clearly marked, with on one side (no need to mention which one) endless long and square white blocks with the ridiculously wide Karl-Marx Alleee cutting through them, and one the other side older style blocks more densely built and on a much smaller scale.
didn’t get a chance to get up to the tv tower but next time!