There’s not really much to say about Milan, as I managed to get sick there. We were only there for a few days, sort of as a stopping point between Rome and France. The original plan was to commence our drive from here, but the car rental companies don’t like you picking up a car in one country and leaving it in another, and they also don’t miss an opportunity to charge you for something.
When we arrived, we felt like an early dinner, but found this was impossible. Restaurants in Milan open for dinner no earlier than about 7:00pm, and sometimes as late as 8:30pm. We walked what seemed like half way to Paris looking for somewhere that was open before heading back to the hotel, only to leave later.
Rose decided to do some shopping in Milan, but her comically small feet betrayed her again. Rose really does struggle to find shoes that fit her, and this was no exception. She had to leave a very nice pair of red shoes at the shoe shop because they were too big.
There’s not too much to do in Milan unless you are there to shop, and you have sufficient cash reserves. The Last Supper by Da Vinci is here, but I only learned this half way through our time in Milan, and by the time we turned up we found that the rest of the day was booked out as they only let 25 people in every 15 minutes. Ah, well.
I managed to purchase a Torres top for our Liverpool excursion. This seemed to be a bad omen as Torres himself immediately went in for season ending knee surgery.
The cathedral in Milan has a marble exterior which makes it look very different to most Italian cathedrals, and the city has the highest density of Dolce & Gabbana’s stores anywhere in the world.
Other than that, we left Milan after a couple of days where I attempted to get plenty of rest. The highlight was probably seeing Torres score a double as Liverpool beat Benfica in the Europa League. It was Torres’ last appearance for the season for the Reds.
The train trip to Ventimiglia was picturesque, and we got off there to change to a French train to cross the border and get to Nice.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Days 19-23 - Rome
The first task when arriving in Rome was getting from the train station to the hotel. We decided to walk – a mistake we would not make again when returning to the train station to catch our train to leave Rome for Milan. The footpaths and the human traffic made it very hard work.
We arrived on Holy Thursday, and I had no opportunity to go to confession. It would have been nice to go to Communion while in Rome at Easter, but, alas, it was not to be.
Our first dinner in Rome was tremendous. We found a little boutique place near our hotel, which served wild boar. I could not resist, and my temptation was rewarded by one of the better meals I’ve ever had. The vegetables were asparagus, zucchini and eggplant, and I did my best, which was considerably better than Rose’s. She had a beef fillet done with a sweet sauce that she enjoyed very much.
It turned out our only opportunity to see the inside of the Vatican would be on Good Friday morning, bright and early on the other side of Rome at 7:45am. We were greeted at our meeting place by a young lady who worked for the tour company. She demonstrated an incredible ability to look lost, confused, exasperated and slightly annoyed, all at the same time. The other couple who were meeting her there got lost, and so we were a little late getting to the Vatican Museum, and then there was more waiting outside the Vatican Museum, and a little more waiting inside the foyer of the Vatican Museum.
It was certainly worth the wait, although there isn’t much time on one of these tours to look around about 7km of Vatican Museum. Apparently some overly prudish Cardinals had ordered some of the ancient Roman statues have their naughty bits covered up, and one would have liked a little more time to look around the place.
However, the main event is down the corridor, as you enter the Sistine Chapel. Despite being full of people, it is still an amazing place. You can see the famous creation scene, as God leans out of a giant brain to touch the hand of Adam. You can see the Judgement Day scene, with the Cardinal who complained about all the naked people on the painting, so Michelangelo painted him in the lowest corner of hell, with Satan himself as a snake, surrounding the Cardinal and biting his Jatz Crackers. Somehow this greatest of artistic f**k yous has survived five hundred years.
After the Sistine Chapel we went outside, and fortunately the queue for the Vatican catacombs was short, so in we went. The most popular tomb is for John Paul II, who still garners a massive amount of admiration and love in Rome, and all over the Catholic world. The prize for me, however, was a little bit further.
Behind a glass screen is an artistic representation of Christ, and about fifteen feet under that is the tomb of St Peter.
In 1939, during renovations, the floor collapsed, and they were able to gain access to the original graves and tombs on which the original St Peter’s was built. They found a body, which tests proved to be a man of 65-70 years of age, who had the build of an agricultural worker such as a farmer or fisherman, who had both feet missing. St Peter, legend says, was crucified upside down at his own insistence by the Romans, and in order to get his body down from his cross before the Romans tossed his body into the Tiber River or fed it to the dogs, the early Christians in Rome took his body but left his feet. Pretty convincing story, that.
St Peter’s itself is a massive church, with mosaics all around instead of paintings, which mean that people can happily use their flashes on their cameras. Just like in the churches of Venice, corpses, or to be more accurate, one corpse, is on display. It is that of Pope John XXIII, the “People’s Pope”, who was elected as a stopgap and started the Second Vatican Council and changed the church for ever. Even after all these years, he looks in good condition.
The crowds inside St Peter’s and all around were crushing, to say the least. In one corner, a number of small confessionals advertised confession in different languages. I was tempted to wander off, but I was on a tour and couldn’t.
It was still morning when we left the Vatican City, and it was time to do what I call the “Rome Salute”. No, this is not some remnant of ancient times carried on through in the new, modern, Italian capital, but what seems like an endless stream of tourists looking at maps, then looking for street signs, then furrowing their brows and looking generally bewildered. It took us a while to get back to the hotel on foot, and having been walking for hours, we decided to rest.
Our pace in Rome soon began to resemble the pace in Venice – not as hectic, but a little more relaxed. As many citizens of Rome work on Good Friday, services for the commemoration of the Passion of Jesus are generally held in the evening. Our afternoon was spent watching snooker on Eurosport and relaxing. Rose now considers herself a bit of a snooker expert.
Rose then did something very nice to me: she accompanied to the Good Friday service down the road. Let the record show that probably Rose’s first attendance at Catholic services outside of weddings (including her own) and funerals was in Rome at Easter. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.
Saturday would be filled with mundane things in the morning (laundry) and the ancient Roman area, including the Colosseum, in the afternoon. We took the opportunity to slowly wander down there in the early afternoon.
Rome is filled with people trying to sell you crap. One suspects that many may be illegal immigrants the system here ignores, so they are free to try and make a few Euros in order to live. Almost none of the stuff they sell is of any use, but they are persistent.
They have managed to preserve a massive amount of ancient ruins right in the middle of Rome, and it did seem a great time to go down there, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. However, we were met for our tour by our friend from the day before, looking more frustrated and completely lost than the day before. If all people are blessed with one world class talent, then looking like she didn’t know what was going on was this person’s.
Unfortunately they didn’t provide enough earphones and receivers for the group, which delayed us about an hour as our guide, a French woman, had the limits of her patients tested by a group predominantly made up of Americans. Americans are everywhere in Rome. By the time the extra sets had arrived we were already in the area of the ruins, and everyone was somewhat jaded by the experience.
By the time we got to the Colosseum we were hungry and tired, but the Colosseum is worth the trouble. I couldn’t help but feel sorry and sad that this great arena had been scavenged for marble and other materials for so long, leaving the site a sorry shell of what it once was.
Early on Sunday morning we made the train trip back to the Vatican City for Easter Sunday mass in the square. We had been told that we wouldn’t be able to get a seat, but it started to rain and this seemed to keep enough people away that a seat was easy to get.
We sat in the light rain for a while before a family two rows behind us gave their spare umbrella to us. It was a little broken, but we were grateful for the shelter.
The rain did its best to mar the mass in the open air, with readings and general intercessions in different languages, and a beautifully sung gospel, but the rain did stop for a short while, and at the most appropriate time – from the start of the consecration to the end of communion. Then it began to come down in bucketloads.
The Pope returned after mass to give his Easter address, followed by an Easter proclamation in what seemed like 43,387 languages. By this time we had decided it was time to try and get warm and dry.
Walking through a crowd of people with umbrellas fully expanded isn’t easy at the best of times, but when that crowd is 100,000 people in St Peter’s Square, it becomes nigh on impossible. It took a long time for us to even get to the edge of the Vatican City.
A long, wet walk down Rome’s incredibly narrow footpaths awaited us, as the rain continued to fall, and Rose started losing feeling in her lower extremities. I think we got back to the hotel just in time for a couple of hours of defrosting and drying.
Our Easter Sunday afternoon had been well planned – going to the local Irish Pub to watch Liverpool and Birmingham. Liverpool were once again disappointing, but five pints of beer each wasn’t. And, of course, we managed to have a group sitting next to us that included a young married couple from Mount Waverley.
We planned some shopping on the Monday, but almost everything was closed, so the day became a bit of a wash, which was probably just as well as we were both feeling the after affects of plenty of beer. Two burgers from Burger King always helps that along, and we bought a couple of DVDs to break the monotony. The only disappointment there was that we bought the wrong Bridget Jones movie, but it wasn’t quite as bad as advertised.
Only on the last morning did we really get to experience, albeit for a very short trip, the joys of being a passenger in an automobile in Rome. This town’s reputation in this regard precedes it, and a short trip to the train station (which we had walked with much difficulty on the way in) was certainly enough.
We arrived on Holy Thursday, and I had no opportunity to go to confession. It would have been nice to go to Communion while in Rome at Easter, but, alas, it was not to be.
Our first dinner in Rome was tremendous. We found a little boutique place near our hotel, which served wild boar. I could not resist, and my temptation was rewarded by one of the better meals I’ve ever had. The vegetables were asparagus, zucchini and eggplant, and I did my best, which was considerably better than Rose’s. She had a beef fillet done with a sweet sauce that she enjoyed very much.
It turned out our only opportunity to see the inside of the Vatican would be on Good Friday morning, bright and early on the other side of Rome at 7:45am. We were greeted at our meeting place by a young lady who worked for the tour company. She demonstrated an incredible ability to look lost, confused, exasperated and slightly annoyed, all at the same time. The other couple who were meeting her there got lost, and so we were a little late getting to the Vatican Museum, and then there was more waiting outside the Vatican Museum, and a little more waiting inside the foyer of the Vatican Museum.
It was certainly worth the wait, although there isn’t much time on one of these tours to look around about 7km of Vatican Museum. Apparently some overly prudish Cardinals had ordered some of the ancient Roman statues have their naughty bits covered up, and one would have liked a little more time to look around the place.
However, the main event is down the corridor, as you enter the Sistine Chapel. Despite being full of people, it is still an amazing place. You can see the famous creation scene, as God leans out of a giant brain to touch the hand of Adam. You can see the Judgement Day scene, with the Cardinal who complained about all the naked people on the painting, so Michelangelo painted him in the lowest corner of hell, with Satan himself as a snake, surrounding the Cardinal and biting his Jatz Crackers. Somehow this greatest of artistic f**k yous has survived five hundred years.
After the Sistine Chapel we went outside, and fortunately the queue for the Vatican catacombs was short, so in we went. The most popular tomb is for John Paul II, who still garners a massive amount of admiration and love in Rome, and all over the Catholic world. The prize for me, however, was a little bit further.
Behind a glass screen is an artistic representation of Christ, and about fifteen feet under that is the tomb of St Peter.
In 1939, during renovations, the floor collapsed, and they were able to gain access to the original graves and tombs on which the original St Peter’s was built. They found a body, which tests proved to be a man of 65-70 years of age, who had the build of an agricultural worker such as a farmer or fisherman, who had both feet missing. St Peter, legend says, was crucified upside down at his own insistence by the Romans, and in order to get his body down from his cross before the Romans tossed his body into the Tiber River or fed it to the dogs, the early Christians in Rome took his body but left his feet. Pretty convincing story, that.
St Peter’s itself is a massive church, with mosaics all around instead of paintings, which mean that people can happily use their flashes on their cameras. Just like in the churches of Venice, corpses, or to be more accurate, one corpse, is on display. It is that of Pope John XXIII, the “People’s Pope”, who was elected as a stopgap and started the Second Vatican Council and changed the church for ever. Even after all these years, he looks in good condition.
The crowds inside St Peter’s and all around were crushing, to say the least. In one corner, a number of small confessionals advertised confession in different languages. I was tempted to wander off, but I was on a tour and couldn’t.
It was still morning when we left the Vatican City, and it was time to do what I call the “Rome Salute”. No, this is not some remnant of ancient times carried on through in the new, modern, Italian capital, but what seems like an endless stream of tourists looking at maps, then looking for street signs, then furrowing their brows and looking generally bewildered. It took us a while to get back to the hotel on foot, and having been walking for hours, we decided to rest.
Our pace in Rome soon began to resemble the pace in Venice – not as hectic, but a little more relaxed. As many citizens of Rome work on Good Friday, services for the commemoration of the Passion of Jesus are generally held in the evening. Our afternoon was spent watching snooker on Eurosport and relaxing. Rose now considers herself a bit of a snooker expert.
Rose then did something very nice to me: she accompanied to the Good Friday service down the road. Let the record show that probably Rose’s first attendance at Catholic services outside of weddings (including her own) and funerals was in Rome at Easter. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.
Saturday would be filled with mundane things in the morning (laundry) and the ancient Roman area, including the Colosseum, in the afternoon. We took the opportunity to slowly wander down there in the early afternoon.
Rome is filled with people trying to sell you crap. One suspects that many may be illegal immigrants the system here ignores, so they are free to try and make a few Euros in order to live. Almost none of the stuff they sell is of any use, but they are persistent.
They have managed to preserve a massive amount of ancient ruins right in the middle of Rome, and it did seem a great time to go down there, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. However, we were met for our tour by our friend from the day before, looking more frustrated and completely lost than the day before. If all people are blessed with one world class talent, then looking like she didn’t know what was going on was this person’s.
Unfortunately they didn’t provide enough earphones and receivers for the group, which delayed us about an hour as our guide, a French woman, had the limits of her patients tested by a group predominantly made up of Americans. Americans are everywhere in Rome. By the time the extra sets had arrived we were already in the area of the ruins, and everyone was somewhat jaded by the experience.
By the time we got to the Colosseum we were hungry and tired, but the Colosseum is worth the trouble. I couldn’t help but feel sorry and sad that this great arena had been scavenged for marble and other materials for so long, leaving the site a sorry shell of what it once was.
Early on Sunday morning we made the train trip back to the Vatican City for Easter Sunday mass in the square. We had been told that we wouldn’t be able to get a seat, but it started to rain and this seemed to keep enough people away that a seat was easy to get.
We sat in the light rain for a while before a family two rows behind us gave their spare umbrella to us. It was a little broken, but we were grateful for the shelter.
The rain did its best to mar the mass in the open air, with readings and general intercessions in different languages, and a beautifully sung gospel, but the rain did stop for a short while, and at the most appropriate time – from the start of the consecration to the end of communion. Then it began to come down in bucketloads.
The Pope returned after mass to give his Easter address, followed by an Easter proclamation in what seemed like 43,387 languages. By this time we had decided it was time to try and get warm and dry.
Walking through a crowd of people with umbrellas fully expanded isn’t easy at the best of times, but when that crowd is 100,000 people in St Peter’s Square, it becomes nigh on impossible. It took a long time for us to even get to the edge of the Vatican City.
A long, wet walk down Rome’s incredibly narrow footpaths awaited us, as the rain continued to fall, and Rose started losing feeling in her lower extremities. I think we got back to the hotel just in time for a couple of hours of defrosting and drying.
Our Easter Sunday afternoon had been well planned – going to the local Irish Pub to watch Liverpool and Birmingham. Liverpool were once again disappointing, but five pints of beer each wasn’t. And, of course, we managed to have a group sitting next to us that included a young married couple from Mount Waverley.
We planned some shopping on the Monday, but almost everything was closed, so the day became a bit of a wash, which was probably just as well as we were both feeling the after affects of plenty of beer. Two burgers from Burger King always helps that along, and we bought a couple of DVDs to break the monotony. The only disappointment there was that we bought the wrong Bridget Jones movie, but it wasn’t quite as bad as advertised.
Only on the last morning did we really get to experience, albeit for a very short trip, the joys of being a passenger in an automobile in Rome. This town’s reputation in this regard precedes it, and a short trip to the train station (which we had walked with much difficulty on the way in) was certainly enough.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Days 14-18 - Venice
Venice is possibly the last truly unique city in the world. It has 300,000 people, but no cars (except for a car park near the train station, which is basically the entry to the city). The airport is on the mainland, and you need to catch a water bus (or a hideously overpriced water taxi) from the airport to Venice proper.
It is easy to get lost in Venice, but, at the same time, it is almost impossible. On more than one occasion, we followed a lane and ended up almost walking into one of the canals. But you make your way back and eventually find your way. I became so lost once I led us into a industrial shipmaking area, walking over a metal gangway attached to an outer wall over the sea.
We took the opportunity to enjoy a more relaxed pace in Venice, as we were there for five nights. We sampled plenty of food, some very good, some pretty pedestrian.
On the negative side, I tried to order an 18 Euro bottle of wine on one evening, and ended up being charged (successfully, as we drank it completely unknowingly) for a 50 Euro bottle of wine. It almost ruined a carefully planned evening, as we were going to a Vivaldi performance afterward. The beauty of that music managed to take a bad taste out of my mouth regarding dinner, which had left me wishing out loud for the predictability and honesty of home.
We visited plenty of churches. An Italian Catholic tendency is to house fully viewable corpses of holy people inside their churches. Needless to say, this completely weirded Rose out. I was somewhat prepared for this eventuality, but for Rose it was a new experience.
Churches in Venice generally have their walls covered in paintings, some of which depict easily identifiable religious events, and others that require a little explaining. There are more graves and crypts under the floor, and as a rule, the high altars that were used under the Old Catholic Rite remain untouched, as well as unused in the New Order.
Our stay in Venice coincided with Passion Sunday, and it was about time I went to church. The priest tended to do his preaching before each reading, contributing to my confusion, but I followed when I could and responded in English most of the time. Meanwhile Rose did the washing at a laundry that required many visits to local vendors for small treats, in order to garner the needed change for the machines.
We did the gondola thing – I don’t want to ruin it for anyone but everyone in Venice knows you, the tourist, are coming, and the gondola is the one identifiable aspect about Venice known all over the world. The shortest ride available is 80 Euro, which is about $115, but when you are on your honeymoon, you spare the money, even if the ride lasts only twenty wonderful minutes. The added bonus was our gondolier (the driver) looked exactly like my Year 12 Politics teacher.
We each tried a pizza in Venice – and I think they probably try to cater to the tourist’s expectations too much. All pizzas have a thin base, but then the varieties are pretty compatible with those you’ll find all over the English speaking world.
Rose and I also visited the former Doge’s palace in San Marco, one of the districts of Venice. While the palace is full of paintings, sculptures and special rooms, and also a prison, the real interest is in the administrative system used in the Republic of Venice for many years. A council of esteemed male citizens elected a Doge, sort of like a President, who acted much like a modern head of state, with a mostly ceremonial role, while the council made the important decisions and ran the city. This mode of government lasted for 500 years without any great change until a little bloke called Napoleon came through the area.
I have to confess – one evening was mainly spent watching St Kilda beat Sydney on my laptop.
The greatest joy one can experience in Venice is merely being there, walking through the laneways, discovering another square with its church. The church next to the Palace in San Marco is reputed to have the body (not the head, apparently it is still in Alexandra) of St Mark the Evangelist, reputed author of the first gospel written, the Gospel according to Mark. The line was so long to get into this church we gave it a miss.
The story of how St Mark came to be in Venice is a great one. Apparently when still alive, his ship ran aground here and an angel visited him and informed St Mark that it would be here that he would be at eternal rest. For over a millennia his eternal rest was in Alexandra, until the newly formed Republic of Venice needed a patron saint. They didn’t want it to be St Peter, as to differentiate it from the Holy Roman Empire. So they went and stole St Mark’s body and moved it to Venice. The official emblem of Venice now includes the Lion of St Mark, holding a book opened to the page where the message the Angel gave to St Mark is written.
There is only one McDonalds in Venice, although there is a Hard Rock Cafe (which cannot be said about Melbourne any more). Sitting down for a drink during the day is expensive, and having been brought up on Melbourne sized portions in restaurants, one needs to get used to smaller amounts on the plate in Europe generally. It is, however, better for the waistline, as is walking everywhere.
My April Fool’s Day joke was on myself this year, as I got the idea in my head that we were leaving a day before we actually were.
The next day, we were actually on our way, after five days without seeing a car, bus or train, of seeing water transport vehicles with two men on board, little outboard motors, and boxes and boxes of goods, of hearing “Gondola, Gondola” about four hundred times, and of wandering around this beautiful, romantic city that is Venice.
It is easy to get lost in Venice, but, at the same time, it is almost impossible. On more than one occasion, we followed a lane and ended up almost walking into one of the canals. But you make your way back and eventually find your way. I became so lost once I led us into a industrial shipmaking area, walking over a metal gangway attached to an outer wall over the sea.
We took the opportunity to enjoy a more relaxed pace in Venice, as we were there for five nights. We sampled plenty of food, some very good, some pretty pedestrian.
On the negative side, I tried to order an 18 Euro bottle of wine on one evening, and ended up being charged (successfully, as we drank it completely unknowingly) for a 50 Euro bottle of wine. It almost ruined a carefully planned evening, as we were going to a Vivaldi performance afterward. The beauty of that music managed to take a bad taste out of my mouth regarding dinner, which had left me wishing out loud for the predictability and honesty of home.
We visited plenty of churches. An Italian Catholic tendency is to house fully viewable corpses of holy people inside their churches. Needless to say, this completely weirded Rose out. I was somewhat prepared for this eventuality, but for Rose it was a new experience.
Churches in Venice generally have their walls covered in paintings, some of which depict easily identifiable religious events, and others that require a little explaining. There are more graves and crypts under the floor, and as a rule, the high altars that were used under the Old Catholic Rite remain untouched, as well as unused in the New Order.
Our stay in Venice coincided with Passion Sunday, and it was about time I went to church. The priest tended to do his preaching before each reading, contributing to my confusion, but I followed when I could and responded in English most of the time. Meanwhile Rose did the washing at a laundry that required many visits to local vendors for small treats, in order to garner the needed change for the machines.
We did the gondola thing – I don’t want to ruin it for anyone but everyone in Venice knows you, the tourist, are coming, and the gondola is the one identifiable aspect about Venice known all over the world. The shortest ride available is 80 Euro, which is about $115, but when you are on your honeymoon, you spare the money, even if the ride lasts only twenty wonderful minutes. The added bonus was our gondolier (the driver) looked exactly like my Year 12 Politics teacher.
We each tried a pizza in Venice – and I think they probably try to cater to the tourist’s expectations too much. All pizzas have a thin base, but then the varieties are pretty compatible with those you’ll find all over the English speaking world.
Rose and I also visited the former Doge’s palace in San Marco, one of the districts of Venice. While the palace is full of paintings, sculptures and special rooms, and also a prison, the real interest is in the administrative system used in the Republic of Venice for many years. A council of esteemed male citizens elected a Doge, sort of like a President, who acted much like a modern head of state, with a mostly ceremonial role, while the council made the important decisions and ran the city. This mode of government lasted for 500 years without any great change until a little bloke called Napoleon came through the area.
I have to confess – one evening was mainly spent watching St Kilda beat Sydney on my laptop.
The greatest joy one can experience in Venice is merely being there, walking through the laneways, discovering another square with its church. The church next to the Palace in San Marco is reputed to have the body (not the head, apparently it is still in Alexandra) of St Mark the Evangelist, reputed author of the first gospel written, the Gospel according to Mark. The line was so long to get into this church we gave it a miss.
The story of how St Mark came to be in Venice is a great one. Apparently when still alive, his ship ran aground here and an angel visited him and informed St Mark that it would be here that he would be at eternal rest. For over a millennia his eternal rest was in Alexandra, until the newly formed Republic of Venice needed a patron saint. They didn’t want it to be St Peter, as to differentiate it from the Holy Roman Empire. So they went and stole St Mark’s body and moved it to Venice. The official emblem of Venice now includes the Lion of St Mark, holding a book opened to the page where the message the Angel gave to St Mark is written.
There is only one McDonalds in Venice, although there is a Hard Rock Cafe (which cannot be said about Melbourne any more). Sitting down for a drink during the day is expensive, and having been brought up on Melbourne sized portions in restaurants, one needs to get used to smaller amounts on the plate in Europe generally. It is, however, better for the waistline, as is walking everywhere.
My April Fool’s Day joke was on myself this year, as I got the idea in my head that we were leaving a day before we actually were.
The next day, we were actually on our way, after five days without seeing a car, bus or train, of seeing water transport vehicles with two men on board, little outboard motors, and boxes and boxes of goods, of hearing “Gondola, Gondola” about four hundred times, and of wandering around this beautiful, romantic city that is Venice.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Day 11-13 - Berlin
I got to admit – Berlin was probably the first place we went where I felt that we could have done with another day there.
It didn’t take me long to get in the spirit of Berlin, and of Germany – within three hours of our arrival, I’d already eaten a schnitzel. But that was not before a somewhat terrifying cab ride from the main train station in Berlin, which, by the way, is massive, has four levels and numerous shops. Our taxi driver insisted on trying to strike up conversation in a loud, outrageous voice. All this was fine, but he didn’t speak a syllable of English. The only information we were able to convey was where our hotel was located, although he took us there via what seemed to be Berlin’s red light district, and that we were married and on our honeymoon. It was good fun.
The restaurant where I devoured the aforementioned schnitzel was in a posh hotel, but prices were reasonable, the service was excellent and friendly, and the food was very good. They even insisted on giving us free cucumber soup, which was served cold. I avoided a Rimmer moment.
Next morning we were up, and had a clear plan for the day. On the other side of Berlin from where we were staying, which we later found out was very close to the city centre of the old West Berlin, is the Museum Island, which is a small portion of land surrounded by canals and rivers, on which is located five museums. More importantly, nearby at the corresponding train station, was Rafferty’s Irish Pub. Priorities.
The first museum we went into was the Art Museum, which contained mostly German art from the 18th and 19th Century. One of the great things about Berlin is they sell you a three day pass for about 20 Euro, and this enables you entry into about 30 different museums located all across Berlin. During our two full days in Berlin, these came in very handy indeed.
Anyone who knows me well knows I am not much of an art buff, but Rose is and I was happy to accompany her, always, it seemed, one or two pictures ahead of her. Most of the art in this museum was of a similar theme; there were a lot of landscapes and portraits, and also a lot of Romanesque sculpture. It also encompassed three large floors, and took about 2 and a half hours to get around, so after that we were quite ready for a sit and a cool drink.
Unfortunately, we only really had time for the Pergammon Museum after that. This is the Ancient History museum, or if you wanted to be more blunt (and possibly more offensive to Germans); the stuff the Germans stole from Egypt and Greece. There are entire reconstructions of ancient Greek and Egyptian city walls included in massive rooms. In fact, the Germans don’t really do small museums.
The sheer volume of artefacts stored in the Pergammon Museum is pretty overwhelming, and nearly all of them date before the time of Christ. Another two and half hours and it was time to get back to West Berlin and have some dinner.
A little like Czech or Polish food, there really isn’t anything too light on a German food menu, and this is not ideal for someone like Rose who isn’t a big eater, and likes to have plenty of vegetables on her plate. After trying the sauerkraut in Prague, she decided she didn’t like it, while much to our surprise, I didn’t mind it.
We searched in vain for what seemed to be an hour for an Irish Pub that was advertised in the main business district around our hotel, only to eventually find it and discover that their food menu was more snack oriented. So we went next door into a Bavarian place. I tried to order a litre of beer, because I was in Germany and wanted to drink out of one of those huge steins, but they brought me back a litre of shandy (beer mixed with lemonade), and then made me pay for it. Not the best end to the day.
The next morning we decided to get on the tour bus, as you could get on and off all day, and we had some museums marked that we didn’t have to pay to enter with our free pass. First stop was a Potzdamer Platz, which was No Man’s Land when the Berlin Wall was up. Our tour guide on the bus gives information in both German and English, but forgets to pause between speaking languages, leaving the passengers little time to catch up. He explains about the Platz, and that all the bits of the “Wall” that have been sold would, if put together, make up about three walls.
Near the Platz is the Musical Instrument Museum. This is a fun place, and a school group is being toured through with an expert from the museum playing different instruments as he goes. There are some incredibly complicated and involved organs and keyboards, and more wind instruments that you can shake a clarinet at.
We pass a giant Lego giraffe on the way back to the Platz, and a group of women campaigning for equal pay. They try to give Rose some paraphernalia until they realise she isn’t German. Maybe it was the Dunlop Volleys that gave her away.
Next stop is Checkpoint Charlie. This is a pretty over the top place, and fake soldiers man the place where one could travel from East to West and vice versa when the wall stood. There are large chunks of the wall in various places around here, some hanging on the front of buildings.
From here we walk to the Jewish Museum. Housed under an older building, the Jewish Museum is actually a very modern piece of architecture centred on three narrow hallways called the Axis of Continuity, the Axis of Exile, and the Axis of the Holocaust.
Between different segments of the building are intended voids, and the artistic intention of the building is hard to ignore. At the end of the hallway for the Axis of the Holocaust is a massive, empty room several stories high, devoid of heating and almost devoid of natural light.
Upstairs is the actual museum, but trying to follow a continuity of Jewish history is a little like trying to find a sequential narrative in Pulp Fiction. Needless to say, the events of World War II and the deeds of the Nazis left a massive hole in German Jewish history that is only being started to fill as we speak.
After getting back on the bus we toured more of the area located in what was East Berlin, which was the traditional city centre, and is also where Museum Island is located. After moving through the city centre we landed at the Brandenburg Gate; the ancient gate to the city. It was entirely located on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall, so no one went through it for nearly forty years. I was so excited I went through it twice.
Symbolically, just past the Gate on the eastern side is the Kennedy Museum. It is a private museum so we had to pay, but as far as I was concerned, it was worth it. It is a small yet significant collection of Kennedy items and photographs, and it gave me the opportunity to fill in Rose on the Kennedys while walking her around. My definition of a productive afternoon.
We got back on the bus for the last time and went past the Reichstag, where the parliament of the German Republic sits once more, and also the offices of the Chancellor and the residence of the President. We were also shown a cobblestone line through Berlin which indicates the former location of the Berlin Wall.
Back in West Berlin, we stopped by a German pub and drank some genuine German beer, Rose the regular variety, and me the dark variety, which tasted and drank very similar to stout. Rose had some Roast Pork which she enjoyed, although she didn’t touch her red cabbage, while I had some German Sausages, with sauerkraut.
While dining, Rose remarked that the history in Berlin was “in your face”, and it was hard to avoid. I love recent world history, so Berlin was somewhere I wanted to go from the outset, but it seemed Rose had been convinced by Berlin of its significance. I could have easily spent another day going out to the town hall where Kennedy Platz is located, where Kennedy gave his famous speech where he avowed himself either a citizen of Berlin or a donut, depending on your interpretation of German grammar and expression. You could visit numerous other museums with a three day pass, exploring ancient art, modern art, the history of the Berlin Wall, or many other things.
So that is why I say that three nights, and two full days, is simply not enough time in Berlin. It demands a deeper study. I will return to Istanbul, but only because I am, at some stage, going back to Gallipoli. I’m not done there; I’m not finished. But I know I’ll be back in Berlin one day, because it is required. So much to do, so little time.
It didn’t take me long to get in the spirit of Berlin, and of Germany – within three hours of our arrival, I’d already eaten a schnitzel. But that was not before a somewhat terrifying cab ride from the main train station in Berlin, which, by the way, is massive, has four levels and numerous shops. Our taxi driver insisted on trying to strike up conversation in a loud, outrageous voice. All this was fine, but he didn’t speak a syllable of English. The only information we were able to convey was where our hotel was located, although he took us there via what seemed to be Berlin’s red light district, and that we were married and on our honeymoon. It was good fun.
The restaurant where I devoured the aforementioned schnitzel was in a posh hotel, but prices were reasonable, the service was excellent and friendly, and the food was very good. They even insisted on giving us free cucumber soup, which was served cold. I avoided a Rimmer moment.
Next morning we were up, and had a clear plan for the day. On the other side of Berlin from where we were staying, which we later found out was very close to the city centre of the old West Berlin, is the Museum Island, which is a small portion of land surrounded by canals and rivers, on which is located five museums. More importantly, nearby at the corresponding train station, was Rafferty’s Irish Pub. Priorities.
The first museum we went into was the Art Museum, which contained mostly German art from the 18th and 19th Century. One of the great things about Berlin is they sell you a three day pass for about 20 Euro, and this enables you entry into about 30 different museums located all across Berlin. During our two full days in Berlin, these came in very handy indeed.
Anyone who knows me well knows I am not much of an art buff, but Rose is and I was happy to accompany her, always, it seemed, one or two pictures ahead of her. Most of the art in this museum was of a similar theme; there were a lot of landscapes and portraits, and also a lot of Romanesque sculpture. It also encompassed three large floors, and took about 2 and a half hours to get around, so after that we were quite ready for a sit and a cool drink.
Unfortunately, we only really had time for the Pergammon Museum after that. This is the Ancient History museum, or if you wanted to be more blunt (and possibly more offensive to Germans); the stuff the Germans stole from Egypt and Greece. There are entire reconstructions of ancient Greek and Egyptian city walls included in massive rooms. In fact, the Germans don’t really do small museums.
The sheer volume of artefacts stored in the Pergammon Museum is pretty overwhelming, and nearly all of them date before the time of Christ. Another two and half hours and it was time to get back to West Berlin and have some dinner.
A little like Czech or Polish food, there really isn’t anything too light on a German food menu, and this is not ideal for someone like Rose who isn’t a big eater, and likes to have plenty of vegetables on her plate. After trying the sauerkraut in Prague, she decided she didn’t like it, while much to our surprise, I didn’t mind it.
We searched in vain for what seemed to be an hour for an Irish Pub that was advertised in the main business district around our hotel, only to eventually find it and discover that their food menu was more snack oriented. So we went next door into a Bavarian place. I tried to order a litre of beer, because I was in Germany and wanted to drink out of one of those huge steins, but they brought me back a litre of shandy (beer mixed with lemonade), and then made me pay for it. Not the best end to the day.
The next morning we decided to get on the tour bus, as you could get on and off all day, and we had some museums marked that we didn’t have to pay to enter with our free pass. First stop was a Potzdamer Platz, which was No Man’s Land when the Berlin Wall was up. Our tour guide on the bus gives information in both German and English, but forgets to pause between speaking languages, leaving the passengers little time to catch up. He explains about the Platz, and that all the bits of the “Wall” that have been sold would, if put together, make up about three walls.
Near the Platz is the Musical Instrument Museum. This is a fun place, and a school group is being toured through with an expert from the museum playing different instruments as he goes. There are some incredibly complicated and involved organs and keyboards, and more wind instruments that you can shake a clarinet at.
We pass a giant Lego giraffe on the way back to the Platz, and a group of women campaigning for equal pay. They try to give Rose some paraphernalia until they realise she isn’t German. Maybe it was the Dunlop Volleys that gave her away.
Next stop is Checkpoint Charlie. This is a pretty over the top place, and fake soldiers man the place where one could travel from East to West and vice versa when the wall stood. There are large chunks of the wall in various places around here, some hanging on the front of buildings.
From here we walk to the Jewish Museum. Housed under an older building, the Jewish Museum is actually a very modern piece of architecture centred on three narrow hallways called the Axis of Continuity, the Axis of Exile, and the Axis of the Holocaust.
Between different segments of the building are intended voids, and the artistic intention of the building is hard to ignore. At the end of the hallway for the Axis of the Holocaust is a massive, empty room several stories high, devoid of heating and almost devoid of natural light.
Upstairs is the actual museum, but trying to follow a continuity of Jewish history is a little like trying to find a sequential narrative in Pulp Fiction. Needless to say, the events of World War II and the deeds of the Nazis left a massive hole in German Jewish history that is only being started to fill as we speak.
Symbolically, just past the Gate on the eastern side is the Kennedy Museum. It is a private museum so we had to pay, but as far as I was concerned, it was worth it. It is a small yet significant collection of Kennedy items and photographs, and it gave me the opportunity to fill in Rose on the Kennedys while walking her around. My definition of a productive afternoon.
We got back on the bus for the last time and went past the Reichstag, where the parliament of the German Republic sits once more, and also the offices of the Chancellor and the residence of the President. We were also shown a cobblestone line through Berlin which indicates the former location of the Berlin Wall.
Back in West Berlin, we stopped by a German pub and drank some genuine German beer, Rose the regular variety, and me the dark variety, which tasted and drank very similar to stout. Rose had some Roast Pork which she enjoyed, although she didn’t touch her red cabbage, while I had some German Sausages, with sauerkraut.
While dining, Rose remarked that the history in Berlin was “in your face”, and it was hard to avoid. I love recent world history, so Berlin was somewhere I wanted to go from the outset, but it seemed Rose had been convinced by Berlin of its significance. I could have easily spent another day going out to the town hall where Kennedy Platz is located, where Kennedy gave his famous speech where he avowed himself either a citizen of Berlin or a donut, depending on your interpretation of German grammar and expression. You could visit numerous other museums with a three day pass, exploring ancient art, modern art, the history of the Berlin Wall, or many other things.
So that is why I say that three nights, and two full days, is simply not enough time in Berlin. It demands a deeper study. I will return to Istanbul, but only because I am, at some stage, going back to Gallipoli. I’m not done there; I’m not finished. But I know I’ll be back in Berlin one day, because it is required. So much to do, so little time.
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