Cologne

With all the various interesting places to visit in Germany, choosing a spot to relax for a week was difficult. We eventually settled on Cologne, because it seemed to offer lots of interesting museums, a nice thermal bath, and reasonable accomodations. It also appeared to be a little cooler than the cities farther north or farther inland.

Our first night in Cologne was awful. We had booked what appeared to be a lovely spot through Airbnb. When we arrived (after 5, as requested by the owners) it was clean and looked like a score. The very friendly owners gave us a city map and some recommendations on places to see during our visit. Perfect, we thought. 

Once they left we nipped out and got some grub and then settled down for a quiet evening of TV and planning. Click... nothing. The flashy TV wasn't connected to anything. No antenna, and no cable. I emailed the owner and he said he would look into it the next day. As things settled down for the evening we noticed a rumble that shook the entire apartment every five minutes or so. The building was built right over a subway station and the trains were shaking the entire place! Strike two.

Thinking we would get used to the noise, we hopped in the nice looking king sized bed only to find that several of the slats underneath were broken, and every time either of us moved the bed sounded like it was coming apart. Strike three. We resolved to test the Airbnb system and get our money back in the morning.

We were woken up early (after almost no sleep) by work crews working on the side of our building right outside our window. The nightmare continued.

We quickly wrote an email, including pictures, to our host ccing Airbnb asking for our money back and explaining why. The host responded within the hour, refunded everything except the one night we spent there, and Airbnb refunded our booking fees as well. We got back on the website while sitting in the local park and had another place booked an hour later. It was just around the corner, not quite as new, but just as clean, and everything worked and it was quiet. Perfect! Nice work Airbnb. (The host did leave a nasty comment about us being complainers though...)

Cologne is a fabulous city to hang around for a week or so. Once you get past the Dom and the expensive shops there are many other reasonably priced interesting things to do and see. 

Our first visit was to the Ludwig Museum. The museum is known for it's pop art collection (Warhol, Lichtenstein).

The collection is not limited the pop art though, there are many other styles on display.

We also took the tramway across the Rhine to the Claudius Thermalbad and enjoyed several hours of "textilefrei" saunas, baths, and sunbathing. The Germans get spas right.

The tramway goes right over the spa. Zoom in for the textilefrei option.

One of the unique things about Cologne is their special beer (doesn't every German city have a special beer?), Kolsch. It is beer that is brewed a special way inside the city limits of Cologne. They serve it in very small glasses (0.2 liter), in direct contrast with Munich (only liters after four oclock). The Cologne folks argue that beer gets warm in big mugs and so they drink lots of small glasses. The waiters will keep bringing them every couple minutes until you put a coaster on top of your glass. Of course, it is delicious, like all German beer.

Once again, the bike culture thrives in Cologne. There are bike paths everywhere, and drivers are very tolerant and aware of cyclists. There is a city wide bike rental system although we spent our time walking.

Cologne also has some very interesting street art. Of course there are loads of statues dealing with everything that happened in or near cologne in the last 800 or 900 years, but also some recent poignant reminders of the Nazi period.

Edith Stein - German Jewish philosopher nun? - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Stein

The street art needs to be searched out. I couldn't find any good guides about where to look. It's best to just explore with your eyes open.

Balcony art.

9-11 memorial

Love locks on the Hohenzollern Brucke.

We didn't leave the city core except to visit The Music Store, one of the biggest music stores anywhere. We went to get a banjo fix, and we were very pleasantly surprised (despite the crappy banjo selection). We spent half a day poking around the store, playing everything and buying nothing (except a carrot shaker).

We liked Cologne. It is a much quieter city than Berlin or Barcelona, but there are still many things to see and do. A week to explore was nice. A longer stay would be fun because Cologne is a rail hub and very central to that part of Europe. It's an easy day trip to Brussels, and there are many things to see just outside the city (wine!). Don't miss it.

Munich

Munich is my second favourite European city that we have visited after Berlin. At 1.5 million people, it's a little on the small side compared to London and Berlin, but it has a great townie feel to it. It is almost twice the size of Amsterdam, but doesn't seem that way. What's so special about Munich?

Munich is in a great spot. It is right in the southeast corner of Germany just where the alps start. It is a fabulous stepping off point for Austrian, Swiss, Italian and other adventures. There are trains going in every direction. More on the trains later. Munich itself is a destination. There are many galleries and museums, lots of great shopping, and, of course, great beer and food. The whole Bavarian thing is really going on. People still wear their traditional clothes, dirndls and lederhosen and little green hats with badges all over them. 

Munich consistently is rated one of the ten best cities in the world to live in (right behind Victoria, I'm sure). 

We were very fortunate to be hosted by Nancy's cousin Marilyn and her Bavarian husband Eckhard while we visited. (Thanks very much for everything.) They are avid hikers, so we spent several days hiking in various areas around Munich. The original plan was to spend a week up in the Alps, but the weather wasn't cooperating. When we first got to Munich it rained harder than I'd ever seen. It was most unusual for that area at that time.

There were still several nice days which we took full advantage of. Getting into the mountains from Munich is easy, popular and fun. Trains leave very often and are suprisingly inexpensive. We caught the "BOB - Bayerisch Oberlandbahn" to Lenggries on the Austrian Border and hiked up to the Lenggriershutte for the view of the Zugspitz and a bowl of kartofelsuppe and a mug of weissbier (Wheatbeer).

Our next train ride took to Berchesgaden in the Tirol area of Austria. We rented an Airbnb there for three days and did some exploring in the shadow of the Wilde Kaiser, a very dramatic bit of mountain.

(Not my picture)

We had a bit of excitement when we walked in the Airbnb we had rented only to find a family already in there. The mistake was quickly cleared up by the landlord and the people we had frightened went to the correct apartment. We did make friends with them. They were a young English military couple on vacation. He was a recce company commander (Major) and she was an army doctor (Capt). We had drinks with them and their three children in their new apartment. Fun!

The next day we climbed up to the Reidelhutte near the base of the Kaiser. It was a lovely walk.

We spent a day exploring the tourist area of Berchesgaden. It was what you would expect. Yawn.

We returned to Munich the next day and got ourselves sorted out for our final and most challenging hike up the Hollentalklamm (hell's canyon). The Klamm is a narrow gorge near Garmisch that runs through a valley that used to provide hydro electricity to the area. It is one of the access routes to the Zugspitz and the Alpspitze. The hike up to the Klamm was quite steep, but all sorts of folks were on their way up. At the entrance to the Klamm is the Hollentalangerhutte, where we had lunch and changed into our rain gear for the wet hike up through the gorge.

The entrance to the gorge is 4€. The path is a precarious trail hanging off the cliffs and running through tunnels that runs for about 3 or 4 kilometers up the mountain. It is fabulous!

The trail tops out at another alpine hut (being renovated when we were there) and a spot where there is access to the river. There were tired folks recovering from their walk everywhere.

The stroll back down is almost as tough as the one going up. It reminded me of that old alpinist warning, "Remember, when you get to the top, you are only half done."

The ride home on the train was also interesting. It was full of people who had come out of the city to Garmisch to do one of the many hikes.

Munich has a big walking culture and lots of public transport to support it. What a fabulous place to live.

A couple things to note about Munich.

- If you want a beer you had better be thirsty. Most places don't serve beer in less than liter mugs after 4. The one beer you can always get half liters of is weissbeer. 

- Interestingly, alcoholfrei beer is very popular. Every beer tent, bar and restaurant serves it. It is much better than North American "near beer." I drank lots of it, especially at the tops of mountains. It's even good for breakfast.

- People from Munich greet each other with "Gruss Gott." It is apparently a holdover from the Hitler days when people who didn't agree with his policies refused to say "zieg heil. Or something like that.

- Bavarian food is delicious, but lacks vegetables. For our last night their we went out to dinner and I ordered duck (very traditional) and got half a huge duck and a ball of weird Bavarian potato (much more glutenous than our spuds). It tasted great with weissbeer.

- Munich is a popular summer destination for Arabs escaping the heat of Saudi. The streets are full of Arabian men and women enjoying the cool Bavarian weather. One of our neighbours in the Airbnb in Berchesgaden was a family who had just that day artived from Kuwait. The prices downtown reflect the Arab income.

- Dachau, a notorious Concentration Camp is near Munich. We visited. It was a sad reminder of how awful people can be. 

We loved Munich and Bavaria, and the Alps, and the Tirol, and the dirndls, and the beer, and the lederhosen... yadda yadda yadda...

Barcelona

From Berlin we took a direct train to Bielefeld, the site of a British military installation, to visit Nigel and Moira, parents of Libby, our son's partner. This was our second time scrounging off them. I think they are getting to know us. The four of us had planned a quick visit to Barcelona so after three days of visiting Bielefeld (including a trip to the Thermalbad - textilefrei saunas, German style) we hopped a Germanwings budget flight to Barna (slang for Barcelona). Here's a plug for Germanwings - best legroom ever!

We arrived in Barna at two-ish, during the hottest part of the day. The humidity was 100% and the sun was blazing. The walk from the airport to the train, through a glass enclosed elevated walkway, made me feel like a dog in a car on a hot Ottawa day. That was just the beginning. The most difficult part of the move from Bielefeld to Barna was the ground move from the airport to the flat. After the trek through the glass over pass, we fought our way onto a commuter train into the city. It was also quite crowded, but air-conditioned. 

Air conditioned train.

It was wonderful. We had to change trains in the middle of Barna to get on a southbound tube. The walk from one to the other was incredibly long. The tunnel we were walking in was barely high enough for me to stand up straight. There were hundreds of hot tired tourists plodding along in the 100% humidity and foetid air of the passageway. After what seemed like an eternity we got to the end and burrowed even further down looking for our train. We were tropical moles. 

When we got to our stop we emerged into the street only to find that the skies had clouded over, the wind had picked up and rain was on the way. We walked to the Barri Gotic, where we were staying, and found a small cafe to wait for our host. While we sat there, everyone else went into panic mode, grabbed all their stuff and ducked underneath anything they could find. How bad could it get, we thought. What's all the fuss. Seconds later it was tropical moles in a mediterranean rain squall.

Welcome to Barcelona!

A few minutes later our hostess arrived (by bicycle) and let us into the flat. It was terrific. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, nice kitchen, fully equiped with everything from dishwasher to dryer. And, best of all, it was air-conditioned!

Things were looking up! We signed the papers, stashed our kit and headed out for tapas and sangria. The rain had stopped, the streets were clean and full of people, and we were in Barcelona.

Our goal in Barna was to spend a day visiting the touristy stuff (Sagrada Familia, the beach, the Barri Gotic and the Rambla), then spend the rest of the time exploring. We did that. The Sagrada Familia had a zillion people there doing the same thing.

The building is the most exotic and ugly homage to religion ever. I couldn't help but wonder if Gaudi was making fun of the church. Christ with a block head?

From there we walked the 4 or 5 kilometers up to Parc Guell. We hoped that we would beat the crowds, but that was not to be. The lines were huge. The price was ridiculous and the sun was blazing. We had a quick stroll into the free part, snapped a couple pics and bailed. I'll have to Google Parc Guell.

The lines to buy tickets.

From there we walked back down the hill towards the city center. We passed many more people heading up. I wonder if they all went in?

We went to the beach.

The beach is interesting. Apparently Barcelona in particular, and Catalonain general, have made a huge effort in recent years to clean up the beaches and the water and make the place more hospitable. There is even an app for Spanish beach conditions: PlatgesCat. The app will tell you all the stuff you need to know about the beaches. Unfortunately for us it was saying that there was no guarantee of the quality of the water that day. That was good enough for me to stay out, not my darling wife though.

Oh well. 

My favourite part of Barcelona is the food and the architecture. No matter where you are, when you look up there is something interesting to see.

When you get tired of looking up, look around. There is a place to eat in every second doorway. Once you are away from the beach and the Rambla, food is cheap and delicious. Tapas are available everywhere. They are generally small portions of something tasty. The word tapas means tops. They were originally small pieces of bread with something savoury on top used to put on top of your drink to keep the flies out. (And I thought it meant "snacks" or something like that.) 

The hams and cured meats (charcouterie) of Catalonia are unparalleled. Some of the hams in the picture are 99€ a pound. The guy told me that the hams take years to cure. They use special black pigs fed on olives and acorns. The best is Jamon Serrano or Jamon Iberico. Fabulous!

Little cones of ham chunks.

Barcelona is a special place. The architecture and the food are unlike anywhere else, but there is probably a better time to visit. I understand that even the Barcelonians leave the city in August because of the heat and the tourists. If we were to go again we would research a better time.

Berlin, the Schizophrenic City

As incredible as it sounds, in 1931 Berlin, with a population of 4.3 million, was the third largest city in the world after London and New York (Berlin - Then and Now, Nick Gay, 2013). I had to put a reference because I couldn't believe that stat either. Berlin currently has a population of 3.5 million. Why the difference? 

Berlin has a fascinating recent history. After WW II, the city (previously the capital of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), and then the capital of the Third Reich (1933-1945), was divided by the Western Allies, and the Soviet Union, into East and West Berlin. East Berlin was the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), while West Berlin "became a political enclave" of the Federal Republic of Germany (Germany) completely surrounded by the GDR. 

Of course Germany was more fun than the GDR, more successful economically, and a better place to live, so East Berliners left the GDR in droves through West Berlin to live the good life. By 1960, three and a half million East Germans had left, more the 90% through West Berlin. The GDR caught on and on August 13, 1961 erected what we now know as the Berlin Wall - overnight. The wall completely surrounded West Berlin in the hope of making defection from East Berlin impossible.

It was pretty effective. This is what Brandenburg Gate looked like in 1976 when it was right in the midddle of the "death zone" between the two walls that separated East and West Berlin:

Here is what it looked like this week:

Nancy is standing right where the wall was on the western side.

So what does this all have to do with Berlin's schizophrenic personalty?

For the 28 years that the wall stood (1961-1989), the demographic layout of Berlin changed. The section of wall that ran through the middle of Berlin (Berlin-Mitte) effectively cut the best part of Berlin in half. After the wall went up, those parts of the city closest to the wall became undesirable places to live. Specifically Kreuzberg, near Oberbaumbrücke, because it was walled on three sides, became the least desirable part of West Berlin to live in and was settled by workers from outside the country (typically Turks) brought in to rebuild West Berlin. 

The wealthy and the important all lived farther from the wall (on both sides) in nicer areas like Charlottenburg. When the wall came down in 1989 all the places along the part of the wall running through Mitte and Kreuzberg once again became the center of the city, and they have now become very trendy fashionable places to be. And, because they are still full of eastern Europeans and because they don't have the glitz and charm of the wealthy places like Potsdam (East - not on the map) and Charlottenburg (West), they are still very cheap places to stay and eat and live. 

The area around Mitte, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain (originally on the other side of the wall from Kreuzberg) are awful looking. There is graffiti everywhere, many of the buildings are run down, the sidewalks are uneven cobblestones, and it is generally a rough looking part of town. That look is completely misleading. 

Don't let graffiti put you off. Graffiti is a huge part of the sub-culture of Berlin. The wall only had graffiti on one side (the west). The eastern side of the wall was the death zone. The buildings also only had graffiti on them in West Berlin near the wall (because it was the low rent area). The subject of the graffiti (other than the tags) was generally political commentary about a unified Germany. The punishment for graffiti on the east side was much more severe and much more likely than on the west side. Think Siberia. When the wall came down, gray, dull East Berlin became an empty canvas of opportunity for graffitists from both sides of the wall, in fact from around the world. Graffiti exploded. Because Berlin (and Germany) were economically stretched from the various challenges to complete the reunification process, small things like graffiti just didn't matter. There was no money to spend on cleanup, much less catching the perps of the basically victimless crime. (Many of the buildings were uninhabited or in ruins.)

Same two buildings from the other side - schizo!

Similarily, the bleakness of that part of the city will be there until the buildings are renovated. The dull gray crumbling block construction apartments on the east side and along the area of the wall will remain ugly until some enterprising Berliner buys them and fixes them up (they are incredibly cheap). The sidewalks will stay uneven cobbles (with the names of murdered Jews every few meters), not like the smooth groomed sidewalks of Potsdam, maybe forever as a reminder of the notorious past.

But that strange episode in Berlin's history is why the place is schizo. Once you get past the façades of the buildings the people and places are wonderful. Inside those dull gray buildings are terrific hotels, apartments, stores, restaurants and galleries. The change as you go through a doorway is often shocking. 

The contrast of the old and new is very nice.  If you get tired of exploring Mitte and Kreuzberg (it'll take a long time) there is always the rest of Berlin. Charlottenburg is a testament to globalization. You can wander from McDonalds to the North Face store and have a Starbucks on the way. (The Macdonalds they put in Kreuzberg has its windows smashed every time there is some kind of protest. The Subway they put in didn't sell a single sandwich, and it was shut down shortly after opening.)

Beyond Charlottenburg you can head out into what was the East German countryside, perhaps for a swim at Wannasee (where Hitler and his hencmen came up with "The Final Solution").

Perhaps a day trip to Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, a UN Heritage Site (and where the Allies divided up Germany. This palace was the summer home of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. Sanssouci means "without worries". I'm surprised it isn't the center of the Aussi "no worries, mate" philosophy.

The palace and garden.

A little shed for evening jam sessions.

He even had fake ruins built for him to hike up to and look at. 

Berlin is one of my favourite cities ever. It seems to be changing very fast though. If you wanna catch it while it's still a bit raw and inexpensive, then you'd better go soon. The word is out. (Yes, I'm partly to blame.) "Ich bin ein Berliner!" (John F. Kennedy -1963 and Gary J. Davis - 2014)