Nimis (Nov 11)

Today we visited another 'country' the micro-nation of Ladonia which was proclaimed in 1996.

The area came about thanks to a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, who constructed wooden structures on the beach near Mölle in the Kullaberg nature park and named them Nimis (latin for too much) and Arx (latin for fortress) in 1980.

When they were discovered two years later, the council wanted them torn down as buildings were not allowed to be constructed on the nature reserve.

Vilks continued to protest and appeal the decisions but the final ruling was in favour of the government.

Two artists, Chriso and Jeanne-Claude purchased, Nimis and declared it a micro-nation in protest.

The nation of Ladonia is ruled by a Queen and President.  The current Queen is HRH Queen Carolyn, who resides in America and the president is selected tri-annually.  Vilks still serves as the state  secretary.

The micro-nation now has 17,752 registered citizens, all who live elsewhere.

More information can be found here.

It is quite difficult to get to Nimis - it is not signposted and is on a secluded beach.  We drove to the Kullaberg nature park, through Krapperup:

Krapperup

From there, we followed what was intially an easy bush walk, following the yellow 'N's painted on trees and rocks:

An 'N'

"Follow the Yellow N Road"

Looking through the trees at the beach

After a while, the way became much rockier and steeper.  We were lucky it hadn't been too wet because even with the slightly damp leaves, we had a few slips:

Heading down

When we eventually got near the bottom we were greeted with a tangle of wood that looked a little like the next of some enormous crazy bird, but eventually resolved itself into a staircase, tunnel and a couple of towers:

Tunnel

Heading down

Tomas makes his way down

View down to the towers

It was an interesting walk and a tight squeeze in some places

Nimis and Arx

Nimis

Towers

Alana and Cam exploring

Nimis from the beach

The beach

Arx - the Fortress

Exploring Arx

Cam and Alana made it to the top (Cam is the smear of blue)

The scarecrow

Tom at the top - red jacket

Cam with his walking stick

Alana and her stick

Alana and Cameron exploring

Climbing

Tom at the top

After Nimis, we headed back up the hill - it was a worse trip up but we made it in one piece.  We then decided to head out the the Gekås superstore at Ullared to get some clothes for the kids.  By the time we got there it was 2pm, we shopped until 4:30pm.  Since it was a Saturday near closing time, the lines were crazy!  There were over 30 checkouts open and each had at least 50 people waiting.  On top of that each person had an oversized trolley (at least) filled with a stack of shopping, so it was slow going.

By 7pm I took the kids outside to get some dinner, while Kris stayed in the line.  We ended up leaving around 8:30pm and arriving home around 11:00pm - it was a fun (well except for shopping and queues) but very long day.

Germany, Austria and Prague (28 Oct - 4 Nov) - Day 7 & 8

The final stop of our trip was Berlin.  We left Prague reasonably early and arrived in Berlin around 2pm.

We decided to head out to Charlottenburg Palace which was built in the 17th century.  It was built for Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III who was the Elector of Brandenburg, who was eventually crowed King Friedrich I.

We had a pretty rushed trip as we were all pretty tired from the drive and the big day in Prague and because the kids really needed to pee after the drive and there were no public toilets there unless we paid to go in.

Charlottenburg Palace

Statue of Friedrich III

Charlottenburg

The dome

The Palace

Statue of Freidrich Wilhelm I

Entrance to the Palace

Gate statue

After the palace we walked down the main street for lunch and a toilet break - eventually ending at a KFC.

The Charlottenburg Town Hall (Rathaus Charlottenburg)

The tower of the Charlottenburg town was pretty impressive.  The hall was built in 1899 to serve as the town hall for the independent city of Charlottenburg in Prussia.

An interestingly painted building

There were lots of these odd water pipes throughout town

Entrance to Berlin Zoo

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Unfortunately I didn't get any good shots of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church as we drove past - it was built in the 1890s and partially destroyed by bombing in 1943.

College of Fine Arts

After lunch/dinner we decided to check into our apartment and then head out later to see more of   Berlin.  Instead we ended up falling asleep.  However we did end up seeing a few more things on the drive to the apartment:


The next day we got a reasonably early start and caught the subway into the centre of Berlin.  We got off at Hallesches Tor and walked past the Berlin Peace Column (Friedenssäule), built in 1843 (ironically just before the two World Wars).  It is topped with a statue of Victoria, the goddess of victory.

Friedenssäule

Victoria

One thing Berlin is famous for is it's graffti street art and murals and we saw some interesting ones along our walk:

"Man I knew I shouldn't have drunk all those birds last night! Bleeeeh"

Our first stop was Checkpoint Charlie - a reconstruction of the checkpoint between East and West Berlin, back in the days when the city was divided by the Berlin Wall.

Checkpoint Charlie

Signpost

It was pretty cool to see the history, but the site was obviously a tourist trap, with a reconstruction of the checkpoint and Germans dressed as American soldiers to pose for photos.

I'm sure the former East Germans would have loved this

Looking back from East Berlin

Tomas posing with a piece of the former Berlin wall

"Not for sale" - I'm not sure who'd want to buy such a massive piece of wall, or how they'd get it home

Cam at the wall

Us

We have a couple of Alana also, but she didn't really look impressed so asked us not to post them.

The original division

Our next stop was the site of the former Fuherbunker - the bunker where Hilter and Eva Braun finished the war.  The bunker itself has since been destroyed, but there were markers and information at the site:

Site of the Fuherbunker

Not much sign that such an important place ever existed

Our next stop was an important one after my visit to Auschwitz a few months earlier.  We visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or the Berlin Holocaust memorial.

The memorial consists of 2,711 concrete stelae in a sloping pattern so you could start with short ones at your feet and slowly find them towering over your head as you walked.  The memorial was built in 2004 and inaugurated in 2005 to mark the 60 year anniversary of the war.  It was quite daunting and impressive to walk between the stelae - covering a field of 19,000 m^2 - 54 stelae north-south and 87  east-west.

Looking out across the memorial

Memorial

Looking down a row of stalae

Looking down across the memorial

The video above shows a walk through of the stelae.

Our next stop was the Brandenburg Gate (Bradendenburger Tor), which was built in 1791 by Frederick William II after he restored order in the Batavarian Revolution.

Statue under the Gate

The picture above has a funny story.  When we arrived at the gate there was a family trying to get the dog to stand in the right position for a photo with the statue.  The dog kept moving and wandering around and they were trying to rush so they didn't hog the statue to themselves.

Brandenburg Gate

Top of the gate

Us at the gate

Just behind the gate was the Reichstagsgebäude (Reichstag Building, or parliament house):

Reichstagsgebäude

After the Reichstag Building we headed down the main road from the Gate - Bundestraße 2 and came across the Equestrian Statue of Frederick the Great (Reiterstandbild König Friedrich II von Preußen), which was designed in 1839 to memorialize King Frederick:

Frederick the Great

and then St Hedwig's Cathedral:

St Hedwig's

and the Humboldt University of Berlin,

Humboldt University of Berlin.

which is where Max Planck (famous for Planck's constant, links the amount of energy a photon carries with the frequency of its electromagnetic wave) studied.

University gates

Across the road was the university Alte Bibliothek (Old Library)

Old Library

Next along the road was the Zeughaus, a former arsenal that now serves as a museum:

Zeughaus

Zeughaus roof

Lantern on the Zeughaus

Front of the Zeughaus

There were substantial roadworks in front of the Zeughaus, but at least the signs were interesting:

Nothing says "Subway construction works" like a woman pashing a bear.

(the translation of their speech bubbles is taking about the train-line works and is something like "Without changing the main line? That seems Spanish to me" and "Caramba! It will soon not be a problem with the U5"

One of the things we've been doing on our trip is using penny presses to create crushed souvenir pennies:

The kids loved doing them and we've got a good collection now.

Our next stop was the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), which was started in 1451 and the current building was finished in 1905:

Berlin Cathedral

Statues lining the road to the cathedral

Above the Cathedral entrance

"and Lo, the angel came down and smite the naked drunk with the golden wheat thusly!"

"Hey, look over there!"

"If you put some clothes on and put your sword away you can have this wreath"

"Close enough"

"Watch this, I think I can hit her with my spear from here"

 From behind the Cathedral we could see the Berliner Fernsehturm (Berlin Television Tower):

Berliner Fernsehturm

and across the road was the Altes Museum (Old Museum):

Old Museum

Looking down the River Spree behind the Muesum

On the banks of the River Spree, we came across this interesting sculpture to Adolph Desterweg, who was a German educator (1790 - 1866).  His statue shows students:

Statue to Adolph Desterweg

Like most students, this one is bored to death - unlike most students he has an armadillo...

We had a quick stop for the traditional Berlin Currywurst:

Gratuitous food shot

Then headed to our final stop - the Eastside Gallery, an open air art exhibition on the remains of the Berlin Wall.  Below are some of the art works:

 

The rear of the wall was just graffiti

  

 

 

 

  

 

Below is one of the most reproduced and famous pictures from the wall, known as "My God, Help me to survive this deadly love" or "Fraternal Kiss" - it shows Leonid Berzhnev (former head of the Soviet Union) and Erich Honecker (former head of the German Democratic Republic) performing the Socialist Fraternal Embrace - a special greeting for Statesmen of Communist countries.  The act consists of three hugs alternating sides of the body then three kisses on alternate cheeks (or sometimes on the mouth):

The Fraternal Kiss

After finishing at the wall, we drove back to Puttgarden and then caught the ferry back to Denmark.  We got home around midnight, but it was a great trip and a good chance to see so many capital cities, castles and history.

The Drive - Day 7

Day 7: 350km, 3hrs 45min

The Drive - Day 8

Day 8: 612km, 7.5hrs

Total distance driven: 2750km