Pupletts in Sweden: Germany, Austria and Prague (28 Oct - 4 Nov)

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

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.