Germany
Berlin Victory Column

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    • Day 2

      In a spin

      April 24, 2023 in Germany ⋅ 🌬 17 °C

      Anne had very kindly met me at the airport last night and brought me to the apartment. It was ok, not fantastically clean but absolutely not the worst place I've ever stayed, and it had all the facilities that we needed. Everyone was tired, especially Anita and Rob who had travelled from Australia, so after a chat we all went to our beds.

      We had a slow lazy start to the day and decided to go out for breakfast. We got our weekly transport tickets for €39 which allowed unlimited travel on public transport within Berlin, Zones A B. I was reminded again how utterly rubbish public transport is in Scotland, it is inefficient, expensive and limited in scope whereas in Berlin, we never waited more than 5 mins for a train, tram or bus, it wasn't expensive and every part of the city was serviced.

      We went into the city and had a wander around led by Anne who used to live in Berlin and so acted as our guide (she was amazing), we went to the Brandenburg Gate which was busy and, as was normal for Berlin, there was some building work going on. However, it was impressive, and in the distance you could see the sunlight gleaming on the top of the Victory Column, it was very beautiful. One could not help thinking about the momentous events of history, many in my own lifetime, that had taken place in this very spot.

      We stopped off at the Holocaust memorial, it is basically a collection of rectangular blocks of varying sizes. I was a bit surprised at how unkempt it was, there were lots of weeds growing up around the blocks. Some people were climbing on the blocks and jumping from one to the other which seemed somewhat disrespectful to me and I was quite pleased when a security guard came and sent them packing. On the main road next to the memorial you can see the line of where the Berlin wall went.

      Our next stop was Checkpoint Charlie, and Rob and I did the tourist thing of having our photograph taken behind the sandbags. A few days later at another museum we had a close look at some photographs and concluded that the Checkpoint building is fake and just for tourists, the roof line is completely different from that of the original. Still, it was a little bit of history.

      After coffee and a pastry, (the Germans are VERY good at pastry... though surprisingly not so good at coffee) Anne went off to do some stuff and left us to our own devices, we decided to go to the Jewish Museum. We managed to find our own way (thank you Google Maps) in we went. It is a very strange and clever building, actually it's really two buildings, the original building which is quite conventional and in style of its time, and that is connected to a modern and striking building designed by Daniel Libeskind who said of it:

      "The new design, which was created a year before the Berlin Wall came down, was based on three conceptions that formed the museum's foundation: first, the impossibility of understanding the history of Berlin without understanding the enormous intellectual, economic and cultural contribution made by the Jewish citizens of Berlin, second, the necessity to integrate physically and spiritually the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness and memory of the city of Berlin. Third, that only through the acknowledgement and incorporation of this erasure and void of Jewish life in Berlin, can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future."

      One of the 'exhibits' is the garden of Exile. Whilst it is possible to describe the garden in terms of its architecture, it is much more difficult to describe the effect that it has on you when you enter it. It is set in a perfect square with a very, very uneven floor, and 48 concrete columns that tower over you and which are topped with Russian olive trees. The columns are not all perfectly straight, or is it the unevenness of the floor...I don't know. The aim was to help the visitor get a sense of the discomfort of the exiles as they left pre-war Germany to a new life in a new country with little more than what they could carry into that very uncertain future.

      The skill of the architect became very evident when I experienced a moment of sudden disequilibration, and the garden began to spin like a merry-go-round. I had to leave, and after a few moments I felt better. We carried on going around the museum, which is absolutely superb and I would recommend it highly. I was particularly struck by one of the later exhibits, a collection of laws that were enacted against the Jews almost from the moment that the Nazis came to power. They hang on banners in chronological order and they go on and on. One that stood out for me was the law that Jews were forbidden from going for a walk, it is difficult to contemplate such calculated vindictive hatred. It was also a reminder of the need to protect democratic freedom, for everything that the Nazis did was within the law, they made sure of that by writing the laws.

      As we got near the end of the tour through the museum, I began to get dizzy again, the room started to spin, and this time it wasn't going away. I wondered if it was because I hadn't eaten or drunk much so we went to the café, I sat down whilst Rob and Anita got me a sugary coffee and a bottle of water. Sitting at the table I began to feel very, very sick, Anita quickly emptied her small shoulder bag, not a second too soon for I was immediately sick into it. Rob got a bin bag and I was sick into that, again, and again and again, all the while the whole room was spinning like I was on a merry-go-round. I have never felt like that before and hopefully never will again.

      We got an uber back to the apartment, and thankfully I managed not to be sick in the car, but the second I got out, in the middle of the road I was sick into the bin bag which I was still holding onto for dear life. Rob all but carried me up the stairs and I lay on the sofa bed. As soon as I lay flat the room stopped spinning, as soon as I moved my head I felt very dizzy again and was sick again. Anne wanted to get a doctor but I felt confident that it was an equilibrium problem possibly made worse by my experience in the Garden of Exile, and that it would pass.

      Mirjam arrived, she was working each day and joining us in the evenings, I hadn't seen her for a year and she reached down to hug me and I reached up to hug her...and then was instantly sick into the famous bin bag (which was filling up). I had been so looking forward to seeing her again and it wasn't the meeting I had hoped for and it made me feel 100 times worse.

      I lay down, and when the others went out for dinner I fell asleep, I woke up at 4am, went to the loo and the room was not spinning and I did not feel sick. I fell asleep again and when I woke I felt much better.

      My first day in Berlin got off to a good start and went downhill as quickly as Lewis Hamilton vying for pole position, hopefully things could only get better...
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    • Day 4

      Tränenpalast

      April 26, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

      I woke early, well before anyone else was up, so I just lay in bed for a while and read and reflected on the trip so far. I thought back to the camino last year and how we all met, and how much it had changed me. When I started on the camino I was full of anxiety about, well, everything, and to be fair I had had a terrible two years prior to going. On the camino I learned not to be afraid, not to worry about what tomorrow would bring, but to always focus on the task at hand, and importantly, to enjoy that moment.

      I had been a little bit concerned about travelling to and from Berlin, as I had never been before and I do not speak German, but like the camino my concerns were misplaced. To begin with, in Berlin everyone and their dog speaks English, and everyone seems friendly and willing to help. Secondly, last night over dinner we talked about travelling home, Anita and Rob's travel arrangements were a bit more complicated than mine. Anne was of course, brilliant and helpful and she sorted out their train itinerary and also told me what train to get back to the airport and what platform and time etc. so I was much more relaxed about it.

      Also, it turned out that everyone would be leaving well before me on Sunday, and there was a chance that I could stay in the apartment until late afternoon which would save me walking around the city with my suitcase trailing behind me. I was also hopeful that I would be able to spend the day with Mirjam, and that she would come to the station with me.

      We got the train to Potsdamer Platz, and wandered over to the Reichstag where we booked tickets for tomorrow to go up to the dome, its free but you have to book, and you need ID in order to book. It is a working parliament building so there is a security process to go through, but it is not onerous.

      Since we were there we went for a long walk around that area, and found ourselves at the Victory Column, as it is in the centre of a large roundabout it is accessed by a series of tunnels, so we went in, paid a few euros and started the long ascent up a narrow, spiral stone staircase that would take us to the top. There were a lot of stairs, I lost count, and there were several landings each with a bench, and there was always someone resting on it. It was a strenuous climb, and I saw a few people that looked in need of a paramedic. The view from the top was spectacular and gave a real sense of the enormity of Tiergarten, it was definitely worth the climb.

      We got on a bus back into the centre and went to Tränenpalast museum. It was originally Friedrichstraße Railway Station, a train station like any other, but it was the station where the GDR and West Berlin met. It was here that people said goodbye to family and friends before going through the passport control, sometimes never to return. It was a place of sorrow and tearful goodbyes and so it acquired the nickname Tränenpalast, The Palace of Tears. Only passengers who wished to travel to West Berlin on the S-Bahn or U-Bahn could access the Tränenpalast. Policemen checked passports and visas, customs officers checked luggage and finally passports were checked thoroughly once more before onward travel was permitted.

      The station had been converted to a museum recording this history of the place and setting it in the wider context of European history at the time. It was fascinating and quite moving. One exhibit showed a suitcase of crockery that a family had buried on their farm before moving to the West, after the collapse of the GDR and the Wall, they went back and dug it up.

      We walked along to the Kaiser Wilhelm I Memorial Church, built buy his grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II between 1891 and 1895. Apparently, the church bells were the second largest in Germany and when the church was inaugurated, the five bells rang so loudly that the wolves in the zoo started howling. The bells were melted down during the 2nd world war for munitions.

      It is a very striking building, although originally built in the Neo-Romantic style it looks very different today. It was badly damaged by bombing during the war and remained untouched until 1956 a plan was put forward to demolish it, which led to a public outcry, a compromise was reached and along with some repair work a new annexe was completed in 1961

      According to the display information:
      "The design consists of concrete honeycomb elements with stained glass inlays. Inside the octagonal nave, the stained glass produces a rich blue light and an atmosphere of meditative calm. The memorial hall in the old spire is now a memorial against war and destruction and a symbol of reconciliation. It also contains a crucifix made of nails from the burnt roof timbers of Coventry Cathedral, which was almost completely destroyed by bombs in 1940. The crosses of nails from Coventry, which are also in Dresden, Hiroshima and Volgograd, are a symbol of reconciliation."

      As well as a symbol of reconciliation it remains a working Lutheran Church, and concert venue, especially for jazz (I have no idea why it is especially for Jazz). It is a fascinating place. On the one hand the interior of the old church has a beautiful mosaic of ruling dynasty of the time, a classic example of Christendom's marriage of Church and State, it was there to remind the proletariat of Wilhelm's divine right to rule. Yet It is also a place of prayer and contemplation, a symbol of a desire for peace. Yet just down the street is where a religious zealot deliberately drove a truck into pedestrians at a Christmas market. I guess the need for such places never diminishes, they never become irrelevant.

      I was glad Anne brought us here.

      Anne went to stay with a friend and Rob and Anita and I managed to get back to the apartment all by ourselves, we had a great dinner of leftovers - no really it was great, and a quiet night it. It had been a busy day. The only downside was that Mirjam wasn't with us today, but then, there's a saying about absence...
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    • Day 4

      Konec biznisa

      September 21, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

      Zadnji dan smo imeli še dogodek za partnerje v enem drugem hotelu, kakih 20 min vožnje s taxijem stran.

      Takole pa zgleda gužvanje zadnjih štirih mož na poti do osvežilnega piva v domačem hotelu, mimo obeliska zmage in milijon kolesarjev. Še posebej zanimivi so tile s sprednjo prikolico, ki obstaja v raznih variantah - največ jih je za stvari, velik jih je pa tudi za prevažanje otrok 🙂 Prav luštni so in žal nisem nobenega ujel na sliko... So bili prehitri...Read more

    • Day 4

      Berlin

      April 6, 2019 in Germany ⋅ 21 °C

      Die Siegessäule erinnert an die Einigungskriege zur Zeit Kaiser Wilhelm I. Zu seinen Ehren ließ sein Enkelsohn Kaiser Wilhelm II die Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche erbauen.

      Es gibt auch sehr viel Grün in Berlin. Und eine Besonderheit - Die Berliner Ampelmännchen.Read more

    • Day 2

      Guten Morgen aus Berlin

      August 20, 2022 in Germany ⋅ 🌧 20 °C

      Wir waren um 3.15 Uhr auf unserem angepeilten Parkplatz. Direkt in der Nähe von Schloss Bellevue.
      Nach nem kurzen Morgen-Spaziergang zum Schloss Bellevue und zur Siegessäule wecken wir jetzt Hannah, die lieber ausschlafen wollte...Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Siegessäule, Siegessaeule, Berliner Siegessäule, Berlin Victory Column, عمود النصر, Калона Перамогі, Колона на победата, Columna de la Victòria, Vítězný sloup, Columna de la Victoria, Garaipenaren Zutabea, עמוד הניצחון של ברלין, Sigursúlan í Berlín, Colonna della Vittoria, 戦勝記念塔, 베를린 전승기념탑, Seierssøylen, جت دا کالم, Колонна Победы, Berlin Zafer Sütunu, Колона перемоги, 胜利纪念柱

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