Welcome to Berlin

Welcome to Berlin

Sharyn, my traveling companion on the Lithuania/Latvia trip, and I had chosen to spend a few days in Berlin before flying home.  Since we were now traveling independently, we were free from group schedules and pre-determined itineraries.  In other words, I hoped our stay in the German capital would be more like the European vacations I’ve taken in the past.

In many ways, Berlin reminded me of New York City.  While it lacks the skyscrapers, there were many similarities.  First of all, the size – it’s a big, big city, spread out across many distinctive neighborhoods.  Secondly, it’s a very cosmopolitan city with an extremely diverse population.  Third, it has the wealth of museums and cultural events that one finds in New York City.  And finally, it possesses an intangible quality, a certain energy, that I associate with the Big Apple.  In this case, I’ll call it the Berlin Buzz. 

Of course, in three and a half days, it wasn’t possible to experience everything Berlin had to offer.  But we made an attempt to see as much as we could in a short time.  Our base was the Hotel Monbijou, located near a lovely park of the same name.  I think I’d voted for this hotel because of its French name, which means “my jewel.”  The entrance level public area with its fireplace was lovely and inviting.  Our room, on the other hand, reminded me of a monk’s cell or ship’s cabin, i.e. tiny, with no wasted space.  One big plus, after the hotel in Riga, was that our room looked out onto a quiet courtyard. 

Of course, the real reason we’d chosen the Monbijou was for its location.  It turned out to be just a short walk from several important sites.  The nearby Hackescher Markt is a beautiful red brick building that at one time served as a railroad station.  Nowadays, it’s the center of an area filled with restaurants and shops.  In addition, it provided us with easy access to public transportation.   

Hackescher Markt

Just south of the Hackescher Markt lies the Rotes Rathaus (red city hall) Platz, a plaza with a  19th century Neptune fountain and the historic Marienkirche church.  

The simple interior of Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church)

The Neptune fountain on Spandauer Strasse

Nearby bridges link the area to Museum Island, where you can see the Berlin Dom, the city’s beautiful cathedral.  

Berlin's cathedral, known as the Dom 

On our first afternoon, Sharyn and I set out on an ambitious walk.   Our first stop was at the Neue Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse.  The building, which officially opened in 1866, was the largest synagogue in Germany, with 3200 seats in the main sanctuary.  With its distinctive gilded dome and interior decoration supposedly inspired by the Moorish Alhambra in Spain, it was an architectural showpiece.  Today, however, not much remains of the original structure.  On Kristallnacht (November 1938), the building suffered from serious vandalism and arson.  In addition, it was heavily damaged during Allied bombing raids in 1943.  The entrance vestibule remains, and it is linked to a glass and steel enclosure over the former main hall of the synagogue where you can see an exhibit about Jewish life in Berlin.

Interior of the Neue Synagogue, showing damage

The Neue Synagogue, with its gilded dome

As we continued our walk, we often saw reminders of World War II in the still standing ruins of buildings bombed during war.  We crossed the river Spree (pronounced “shpray”) and made our way to the Bundestag, formerly known as the Reichstag during World War II.  Today, this is where the German parliament meets.  The glass dome at the top of the hulking building officially opened in 1999.  It’s a big tourist attraction, as it offers 360-degree views of the city.  

The Bundestag, formerly known as the Reichstag

Before we left home, I’d made a dinner reservation at the restaurant adjacent to the dome.  It was the big splurge of our trip.  From the amuse-bouche to the complimentary mini-dessert that accompanied the check, it was a delicious and photogenic meal. 

The complimentary conclusion to our meal at the Dome restaurant

Afterwards, I summoned the energy to walk to the top of the dome for a view of the city lights.  On our way back to the hotel, Sharyn and I also had a chance to see the legendary Brandenburg gate.

Brandenburg Gate at night

It seems we brought the chilly, damp weather with us from Lithuania and Latvia, so walking wasn’t especially pleasant.  Thank goodness for the Hop-On-Hop-Off buses.  We used the HOHOs on two different routes.  With a city the size of Berlin, it was most efficient way to get a sense of orientation in a short amount of time.  The first route took us through large parts of what was formerly West Berlin.  We got a good look at the Tiergarten, a sprawing urban park, the symphony hall in the modern Kulturforum, the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm church, and many other sites.  The route that covered the former East Berlin brought us through a variety of residential neighborhoods, past remnants of the Wall, and along a stretch of road called the East Side Gallery to see exciting street art.

In addition, we achieved a small degree of mastery over the daunting public transportation system.  Sharyn and I felt a genuine sense of pride when we managed to get ourselves from one place to another using the S-bahn and the U-bahn.  I’ve never seen any transportation hub as confusing as the Friedrichstrasse station. 

Finally, we took a relaxing hour-long boat trip on the Spree.

We took a ride on the Spree in a similar boat.

Berlin is blessed with a number of fine museums, and I was hoping to visit several during our stay.  Because our time was limited, I was only able to get to two:  the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Decorative Arts Museum) and the Jewish Museum.  The Decorative Arts Museum is part of the Kulturforum located near Potsdamer Platz.  Sharyn and I were attracted to this particular museum because of its wonderful Art Nouveau collection, which includes works by Gallé, Lalique, and Tiffany, among others.  In the Renaissance section, I found two Florentine cassoni, the marriage chests that I’d learned about in my art history class.  I also enjoyed seeing a very comprehensive exhibit devoted to several hundred years of fashion.

A 15th century wooden cassone from Florence

The second museum we visited was the Jewish Museum, where we spent about four hours.  We would have stayed longer if our stamina had held out.  While one section of the museum contains a powerful exhibit on the Holocaust, the museum is much broader in scope, presenting two thousand years of Jewish life in Germany.  The exhibits were very well designed, with an appropriate balance of text (in English as well as German), video and artifacts. In addition, we made use of a very helpful audio guide, which was available in a dozen languages. I was particularly interested in the beginnings of organized Jewish life in the Rhineland area in the 1200s since this group of people formed the basis of the Ashkenazi Jewish community that later spread into Eastern Europe. 

A Hebrew book from the middle ages

A fascinating temporary exhibit called Cherchez La Femme examined how Judaism, Christianity and Islam view women’s head and body coverings, now and in the past.  I learned the significance of different types of headwear and clothing, and how they developed their religious significance.  One interesting fact the exhibit taught me was that wedding veils arose in the Christian community during the time of the Roman Empire as a way to protect the bride from evil spirits and curses. 

I’m truly sorry we didn’t make it to any of the art or archaeological museums on Museum Island.  If I’m ever back in Berlin, I’ll make a special effort to get to the Pergamon to see its amazing collection of antiquities from the Near East. The museum is currently undergoing renovation, and several of its galleries are closed to the public.  

Sharyn and I also found time to fit shopping into our schedule. Our friend Judy had told us not to miss KaDeWe, and I’m so glad we took her advice.  This enormous department store is located in a busy retail district of the former West Berlin.  Its seven levels are filled with top-quality merchandise of all kinds.  We weren’t in the market for designer clothing, so we zeroed in on the 6^th floor food halls.  As soon as we stepped off the escalator, we found ourselves in a dazzling world of everything edible.  There were beautiful displays of chocolate, caviar, cakes, produce, teas, fish, spices – did I mention chocolate?  I could easily have spent an entire day (and a lot of Euros) shopping at KaDeWe.  But I exercised restraint and only bought some chocolate. 

Of course, all of the stores that you’ll find in any big modern city (H&M, Zara, etc.) were represented in Berlin.  But the Hackescher Markt area, just a quick walk from our hotel, offered a more interesting assortment of shops.  The streets around the repurposed railroad station are lined vendors and boutiques selling locally made goods.  There are also all kinds of restaurants. The area attracts a younger crowd and is especially lively in the evening. 

Speaking of food, I ate quite well in Berlin.  The Monbijou breakfast buffet allowed me to fortify myself each morning for the hard work of being a tourist. It offered the usual breakfast items, plus a few extras, such as a miso soup bar, quark (a yogurt-like dairy product), weisswurst, a pretzel tree, and an actual honeycomb if you wanted some freshly harvested honey.  There was also reindeer pastrami, if I translated correctly.  Whatever it was, it was quite tasty.  I’m glad we stayed four nights because I needed four breakfasts to try everything that looked good on the buffet. 

Fresh honey at breakfast time

One Berlin specialty that I planned to try was curry wurst.  You see stands selling the popular dish, accompanied by a big mound of French fries, throughout the city.  However, when I got a good look at a plate of curry wurst, I decided that a photo op would suffice. 

They obviously like the curry wurst.

We enjoyed lunch one day at the kosher Hummus and Friends, which serves creative vegetarian cuisine with an Israeli-Middle Eastern flare. We also found a bargain hole-in-the-wall Italian place around the corner from our hotel where we could get personal sized pizza and an excellent salad for 6 Euros.  It was a few doors down from the Berlin branch of Amorino, the fabulous gelato shop I discovered in Lisbon. 

I also had a delicious snack at Café Schmus (we’d write this Yiddish word as schmooze in English) in the Jewish Museum.  Sliced duck breast with radicchio, cucumber and herbed mayonnaise on seeded bagel qualifies as the new Yiddish cuisine.  

Fortunately, language wasn’t as much as of a challenge here as it was in Lithuania and Latvia.  The Baltic languages haven’t changed much in several thousand years and are very close to the proto-Indo-European language from which German and English, along with Latin-based languages, are derived.  Lithuanian and Latvian actually share some similarities with Sanskrit, another very old Indo-European language.  I couldn’t even guess at the meaning of words when we were in Vilnius and Riga.  However, in Berlin, my two years of college Danish and my childhood exposure to Yiddish often helped me decipher German signs, maps and menus. 

[Note to Sharyn – you asked about the meaning of “thal,” as in Rosenthal and Blumenthal.  I have a strong interest in linguistics, and I started thinking about other “-thal” words.  The first word that popped into my mind was Neanderthal, which means Neander valley. Then I remembered that when I lived in a suburb of Copenhagen in the early 1970s, my street name was Vidnaesdal.  So the Danish word “dal” is probably related to the German “thal.”  And then there’s Annandale, a town in northern Virginia and in England.  The English language has hills and dales, so the English word “dale” likely means valley.  That would make sense since English is derived from an early form of German.  So, to make a long story short, I think Rosenthal means valley of roses and Blumenthal means valley of flowers.  By the way, the –en ending seems to indicate a plural, as in children.]

To sum up our Berlin experience, despite the cold, the clouds and the rain, we enjoyed ourselves in this lively German city.  However, if you’re planning a trip, definitely try to schedule it for a warmer time of year, when the weather will allow you to promenade along Unter den Linden, in the shade of the city’s famous linden trees.