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I have created some entries on Worldisround where you will find pictures from my trip:

Highlights

On My Way

Tuesday August 14 -

This trip began a lot like my trip to Scandinavia did last year.  In fact, not only was I on the same airlines (SAS) and the same flight number to a Copenhagen connection, I even ended up sitting in the same seat.  It is a nine hour overnight flight to Copenhagen, and I liked the airline's Economy Plus option for a bigger seat and more legroom without all the fuss of First Class.  It cost a lot more this year than last for some reason, but it was still worth it to me.  Overall my flights were more expensive on this trip than last, and I connected between a couple cities via train, so the trip was plenty expensive.  I'd make up some of that by going a lot cheaper on the food - I spend too much time in restaurants on these trips when most nights all I really want is to grab a quick meal.  Fortunately I can't say I'm much interested in German cuisine.

As with last year's flight, we were underway before 7PM.  I once again tried to sleep, but sleeping on planes just isn't something I'm well suited for.  However, with some sleep apnea really messing up my sleep habits in recent months, I think I managed to doze off at least a few times.  Fortunately, even if I don't sleep much, I've found that if I just mentally zone out, I feel at least somewhat rested at the end of the flight - which would be early in the Danish afternoon on this flight.

We were approaching the west coast of Greenland when the day ended.  I checked this year.

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Berlin - Arrival

Wednesday August 15 -

Copenhagen, customs, and then a commuter plane to Berlin.  But I had a bit more time on the ground this year than last, so my connection wasn't so tight.  At least not for me.  It was a different matter for my checked suitcase.  Once in Berlin, I found that my checked suitcase didn't make the flight, but they would get it through customs and sent on a later flight.  They assured - but did not guarantee - me that it would be delivered to my Berlin hotel by midnight.

I had a window seat for the flight to Berlin, but it is only a 55-minute flight. Between that and cloudy conditions, I didn't attempt to take any pictures from the plane.

I took a taxi to my hotel, the Best Western Hotel President, just a couple blocks from the Wittenberg S-Bahn station, close to nightlife, lots of restaurants and easy access to mass transit, although not really close to most tourist sites.  Not really a problem given the transit access, which was actually more important since my plans were going to take me all over the place anyway.  It was a single room, meaning a narrow twin bed, but generally nice, comfortable, and very good service at the front desk.  I would certainly stay there again on any return trip to Berlin.

I suppose that any sane person after a long flight would take advantage of the hotel to get a few hours of sleep.  Not me.  Even though it was mostly overcast with a few cloud breaks, I decided to learn my way around the neighborhood.  My hotel is just a couple blocks from Wittenbergplatz and beyond that the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, so I headed in that direction.

The memorial church is the remains of a large red sandstone church that had opened in 1895, dedicated as a memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm II.  Near the end of World War II in 1945, an Allied plane dropped a bomb on it, leaving a few walls and the bell tower.  West Berliners decided to leave it be as a reminder of the damage done during World War II.  In the early 1960s, a second church was built nearby, an odd octagonal church that surprisingly manages to complement the shell of the original.

I then explored the area to the south - Schöneberg.  It has a lot of dining options and it is arguably the heart of gay West Berlin for nightlife.  Dinner and then back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Without my luggage, I debated whether to go out.  Smoking is permitted Berlin bars, so I was guaranteed that the only clothes I had with me would smell like a pack a cigarettes if I went out.  And if my suitcase didn't arrive, that would be how I smelled in the morning.  But the folks at the airport did seem to know exactly where my suitcase was, so I figured I was safe.

I headed out to Prinz Knecht, which turned out to be a rather crowded neighborhood bear bar.  It was a pretty decent place so I would make it my primary bar while I was in Berlin.  I stayed out for a couple hours, figuring that I'd hold off until after midnight since that's when my suitcase was supposed to arrive.  It was near 12:30AM when I got back to the hotel.  Unfortunately, my suitcase still hadn't shown up.

There wasn't much I could do about it at that point, so I decided to go to bed.  Within just a couple minutes after crawling under the covers, the phone rang.  My suitcase had just arrived.  And sure enough it had.  With everything in order.  So what could have been a really lousy start to my vacation turned into what at worst I would call a minor annoyance.  The entire incident would be long forgotten by the time I left Berlin.

Berlin - Tiergarten, Unter den Linden, Old East Berlin and the Wall

Thursday August 16 -

The day did not get off to the start that I expected.  I did get four hours of uninterrupted sleep, I think the longest such stretch in weeks.  But after 5AM, I spent the next several hours picking up an hour here and there as I waited for the alarm clock to go off.  Which it didn't.  And which I didn't check until 10:30AM.  Oh good grief.  I remember setting the alarm time, but I guess I didn't set the ON switch.  If there's one thing I can't stand doing while on vacation is wasting perfectly good daylight sleeping.  The suitcase delay was much less annoying than this.

I got cleaned up, grabbed a banana (yes, I hit a market last night so I could begin the day with fresh fruit instead of going out to eat), and then hit the streets - well, mostly the sidewalks - as I headed north to Tiergarten.  Tiergarten is a large city park that runs along Straße de 17 Juni, from Charlottenburg in the west to Brandenburger Tor, the Brandenburg Gate, in the east.  I passed the Siegeßäule monument in the park during the taxi ride to my hotel yesterday.  Although the park itself wasn't high on my list of sightseeing targets, the skies were overcast and threatening rain, so I figured I'd start there, hoping for improved weather as the day went on.

The Siegeßäule is regarded as the first national monument of the German nation.  Although it was begun earlier, it was completed shortly after the last of three wars that unified the German states into a single country.  In the base is a small museum that describes the historic events that led to the construction of the column.  A large second level has a mosaic that timelines the events, from the ancient Germania representing the German idea through battles to the crowning of Germania, representing the emergence of a unified German (the 1871 unification).  A narrow column has a 285-step spiral staircase leading to a viewing platform, 157 feet up.  The views were nice, including the view well into what was once East Berlin.

I got lunch at a nearby cafe - between just a banana for breakfast, the walk and the stair-climbing, and my blood sugars were definitely on the low side.  Two wieners, a small serving of potato salad, and a "large" diet coke.  I paid 10 euros for that, or about $12-13.  I'm not sure why soft drinks are so expensive in Germany, but it's been true in Italy and Scandinavia, too.

It actually rained a bit at this point, but that didn't last long.  It was dry the rest of the day.

I passed Schloß Bellevue and soon reached the Spree River, the main river through Berlin, which follows the northern boundary of the Tiergarten.  I followed this until I reached the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, the House of World Cultures, located in Kongresshalle, an odd-shaped building nicknamed "the pregnant oyster".  Nearby was a carillon, the fourth largest in the world (based on the number of bells).

Just past of the carillon, in the northeast corner of Tiergarten is the German Reichstag, home to the German parliament from 1894 to 1933, and after the reunification from 1999 onward.  Historically, work began sometime after Germany was unified in 1871.  After a couple false starts and some resistance from the Kaisers, it was finally opened in 1894.  In 1916, the phrase "DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE" ("To the German People") was carved into the facade, which sounded a bit too democratic to the Kaiser, but he abdicated the throne a couple years later, and Germany became a republic.

Adolf Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler, or chancellor of Germany, in January 1933.  Four weeks later, the building was hit by a suspicious fire.  The Nazis blamed the Communists, and used this as an excuse to make their Reichstag Fire Decree.  The decree used Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to suspend most civil rights, shift power from the states to the federal government, and define harsh penalties for various offenses.  This was one of the first major steps in Hitler's transformation of Germany into a Nazi-dominated dictatorship.

The building was never repaired after the fire, and it took some direct hits during World War II.  West Germany restored what it could during the 1960s.  The official German reunification was held there in 1990.  In 1991, parliament determined that the German capital should move back to Berlin from Bonn.  Except for the outer walls, the building then underwent a significant reconstruction, capped with a glass dome.  The Reichstag once again was home to the German parliament in April 1999.

Visitors can go up to the rooftop, which is what I did.  The line moves slowly, however, as everyone has to go through security screening, but the views are worth it given its location among various government buildings just north of Brandenburger Tor.  I would swing by the Reichstag later in the trip to get some sunny day pictures of the building and the Platz der Republik.  

My next stop was Brandenburger Tor, or Brandenburg Gate.  Built in the late 1700s, it is the only surviving one of the city gates through which people would enter Berlin.  Located between the Tiergarten and Unter den Linden, it is at the center of the city.  The gate was among the few structures in the area to survive World War II.  It is a symbol of the city, and it appears on some German coins.  

In the postwar era, it marked part of the boundary between East and West Berlin.  The Berlin Wall passed just outside of the gate, separating West Berliners from the gate.  President Kennedy visited Brandenburg Gate in 1963, and it was here in 1987 that President Reagan demanded, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization.  Come here to this gate!  Mr. Gorbachev, open up this gate!  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

The wall came down in 1989 and Germans from both sides gathered here.  Brandenburg Gate officially reopened on December 22, 1989.

The sun came out just in time for my pictures.

I passed through the gate, and checked out the sites of Pariser Platz.  Just past the gate, built into one of the guardhouses, is the Raum der Stille, or Room of Silence, a place for reflection, meditation or prayer.  Well, except for people who don't read signs, for whom it is a place to chat and answer their cell phones.

I checked out the views of the gate from Pariser Platz, well aware that I was now in what was once East Berlin.  Then I continued east along Unter den Linden, the main street in the heart of Berlin.  Rows of linden trees were planted here in 1647, lining the route between the electoral palace of the Duke of Prussia, Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm, to his hunting park, now the Tiergarten.  Today many of Berlin's major attractions and museums are along this route.  I'd be back here a few times during my visit, but it was getting close to 4PM, so today I just walked the length of Unter den Linden until I crossed the Spree so that I could familiarize myself with this part of town.

At this point I began a neighborhood walk.  I wanted to see some of what used to be old East Berlin while working my way up to Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, the Berlin Wall Memorial.  It was an interesting walk.  Other than the buildings themselves, though, I was wondering what legacy if any of the old East Berlin I saw.  Massive Coca-Cola ads?  Probably not leftovers from the Communist era.  

I don't think that everyone appreciated the transition.  I did see a banner hanging on one apartment block that read, "Where ever with courage for alternatives against capitalist structures and bondages."  Maybe someone will open a McDonalds on the ground floor of that building.  A sign across the street advertised the lottery.

I reached Bernauer Straße, which at one time followed a section of the wall.  I first came upon the Chapel of Reconciliation, which opened on November 9, 2000.  At one time a church belonging to the Evangelical Reconciliation Parish stood here.  Which put it squarely in the path of the Berlin Wall and clear zone on the eastern side of the wall.  It was allowed to stay put for years after the wall went up, but the East German government considered it to be a problem.  In the 1980s, the East German government decided to blow it up - just four years before the wall itself came down.  The site was eventually given back to the congregation, which built a new chapel that incorporates some fragments from the previous church that were excavated at the site.

Another block down the street is the Berlin Wall Memorial and the Berlin Wall Documentation Center.  The Documentation Center provides visitors with a historical overview of the Berlin Wall.  A raised platform provides a birds eye view of the Berlin Wall Memorial, a restored segment of the wall and cleared area, recreating a view of what the Berlin Wall looked like shortly before it fell.  The memorial is dedicated to "the memory of the division of the city from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 and to the victims of the communist tyranny."  

After visiting these sites, I checked out an adjacent cemetery in order to get another view of the restored wall.  There I came across a pile of headstones, many from the 1980s.  Apparently the East German government continued its efforts to reinforce the wall and the security zone along the wall well into the 1980s.  Needing land from the cemetery, they simply pushed any headstones in the way into a pile.  

I made my way back towards the center of the city, eventually finding Friedrichstraße.  I headed south to Leipziger Straße and then west to Potsdamer Platz.  I'd eventually walk all the way back to my hotel.  A nice walk - and long walk - to be sure.  But I didn't realize until then that I was developing some blisters.  I'd end up with three blisters on each foot.  Nothing major, from a medical standpoint, but even small blisters can be quite painful when you do a lot of walking.  And doing a lot of walking was in my plans for the trip.

I stopped at a Burger King for dinner and hit a market for some Diet Coke to take back to the hotel, where I checked out my photos, and made tomorrow's plans.

I went back to Prinz Knect, but it was a slower night than last night, and I found myself feeling pretty dozy, so I left before midnight.  About a block into the walk back to the hotel, someone who had been sitting near me caught up to me to tell me I was sexy.  I suppose I should be flattered, but that comes across as hustling, so I just shook my head and said good night.

Berlin - Alexanderplatz and Berliner Dom

Friday August 17 -

As sleepy as I was back at the bar, by the time I was back at the hotel I was wide away.  So I looked through my travel information for a while and then went to bed.  And tossed and turned.  I did doze off, but I was wide awake some time before 5AM.  I tossed and turned in frustration for at least another hour.  I managed to doze off a bit, but I took full advantage of my having set the alarm for 9AM.  Which meant another later than normal start to my sightseeing.  And in Berlin I could really have used the time.

Berlin is big.  I explored it by foot yesterday, but the walk back to the hotel with my sore feet and legs last night seemed to take forever.  Today I dove into another aspect of Berlin life - its subway system.  I used the S-Bahn and U-Bahn to head over to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the modern main train station.  There I booked my trip to Pila, Poland, that I've got scheduled for Monday.  Well, I booked most of it.  On Monday I take a train from Berlin to Kostrzyn, just across the Polish border.  There I am supposed to catch the train to Pila.  Only that train is considered a local train, so I will have to buy my ticket for that part of the trip in Kostrzyn.

Then back to the local trains to go to Alexanderplatz where my today's sightseeing began.  And where it stalled.  My first stop was at the Fernsehturm, a TV tower that at 1100 feet is the second tallest structure in Europe.  It provides a decent tower's eye view of the old Soviet sector, with more distant views of Brandenburger Tor and Tiergarten.  However the line moved terribly slowly - and by the time I had invested an hour in it, I knew that I would stick with it.  It would be more than two hours from the time I got in line until I finished up, and only the last 20 minutes of that was spent actually taking in the view.

I hadn't had breakfast, so I grabbed a quick bratwurst for lunch and finally began my other sightseeing.  Good grief, is it already 1:30?  Good thing I had used mass transit.

Alexanderplatz was the heart of old East Berlin.  In addition to the TV tower, there are a number of sights within a few blocks, a few of which were nearly devoid of tourists.  My first stop was at the Marienkirche, the second oldest church in Berlin, dating from the 15th century.  Outside is a fountain featuring Neptune.

Across the street is the Rotes Rathaus, Berlin's City Hall and home to the governing mayor and the government of the state of Berlin.  It was built in the 1860s, but it was heavily damaged during World War II.  I checked out the building, including parts of the interior that are open to the public.

From there I headed over to the nearby ruins of the Franziskaner-Klosterkirche, a Franciscan monastery church that dates back to the 1200s.  It was bombed into its ruins state during World War II.  Like the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche ruins near my hotel, this church will not be restored in order to serve as a memorial to the senselessness of war.

I checked out the Neues Stadthaus and then headed to the nearby Nikolaiviertel, or Nikolai Quarter.  The Berlin area was settled more than a thousand years ago.  A couple towns sprang up along the Spree, Cölln and Berlin, sometime before 1220AD.  The earliest known charter, from October 28, 1237, is the first to mention Cölln, providing a birth date for the double town.  Berlin-Cölln became an important trade center, and became part of the Hanseatic League in the 1300s.  On March 20, 1307, the towns were formally united.  In 1486, elector Johann Cicero made Berlin-Cölln his home.

What is now the Nikolai Quarter was originally the center of Berlin.  This trading quarter got its name from St. Nikolaus, in whose honor the Nikolaikirche was built in the 1220s.  The church would be rebuilt a century later.  The original tower was replaced by a double-tower in the late 1800s.  Severely damaged during World War II, it was reconstructed by the 1980s.  It is the oldest church in Berlin.  Today it features artifacts uncovered during local archeological digs.  

One of the oldest streets in Berlin is Poststraße.  A post office had been established on this street in 1685.  Several of the buildings in Nikolaiviertel were carefully restored after the war, creating an old-city atmosphere in the heart of Berlin.

Marx-Engels-Forum is a broad park just outside Nikolaiviertel.  Once a crowded housing district, it was flattened during World War II.  In 1977, the East German government redeveloped the area as a tribute to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.  A large sculpture featuring a sitting Marx and standing Engels is located in the park along with other sculptures.  After the reunification of Germany, there was some discussion regarding what to do about the park.  Berliners decided to keep it for its historic value.  Today, people sit on the lap of Karl Marx to get their pictures taken.

I headed back towards Unter den Linden.  At the Spree River I decided to check out the DDR Museum.  It is more a collection of old East German memorabilia than a true museum, but it was interesting to see things ranging from a Trabant car to products to communist era items for kids to East German government surveillance equipment.

I crossed the Spree and visited the Berliner Dom, the Berlin Cathedral.  Like much of Berlin it took a few big hits during World War II, but it was restored, reopening to the public in 1993.  (I'll note here that there really isn't a lot left in Berlin that is authentically old, not like most of what I saw in Scandinavia last year or in Italy in 2005.)  One of my guidebooks noted that "unlike many European capitals where the cathedral is among the top two or three attractions, you can safely miss Berlin's Dom without feeling cultural deprivation."  That may be true, and I would eventually conclude that a lot of the cathedrals I tour on these trips do blur together after a while, but I think that the crypt is worth a visit.  It features the remains of various members of Prussian royalty, including Frederick I and a daughter of the Hanover line that produced Great Britain's King Georges.  

From there I followed Unter den Linden back to Brandenburger Tor, mostly to pick up some sunnier day pictures of some of the places I saw yesterday.  Back at the gate I headed south a few blocks to the Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  It consists of 2,711 large concrete blocks arranged in rows on intentionally uneven acreage.  As an example of public art, it is an interesting site to see and well worth a visit, with its sunlit, grey and dark concrete faces creating ever-changing patterns.  As a memorial, and especially as a memorial to the Holocaust victims, well, I'm not sure it works.  It is supposed to suggest tombstones in an old graveyard, but to kids and adults alike it was the perfect playground for hide-and-go-seek.  The squeals of kids playing games and dodging numerous hiders and seekers took away any sense of solemnity to the place.

It was after 5:30, too late for any more sightseeing, so I headed back to Tiergarten to get some sunny day pictures of a couple of yesterday's stops.  Then it was back to Unter den Linden to have a nice dinner.

Back to the hotel to recharge, plan tomorrow, and then ready for tonight's nightlife.  I returned to Prinz Knecht for my early bar, but shortly after midnight I headed over to Connection Disco, highlighted as a major Berlin club.  I suppose the place gets packed when it is late enough, but it really wasn't all that big, and the music was that mind-numbingly dull house(?) trance(?) stuff.  A beat and not much else, certainly not anything recognizable.  I really didn't want to stay out too late as I had a long day planned, but I held on until about 1:30AM.  

Berlin - History, Charlottenburg, Spandau and the Olympic Stadium

Saturday August 18 -

Today's focus was on sites on the west side of town.  My first stop was The Story of Berlin Museum, a somewhat large, somewhat so-so museum that presents 800+ years of Berlin history.  The collection of actual historical artifacts is actually rather limited - lots of reading and lots of photos.  It was interesting, especially the parts focused on the 20th century, but I think that's more because I'll take any history I can get.  I'll hope that Berlin gets a better city history museum someday.

The museum visit took a couple hours.  From there I headed for Charlottenburg and Schloß Charlottenburg.  The palace was built in the late 1600s by Sophie Charlotte, wife of Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg who declared himself to be "King in Prussia" in 1701.  Yes, "in", not "of".  After all, the Poles still dominated parts of Prussia, and he was a subject of the Holy Roman Emperor (except that his scope also included the Duchy of Prussia, which was outside the empire.  When she died, both the palace and the nearby community were named after her.  The palace was often ignored until the late 1700s, when it became a favorite of both Friedrich Wilhelm II and Friedrich Wilhelm III.  Napoleon used it as his residence for awhile after his armies defeated the Prussians in 1806.  

The palace is the largest in Berlin, and parts of it are open to tourists, although I didn't tour the inside.  Instead, I explored the grounds, which included a large formal garden, walking paths, some sculptures, a lake and a mausoleum where Queen Luise was interred.  The palace was heavily damaged in World War II, so much of what is visible today was restored after the war.

Because I didn't tour the palace, I had more time for another stop I had been thinking of - Spandau.  Spandau is the westernmost borough in Berlin, although it was a separate city until the 1920s.  Located where the Havel and Spree rivers meet, settlement there dates back about 1300 years.  Control over the area went back and forth between the Slavs and Germans until the 12th century when it finally ended up for good (for the most part) in German hands.

Spandau Zitadelle, or Spandau Citadel, is the major attraction that caught my attention.  The Palas and Juliusturm components of the citadel date back to the 1200s to 1400s, making them the oldest buildings in Berlin that are still standing.  The surrounding fortress was built in 1630.  It is considered to be an outstanding example of Italian Renaissance fortress architecture.  The Palas reportedly houses a museum, and the views from Juliusturm are supposed to be pretty good.  Unfortunately, some sort of music festival was scheduled for the place that day - the Great Elvis Presley Evening, if I read a nearby sign correctly.  So I walked around to get a look at it from the the outside.

Spandau has a somewhat traditional "old town", with a town square, farmers market and churches.  As I walked into the heart of Spandau, I stopped for a look at the locks along the Havel River, and passed St. Marien Kirche, the second oldest post-Reformation Catholic church in the region.  The Gotisches Haus, or Gothic House, was built around 1500, making it the oldest residential house now in Berlin.  St. Nikolaikirche dates to the 1400s.  The church was active the Reformation of the region.  

I explored the town, eventually making my way to the U-Bahn at the end of the line, near the Rathaus.  I decided on one more stop, taking the train to Olympiastadion, the stadium built for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  It was here where African American Jesse Owens demonstrated that Germany's "master race" wasn't as masterful as Adolf Hitler thought.  Today a local street is named after Owens.

Although the stadium is generally open for tourists, it still is an active sports stadium.  The Hertha BSC soccer club had a game in progress when I got there, so I only saw the stadium from the outside.

That pretty much wrapped up my sightseeing.  I headed back to Wittenbergplatz.  I decided to check out Kaufhaus des Westens, the Department Store of the West, or KaDeWe, across the street from the Wittenbergplatz station.   I'm not much for shopping on these trips, but KaDeWe is the largest department store in continental Europe.  Built in 1905, it was sold to the Hertie company in 1927, which modernized and expanded the store.  Their plans to add two more floors were stopped when the Nazis came to power - Hertie was mainly Jewish owned, which was not allowed under Nazi race laws.  The store was substantially destroyed during World War II.  It reopened in the 1950s and soon became a symbol of West Germany's growing economic power.

The store is classic department store, albeit massive and somewhat more upscale than most.  The top two floors feature an assortment of foods, breads, newspapers and even places to eat.  I ended up getting dinner there, and then picked up some pop and a treat for later, along with an English language newspaper.

Then it was back to the hotel.  I'd hit Prinz Knect again, but skipped any dance bars.  I didn't stay out too late.

Potsdam Day Trip

Sunday August 19 -

I originally planned to visit Potsdam on August 22, but the weather forecast suggested that I'd have better weather today.  Not that I'd want bad weather in Berlin, but I'd been snapping sunny day pictures of places I still plan to see all along, just in case.

I got up fairly early and decided on a Berlin stop before heading for Potsdam.  Just to the northwest of the Tiergarten is Hansaviertel, or Hansa Quarter.  At the corner of Lewetzow and Jagow is the Jewish War Memorial.  The site was once home to the Levetzowstraße Synagogue.  During the night of November 9-10, 1938 - Kristallnacht - several thousand Jewish shops and villages were vandalized, damaged or destroyed.  Almost 1700 synagogues were vandalized; a fifth of them were set on fire.  Many Jews were beaten to death, and thousands of Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.  During World War II, the synagogue at this site would be used by Nazis as a detention center for deporting Jews  Heavily damaged during the war, it was torn down in 1950.

Plaques on the ground identify the many Berlin synagogues that were damaged or destroyed on Kristallnacht or during the years that followed.  The main feature of the site is a sculpture that features a box car and a block of victims being dragged into it.  Only it wasn't quite a box car, and the block of victims was an angular stone block but with bits of humanity still apparent.  A 50-foot steel panel listed the date, destination and number of Jews loaded onto 63 death trains.

This site was much more powerful than the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe that I visited Friday, but it is a bit off the beaten path.  A local walking her dog was the only other visitor to the site while I was there.

I checked out the neighborhood a bit, and found a place to pick up a roll for breakfast.  Then it was on to Potsdam.

Potsdam is located only about 12 miles southwest of Berlin.  It is actually in Brandenburg State, outside Berlin State, and in fact is the capital of Brandenburg.  With a couple waits for trains, it was about an hour before I actually got to Potsdam.  I only had a limited map, but as soon as I got off the train, some tour company handed out sightseeing brochures showing where all the key sites were.

Potsdam probably dates back to the 7th century.  In spite of its age, it remained a small town well into the 1500s.  In 1660, it was chosen as the hunting residence of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Elector of Brandenburg.  Brandenburg became the heart of the Kingdom of Prussia, and Potsdam became a residence city of the Prussian royal family, although Berlin would be Prussia's capital.  Several buildings were constructed to meet their needs, including Schloß Sanssouci, now a popular tourist destination.

Emperor Wilhelm II signed Germany's Declaration of War in Potsdam at the start of World War I.  In 1933, Adolf Hitler and German President Paul Von Hindenburg shook hands here on a deal that aligned the military with the Nazis.  Schloß Cecilienhof survived World War II reasonably intact.  It became the site of the Potsdam Conference where the leaders of the allies met to decide the future of not just Germany but Europe, marking the beginning of what would become a Soviet-dominated eastern Europe.  Potsdam would end up just outside the Berlin Wall in East Germany until the wall came down.

I walked from the station to towards the town center, getting a view of the Flatowturm tower along the way.  My first stop was the Alter Markt, or Old Market area.  The plaza was dominated by the large domed Nikolai Kirche, built in 1837, and the Altes Rathaus, built in 1755.  There was also what looked like archaeological work underway at the site of the old Potsdamer Stadtschloß, the Potsdam City Palace, built in the 1600s on the site of an earlier fortress.  Damaged in World War II, the East German government decided to level it.  However, there is now an effort underway to rebuild the palace and restore the look of the Alter Markt.  In that vein, reconstruction of the Fortunaportal was completed in 2002.

I cut through a residential neighborhood as I made my way north to the Holländisches Viertel, the Dutch Quarter.  This neighborhood features about 150 houses built in the Dutch style in the mid-1700s.  King Friedrich Wilhelm I had invited Dutch craftsmen to settle here.  I explored the neighborhood and then found a sandwich shop to get some lunch.

I ate my sandwich near the Naüner Tor, one of Potsdam's old city gates.  Based on a sketch by Friedrich II (Friedrich the Great), it was built in 1755 in the neo-Gothic style.

From there I headed northeast past the Rathaus to Neuer Garten, the New Garten.  The key attraction for me at Neuer Garten was Schloß Cecilienhof.  This was the last palace built by the Hohenzollern family, built in the style of an English Tudor country manor during World War I for Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife Duchess Cecilie.  The royal family renounced the throne at the end of the war, but two generations of the family were given a life-long right of residence at Cecilienhof.  That lasted until near the end of World War II when the family fled in the face of the approaching Soviet Army.  The Soviets occupied Cecilienhof in April 1945; they handed it back to the Germans in 1952.  

Because the palace survived the war substantially intact, it was chosen for the Potsdam Conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945.  Conference participants included the top leaders of the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin), Great Britain (Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee) and the U.S. (Harry S. Truman).  Poland had been promised a seat at the table, given their contributions to the war effort (the fourth-largest troop contingent), but ultimately they were not invited, perhaps a sign of things to come.  The powers ultimately agreed on the divisions of Berlin, Germany and Austria, shifts of German territory to Poland and of Polish territory to the Soviet Union, the expulsion of Germans from the now-Polish territory, and the dismantling of Germany's war-making ability.  A key outcome was essentially the acknowledgment of Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe.

Portions of the palace are open to tourists, including the suites of rooms used by each of the three parties as well as the main conference hall.  Many of the items present are authentic, including the round conference table made in Moscow specifically for the Potsdam conference.  The garden in the main courtyard features a Soviet star of red geraniums, a historically accurate depiction of what the Soviets had done to prepare the palace for the conference.  Someone long ago carved a hammer and sickle into some palace pillars.  

After exploring Cecilienhof I headed over to Marmorpalais, the Marble Palace.  However, it was undergoing extensive restoration work; much of it was hidden by plastic sheeting.

I finished up at Neuer Garten and began heading west to Park Sanssouci.  Unfortunately, during the 20 minute walk the skies went from nicely sunny to heavily overcast, although it never did rain.

Friedrich II ordered the construction of a royal residence in Potsdam in 1744 where he could live "sans souci", or "without cares".  Schloß Sanssouci, unlike most of the palaces I'd see on the trip, was fairly small and limited to a single floor.  A palatial bungalow, I suppose, although it was still rather fancy by most measures.  And perched on a hilltop, it has great views of Park Sanssouci's terraced gardens and a reproduction of some Roman ruins built in the 1800s.

Nearby is an Orangerie, a guest palace for visiting foreign royals.  Other palaces at Park Sanssouci include Neues Palais and Schloß Charlottenhof.  I didn't tour the interiors of any of the palaces at Park Sanssouci, but I explored the grounds of the park, checking out the Römische Bäder and the Chinesisches Haus before working my way over to Friedenskirche, the Church of Peace.  The church includes a royal crypt where King Friedrich Wilhelm III and his wife Queen Louise, their son Friedrich Wilhelm IV and his wife Elizabeth are entombed.  A second mausoleum contains the remains of Emperor Friedrich III and his wife Victoria along with two sons who died during childhood.

From there I began making my way back to the train station.  I stopped for some pictures at Potsdam's own Brandenburger Tor, and then checked out some city center sites along the way, including a number of sculptures and an anti-fascism memorial.

I took the train back to Berlin where I capped off my sightseeing with a visit to the Schöneberg Rathaus.  It had functioned as the town hall for West Berlin when the city was divided.  And it was here on June 26, 1963, where in a speech President John F. Kennedy said, "Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen].  Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is Ich bin ein Berliner [I am a citizen of Berlin].... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner."  And no he did not describe himself as a jelly doughnut, as a popular - but wrong- story goes.

Kennedy's speech was important to Berliners.  So much so that the plaza in front of the Rathaus was renamed John-F-Kennedy-Platz.  Tributes to Kennedy popped up several times during my visit to Germany and Vienna.

Back to my neighborhood for dinner and then an evening in the hotel.  I had an early start in the morning, so no nightlife tonight.

Pila, Poland (was Schneidemühl, Prussia)

Monday August 20 -

One of the side adventures I planned for myself for this trip was an overnight excursion into Poland.  My paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather, Friedrich Ottomar Krueger (a.k.a. Krüger) was born and raised in the Prussian village of Schneidemühl.  He married one Haver sister, and then a second one, with each of them leaving him a widower with kids.  After that, he headed for the United States with his kids and met my grandma's maternal grandmother.  One of their kids became my grandma's mother.  It is interesting to think about what all had to happen all those years ago for me to even be here.  Henrietta Haver had to die for me to come along.

Schneidemühl was an old settlement of German woodcutters in old Poland - the name Schneidemühl means "sawmill".  Over the years the area changed hands a few times, and it eventually ended up in Prussia as part of the Duchy of Posen, which explains why the old family notes about Krueger indicate that he came from Posen Schneidemühl.

As a consequence of the two World Wars, Germany lost much of those Prussian lands to Poland, including Schneidemühl.  The Poles renamed it Pila ("saw" in Polish), expelled the Germans, and turned it into a decidedly Polish town.

The town was an important munitions manufacturing site and railway hub, so it took a pounding during World War II.  As much as 90% of the old town center was destroyed, leaving little that my ancestors would recognize.  There are a couple old German cemeteries in town - I probably have relatives in one or both of them.  Given my interest in my family's history, I wanted to see the town, and I wanted to check out the cemeteries to see if I could find any Kruegers or Havers - I'm not related to the Havers, but I do owe them my life.

In planning the trip, I realized that Pila was far enough from Berlin that I would have to make it an overnight trip.  I found a hotel online, the Hotel Gromada Pila, and booked a night.

The next step was booking my actual travel.  My travel agent suggested a route, but it turned out to be to Pila, Czech Republic.  The Pila in Poland it turned  out couldn't be booked by my travel agent.  That's why I booked most of the trip last Friday in Berlin.

I caught the subway to the Lichtenberg train station.  As a carryover from the divided Germany days, Lichtenberg currently is the starting point for many trains bound for the old Soviet Bloc countries, although that is reportedly changing.  Once I got a ticket snafu corrected on the train, the travel from Berlin to the Polish border was uneventful.  I had a short delay at customs - everyone else on the train was apparently German or Polish and only needed to show ID cards, whereas I had to get my passport stamped, so they saved me for last.  I came prepared to buy my local train ticket - I had a note card with the information for the ticket I wanted written in Polish.  After that, I walked around the small village for a bit, as I had about an hour to kill before my next train arrived.

I changed trains in Krzyz - we were a bit late in arriving there, missing the scheduled connection, so I ended up on a later train for the last leg of the trip. We reached Pila shortly after noon.  I felt unusually disoriented as I came out of the train station.  I would figure out that my maps were out of date - a new stretch of road was being built, messing up the signage and the road layouts shown on my maps.  But I soon sorted myself out and began a sightseeing walk as I worked my way towards the town center and my hotel.

Given what I've seen in a lot of older European cities, I suspect that Pila once shared a lot of similarities.  But when you rebuild from scratch combining the postwar need for housing - fast - with Communist era budgets, and you end up with a lot of box-shaped apartment blocks, some of which featured first-floor retail or restaurants.  There really wasn't a well-defined downtown or market square-like area, so Pila didn't seem to have much focus.  Plac Zwyciestwa, the grassy area in front of my hotel, might have been an old town square.  Today it looks like a park, and features a couple monuments, one of Pope John Paul II.

I checked into my hotel room, which featured a nice view of Plac Zwyciestwa, and then set off for the first of the old German cemeteries.  I planned a route that would take me to some of the attractions of the town, mostly just a church and some monuments.

The cemetery was interesting, to say the least.  There were a number of maintained graves, the names on the markers of which were decidedly Polish, and the death dates were all after World War II - all after the town reverted to Polish control and the Germans were expelled,  But there was another half to the cemetery. Very few markers.  A handful of headstone bases.  But for the most part stripped of markers and now overgrown.  With their descendents expelled, there was no one to maintain those graves, I suppose.  And I suspect that in the years immediately after the war, the Poles weren't feeling much in the way of goodwill towards Germans, even dead ones.

I was disappointed, but not all that surprised at the lack of family information.  After all, it had been more than 150 years since my Schneidemühl relatives came to the U.S.  

I headed back towards the city center, checking out a monument in a park along the way.  It was in that park that I turned up an explicit reference to Schneidemühl, the only such reference I would find in Pila.  The small monument essentially said, "Yesterday, Today and Always, Pila" in Polish and "Yesterday, Today and Always, Schneidemühl" in German.  It was a newer monument, and seemed to suggest that the Poles and Germans tied to that town have reached some kind of reconciliation.  I'll have to see what I can turn up on it, although so far I haven't turned up much.

The second old German cemetery was like the first except the old German section was even more overgrown.  I wasn't surprised, but I at least wanted to verify it.  Then it was back towards the center of town (stopping at a McDonalds for some Coca Cola Light).

By now it was late afternoon.  My last goal was to find a bookstore.  I hoped to find something about Pila history.  But while I found several books on Poznan and on the Wielkopolska Voivodeship, the Greater Poland Province, I didn't find anything specifically about Pila - and no reference to it in the indexes I checked.  I did buy a book of photos from the region, this serving as my lone Polish souvenir of the trip.

Then it was back to the hotel to clean up, and then back out on the street to find a place for dinner.  Pila is definitely not very tourist-oriented.  I could have eaten at the hotel.  Downtown I found one open restaurant, although I knew that McDonalds was also within walking distance.  Authentic Polish cuisine?  Nope.  Lasagna and a salad.  And frankly it was absolutely the worst lasagna I have ever eaten.  I had to find some ice cream to get rid of the taste..

There wasn't much going on that I could see in downtown Pila on a Monday night, and I was having problems with blisters, so I decided to spend the evening in the hotel catching up on my sleep from this morning's early rise.

Poznan, Poland (was Posen, Prussia)

Tuesday August 21 -

One of the reasons I like to spend some time sampling a country that isn't on my list - like New Zealand, Chile and Denmark on past international trips - is that I often find some real gems.  Poland was on my list only for Schneidemühl, and I can't say that my visit to Schneidemühl would have inspired a return to Poland some day.  But today I would discover a real gem.

When I first planned my Polish excursion, I figured I'd head back to Berlin along the same route that I took to Pila.  But when I was looking for possible routes during the weeks before I left the U.S., the computer suggested one option that had me heading south out of Pila to Poznan, and then west to Berlin on an express train.  That would have gotten me back to Berlin by mid-afternoon.  That wouldn't leave me with time to do much of anything after I got back, perhaps another museum or something.

I noticed that there were in fact a few express trains from Poznan to Berlin today.  Taking one of the later ones would give me about four hours to explore Poznan.  Not a lot of time, but a chance to see some of the highlights of Poznan.  I read up a bit on Poznan and found that it is a historically interesting city.  I figured, what the heck?  It will give me another small perspective on Poland.

It turns out that not only is the city historically interesting, I found it to be interesting in general and also very photogenic.  In spite of my rushed sightseeing, I was able to hit some of Poznan's major highlights and thoroughly enjoyed my decision to check it out.

Poznan is one of the oldest cities in Poland, dating back at least as far as 968AD.  Mieszko I, the first known duke of the Polans, built a castle in Poznan.  In 968, a bishopric was established here, and a cathedral was built in 992.  The cathedral, which has since evolved into today's Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, is one of the oldest churches in Poland, and it is Poland's oldest cathedral.  It is also where Mieszko I was laid to rest.  His son, Boleslaw Chrobry, became the first Polish king.  He was also laid to rest here along with a few other early Polish kings.  At that time Poznan was the capital of Poland, but after a successful attack by Bohemian Prince Bratislav in 1038, the royals moved their seat to Kraków.  However, Poznan continued to be the capital of the region, Wielkopolska, or Greater Poland, the birthplace of modern Poland.

In 1793, Poznan came under Prussian rule.  The Prussians promoted German colonization and Germanization of the region.  The effort was successful enough that German president Paul Von Hindenburg was from Poznan, or Posen as the Germans called it.  However, the Poles never went along with it, and after an uprising at the end of World War I, Poznan was once again part of Poland.  The German-Polish border at that time in fact passed just a few kilometers south of Schneidemühl, keeping Schneidemühl in Germany for a few more decades.

The train station is a couple kilometers to the southwest of the heart of Poznan, the Stare Miasto, or Old City.  I made my way through the city, including Plac Hoovera, named after President Herbert Hoover, eventually reaching the Parish Church of the City of Poznan, an impressive baroque style church completed in the 1730s.

Just to the north is Stary Rynek, the Old Town Square.  The square and surrounding neighborhood were laid out in 1253 as the settlement surrounding the cathedral expanded west across the Warta River.  It is perhaps the most colorful town square among those that I've come across in my travels.  The highlight is the town hall, a Renaissance style building dating to the mid-1500s (replacing the original Gothic town hall, portions of which are visible in the Historical Museum of Poznan).  Its eastern face features a three-story arcade, a colorful frieze that features the kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty, and a clock where every day at noon two metal goats appear, butting heads 12 times.  In front of the town hall is a fountain and a sculpture that features some guy with a sword and the work IVSTICI carved below it.  I originally just figured it was some Pole I had never heard of.  Turns out that this was a replica of an old whipping post, the site of public floggings and other forms of justice.  The guy with the sword?  An executioner.  As for IVSTICI.  Or IUSTICI?  If you pronounce it, you'll find that it, too, is another form of JUSTICE.

Many of the buildings that surround the square are themselves brightly painted, certainly a far cry from the drab buildings I found in Pila.  A number of them featured their own friezes.  Several of these are now restaurants and tourist-oriented shops, but it didn't have the kind of overwhelming tourist feel that I would see in the old town squares of both Frankfurt and Munich.  I guess it helps that Poznan is a bit off tourism's beaten path.

Stary Rynek had been heavily damaged during World War II, but it was restored nicely (well, except for a couple buildings near the town hall that seemed entirely out of place).  Unlike yesterday in Pila, I had a bright sunny morning, so Stary Rynek was especially photogenic.

No lingering, though, as the clock was ticking.  I headed northeast out of the city center, past an old Jesuit cloister and across the Warta River to Ostrów Tumski.  This island is where Poznan and indeed Poland began, and it remains home to the Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul.  It is a Gothic-style church, with baroque touches.  It was severely damaged during World War II, and underwent 11 years of restoration.  The church is ringed with a dozen chapels, the most significant of which is the Zloty Kaplica, or Golden Chapel.  It serves as the mausoleum for the first two Polish rulers, Mieszko I and Boleslaw Chrobry.  Visitors can go down below the cathedral to the crypt.  Ruins from the earlier church buildings and church relics believed to date back to 968AD are on display.

Near the church is a nice sculpture of Pope John Paul II, another of the handful of tributes to the Polish pope that I came across during my excursion into Poland.

Back to Stary Rynek.  I had hit the main highlights I had targeted, and so I figured I'd get some lunch.  I ended up at a place named the Sioux City Restaurant and Bar.  Having been born in Iowa, which is home to Sioux City, I couldn't resist the name.  Not having a lot of time and not wanting to risk something like last night's lasagna, I ordered a bacon burger and Diet Coke.  Turns out that a bacon burger meant something different here.  All bacon, no burger.  If you took a slab of meat from the hog's belly and rolled it, froze it, and then sliced the rolls into half inch-thick patties, you'd have their version of a bacon burger.  Heap a massive amount of some type of finely chopped cooked cole slaw (it was actually rather tasty, and very much unlike sauerkraut, which I hate), and put it all on a bun, and you end up with a sloppy to eat but fairly tasty (albeit fatty) sandwich.

Time to head towards the train station, although I had time to take an indirect route for a bit more sightseeing.  I headed west along Grudnia until I reached Teatr Wielki (the Grand Theatre), and from there I worked my way south.  I made a stop at what I think is a Memorial to the Polish Victims of Stalinism, if I translated the sign correctly.  The small sculpture is located in a park behind the Kaiserhaus, built as a residence for German Emperor Wilhelm II in the early 1900s, when Poznan was part of Germany.

Nearby at Plac Mickiewicza is the Monument to the Victims of June 1956.  A workers' strike in Poznan in June 1956 was the first mass protest to occur in the Soviet bloc countries.  It would inspire similar strikes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Poland.  A group of protesters 100,000-strong clashed with police.  Troops and tanks were brought in from outside (Polish soldiers were told they were helping to put down a German-inspired revolt), and dozens of people were killed.  Although Poland would remain under communist rule for another generation, the strike did lead to a change in government the following October that at least at first led to some liberalization of life in Poland.

The plaza today is dominated by a sculpture that features two 60-feet tall crosses bound together along with an eagle.  Plaques commemorate the events surrounding the uprising as well as a visit by Pope John Paul II.  Temporary displays at the site provide historical information on Polish protests - including the efforts by Solidarity at the Gdansk shipyards in the 1980s.

I made it back to the train station plenty early.  I could have spent another half hour exploring the town, but I'm mostly used to air travel, and I wasn't sure what the check-in procedures might be for the border-crossing train.  Well, there were none.  Get on the train, and they'll take care of it while you're onboard.  

The express train took me all the way to Berlin's main train station, where I bought a local train ticket from a kiosk and then hopped on board for my return to my neighborhood.  Oops. Forgot to validate it.  I made that mistake in Italy en route to Pisa from Florence, and basically had to buy a replacement ticket on the train.  The German's threaten fines, so I hopped off at the next station, validated the ticket and then caught the next train back.  I don't think I ever saw anyone come around verifying that people had validated tickets while I traveled around Berlin, but it did happen in Nürnberg.  

Although I was disappointed at finding almost nothing of family tree value in Pila, I enjoyed my Polish excursion.  It was interesting to see two (or three, if I count my short walk around Kostrzyn) very different Polish cities, and Poznan would go down as one of the unexpected bonuses of this trip.  If I ever go back to Berlin, I could see making another excursion to Poznan someday.

I found a place for dinner, and then spent the evening reviewing and organizing the pictures from my Polish excursion before heading out to Prinz Knect.  

Berlin - Mitte Museums, Final Berlin Sightseeing

Wednesday August 22 -

It was my final day of sightseeing in Berlin.  I had a list of sites to see, clearly much too long for just one day, but I had only two "must sees" on the list, Checkpoint Charlie and the Deutsches Historisches Museum.  The weather forecast called for rain, and the clouds sure made it look like the forecast would be accurate, so I decided to target Checkpoint Charlie first.

I took the trains to Mitte and walked the few blocks to Checkpoint Charlie.  Checkpoint Charlie was a crossing point between East and West Berlin on Friedrichstraße, south of Unter den Linden.  It was one of several crossing points, but Checkpoint Charlie was the only crossing point for foreigners and members of the Allied Forces.  

The site today features displays of historical information about post-war Berlin, the building of the Berlin Wall, life with the Wall, and finally when the Wall came down.  Reproductions of the sign and the 1960s-era wooden shed that the Allies had at the board are in positions where the originals once stood.  Where East German border crossing facilities once stood are empty lots.  According to my travel book, these lots had been filled by approximately 1000 crosses commemorating those people who were shot or killed near the Wall from 1961 to 1989.  The crosses were now gone - taken down a couple years ago, according to someone I spoke with at the nearby Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, apparently to make room for new construction.

The Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, a.k.a. the Mauermuseum, focuses on the Berlin Wall, its construction, and especially the attempts by East Germans to breach it.  It also pays tribute to many victims of the East German security forces that attempted to stop them.  It has got quite an interesting albeit somewhat ad hoc collection of materials.  Although it is not all that big, I ended up spending almost 1 1/2 hours touring it.

I started heading north on Friedrichstraße when the storm hit.  Heavy rains, strong winds - and I'd discovery that somehow my umbrella had broken since I had used it briefly in Pila.  I took refuge in a doorway.  I suppose I was a little slow on the uptake, but I was there almost 20 minutes before I realized that the door led into a shopping center.  A big one.  So I headed on in and looked for umbrellas, finally finding a box of them in the arms of a clothing store clerk who was about to put them on display.  I followed him to the cash register and bought one out of the box - I think it became the second most expensive souvenir from my trip.  It was still raining, so I found the food court and got some lunch.

By now the storm had eased up quite a bit - mostly just rain now - so I headed out, making my way to the Deutsches Historisches Museum.  The place is huge, covering the period from prehistoric times to near the present.  Even at a rather rushed pace, I spent 2 1/2 hours here.  I was especially interested in the period surrounding the rise of the Prussian empire, the unification of Germany, the World Wars and the rise and fall of the Nazis, and the museum was excellent on all of those topics.

The Nazi propaganda that was on display was fascinating, but that was due in no small part to perspective.  After all, I can't help but see Adolf Hitler, the Nazis and the swastika from a post-war perspective.  I know how that propaganda's depiction of Jews turned out for the Jews and others.  I look at it and wonder how anyone could have fallen for it.  

And yet at the time, people did.  Germany had just been humiliated after World War I, it had lost significant amounts of territory, and its economy was sputtering.  The communist takeover in nearby Russia posed a new, nearby threat.  Fear, frustration and a powerful sense of national identity can draw people to both extremes.  And in the 1920s, I doubt that most people could have anticipated where Hitler and the Nazis would ultimately take them.

The museum did an great job telling its stories.  It is very impressive and I highly recommend it.

It was after 3PM when I finished up at the museum.  By then the sun was out, making for a bright, beautiful day, but my feet were sore from blisters on both little toes (it is amazing how much those can hurt), so I didn't feel much like walking.  Given the late hour, there really wasn't much time for much more sightseeing.  I trimmed my list down to two last sites for me to see en route to the S-Bahn station.

First was my return to Bebelplatz, where I hoped I'd find finally find the window into the empty library.  No sign of it in the pavement in the road in front of the Bebelplatz park area, though, so I gave up on that one.  But as I passed the plaza in front of Humboldt University, I noticed a small group of people looking at a spot on the ground.  I went over to check it out, and sure enough it was the window into an underground room with empty library shelves.  The guidebook I was using put the site in the road, which in addition to the information I got this morning about the field of crosses at Checkpoint Charlie, and I can't help but wonder how often the people who write these guidebooks actually visit and verify the places they describe in their books.  (Who, after all, has time to stay in dozens of hotels for a sufficient amount of time to see which ones that they really should include?)

My last stop was the Gendarmenmarkt, a broad plaza that features a French cathedral (north end), a German cathedral (south end), a theatre building and a fountain.  A nice treat on a sunny day to end my Berlin sightseeing with.  I have often wondered why we don't seem to build the kind of ornate buildings that they used to build around plazas like this anymore, but according to information at the plaza, the buildings were damaged in World War II, and the restoration of the last of the three was completed just in the 1990s.  So I guess that we're certainly able to build them like we used to.

And that completed my Berlin sightseeing.  I took the S-Bahn back to Wittenbergplatz and then picked up a snack and a newspaper at KaDeWe before returning to my hotel.  I took it easy for awhile and then headed out for my last authentic Berlin dinner - traditional Italian pizza and a salad.

Back to the hotel to pack for tomorrow's trip to Frankfurt, and then I checked out Prinz Knecht one last time.

Frankfurt am Main - The Old City

Thursday August 23 -

Today my vacation shifted from old Prussia to southern Germany, Frankfurt in particular.  It was a pretty uneventful move.  I got up, got cleaned up, checked out, and took a taxi to Berlin's Tegel airport.  Where I waited nearly an hour to check in because of the way they do things - I had expected to check in, drop off my suitcase and find a place for a nice relaxing breakfast.  Instead I had time for a quick sandwich.  

It is a short flight, barely an hour.  I was expecting a puddle-jumper, but Frankfurt is Germany's primary international airport, so the plane was actually an 8-seat-across Airbus.  I had a window seat and was treated to some outstanding views of central Berlin.  Tegel is on the north side of the city, and we took a steep climbing loop east-south-southwest around the city, and I happened to be on the right side of the plane.  Unfortunately they didn't allow electronics until we were pretty much out of view.  I tried a few photos, but I didn't get anything worth keeping.

Frankfurt's airport is connected to the city center by a direct subway line, although I had a bit of confusion as it wasn't clear that Frankfurt City was the same thing as Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.  I wasn't the only person uncertain about it, but a friendly German helped me out.

My hotel was just a few blocks from the train station, so I was checking in by about 1PM.  The Ramada Frankfurt City Center.  A definite step down from my Berlin Hotel.  They're trying to make a hotel out of a couple existing buildings, so it's got odd elevators, changes in floor level (there was a step in my bathroom), and so on, which are easy enough to deal with.  But my single room is half the size of my Berlin single.  No desk.  Not even a chair.  No air conditioning (global warming will no doubt help Europe develop an appreciation for air conditioning).  And a window that looks out into a dreaded courtyard, which means you've got no privacy with the curtains open, and other people's noise with the window open.  It would be the worst room I'd have on the trip, and the only hotel I would not recommend.  Oh well.  It's just three nights.

I put a few things away, got changed, and hit the streets.  Unlike Berlin, Frankfurt doesn't have a whole lot of classic sightseeing, and most of it is concentrated in the old city.  It was sunny, and with tomorrow's forecast suggesting periods of rain, I figured I'd get my sunny day photos today, and leave leftovers, museums and any other interiors for a possible rainy day.

From a sightseeing standpoint, Frankfurt is actually a lot like Poznan.  A historic city center with a classic historic look (helped by a lot of post-war restoration), a major church (the one in Frankfurt is called a cathedral but technically really isn't one) with a great deal of historic significance in the country's history, and typical tourist-oriented sightseeing, dining and souvenir shopping opportunities.  Frankfurt seemed to draw a lot more tourist buses than Poznan did, but I suspect that more bus-tourists will discover Poland over time.

My hotel was between the train station and a park area that once was the location of city walls.  The walk to the heart of the city center was pretty short, although my blister situation was pretty much at its worst now.

My first stop was at Willie Brandtplatz, part of the ring of parks that surround the city center and site of a large euro symbol sculpture.  Frankfurt is Germany's financial capital - and has the nickname Bankfurt as a result - so the sculpture was appropriate.  Some nearby skyscrapers also caught my eye.  As much as the European cities I've visited seem to promote population density (5-6 story buildings are rather common even in small towns), true skyscrapers have been few and far between.  Although nothing like what you'd find in Chicago or even in Seattle, Frankfurt has more skyscrapers than almost any other city in Europe.

I continued on, reaching the impressive Rathaus.  It seems to be a complex of buildings patched together using a number of different styles and construction materials.  I especially liked the various carvings and gargoyles that decorated the building.  Among my favorites were a dragon, a couple of men seemingly engaged in conversation as their backs bore the weight of the building, the German adler/eagle symbol, and a jester sticking his tongue out at the people (an appropriate symbol of government if there ever was one).

Paulskirche, or St. Paul's Church, across the street, was established in 1789 and construction was finished in 1833, so it is not an ancient church by any stretch.  However, it is a major German historic site.  In 1848 it became the seat of the first democratically elected German parliament.  The parliament convened in order to write a constitution for a united Germany.  However, the several factions could not come to an agreement, and the monarch of Prussia and Austria did not want to give up their power, and in 1849, the Prussians had enough and sent in troops to end it.  The church was heavily damaged in World War II, but given its historic significance it was the first building in Frankfurt to be rebuilt, opening on the 100th anniversary of the parliament.  President John F. Kennedy gave a major speech here in 1963; a plaque in his memory is one of several mounted on the exterior of the building, which no longer functions as a church.  A small monument on the northwest side of the building remembers the victims of the Nazi's concentration and extermination camps.

Römerberg is the historic market area and main plaza area in the heart of the city.  Romans settled this spot probably back in the first century AD.  The name Frankfurt, however, comes from a reference to the Franks and the spot where the River Main could be reasonably crossed, i.e., a ford.  A variation of the name was first mentioned in 794AD when Charlemagne came here for an imperial assembly.  Beginning in 855AD, German kings and emperors were elected here, although they were crowned in Aachen until 1562.

Römerberg has a classic tourist-appealing look to it, a large plaza surrounded by half-timbered buildings and Alte Nikolaikirche.  Its famous fountain that reportedly used to issue wine was hidden from view as it underwent restoration.  The tower of Dom St. Bartholomäus dominated the view to the east.

The Römer is the town hall where it faces Römerberg, essentially an extension of the Rathaus.  It includes the kaiseraal, the imperial coronation hall for Holy Roman Emperors.  Weddings take place regularly at the town hall.  I would see several celebrations in the plaza in front of the Römer in my two days of exploring Frankfurt.  Other buildings housed tourist shops and cafes, making Römerberg the tourist heart of the city.  There didn't seem to be that many tourists, although I'd find it much more crowded tomorrow.

I got my afternoon sun photos of Römerberg and then headed over to Dom St. Bartholomäus, checking out some old Roman and church ruins along the way.  Here the surrounding buildings appeared to be much more modern.  Frankfurt was severely damaged by World War II bombing raids, so much of what I'd see in the city center was fairly modern construction.  Even the "old" buildings were often substantially rebuilt after the war.  This would be true for most of what I saw in almost all the German cities I would visit on this trip.  I wouldn't find anything like Stockholm's Gamla Stan in any of the major cities I visited on this trip.  Of course, Sweden stayed out of World War II, which no doubt helped.

The red sandstone cathedral (technically it has never been a bishop's seat) dates back to the 14th and 15th centuries, although it was build on the site of an earlier church.  It was substantially rebuilt after an 1867 fire and again after World War II.  The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were elected here beginning in 1356, and crowned here from 1562 until the empire was dissolved in 1806.  I walked around the cathedral and then toured the interior.  The old cloister area now houses a small museum, which I had to myself (the small fee apparently kept most people out).

Then it was down to the River Main to check out the views there.  And then?

That would be the big question with Frankfurt.  I just covered all of the major highlights of the city center.  Sure there are some museums, and Johann Goethe's house offers tours, but such things are kind of hit and miss, depending on what your tastes are.  I figured that it was too late in the day to take in the Historisches Museum, so I took a walk around the city, checking out my nightlife options and some of the old churches shown on my map.  I can't say that I was much impressed by either, but it filled the rest of the day.

I headed back to the hotel and then headed back to Römerberg to find a restaurant for dinner.  I ended up having a very good dinner at one of the oldest restaurants in town.  

I did head out for nightlife later in the evening, and walking clear across the city center where I ended up at a neighborhood bar - Come Back - on Alte Gaße, apparently the oldest street in town (the bar building dated back to 1526, although I'm certain that it hasn't been a gay bar all these years).  There wasn't a lot going on, and with my blisters, it was a long walk there and back.  I'd skip nightlife for the rest of my Frankfurt stay.

Frankfurt am Main - Museum, Sachsenhausen, West End

 Friday August 24 -

I set the alarm for 8AM, but after getting up to go to the bathroom at 7, I unset it.  I've been pretty tired the last few days and figured I could use the extra sleep.  I did manage to doze off again, and ended up not getting up until 9AM.  

After getting cleaned up, I headed back to Römerberg, this time to get some pictures of it with the morning sun, and then to tour the Historisches Museum.  I'm a history buff, as anyone reading these things has figured out, so I hit a lot of historic sites, and I try to find a decent history museum wherever I go.  Given Frankfurt's major role in the Holy Roman Empire, its ties to Charlemagne, the events that took place in the late 1840s over at Paulskirche and the impact that two world wars had on this city, and Frankfurt has an interesting historical story to tell.  Unfortunately, this museum didn't tell it very well.  Other than some interesting excavated ruins from early construction, the museum featured a rather limited collection of items - a bit more Nazi era items (including a Christmas tree decorated with swastika ornaments), though.  I was in and out of the museum in about an hour.

I got a quick lunch/breakfast, and then headed over to the Main.  I crossed that and headed into the Sachsenhausen neighborhood just to see a different part of Frankfurt.  Back to the Main and into the old city to look for the Staufermauer, part of the old city wall that I had missed yesterday.  I found it, and then headed over to the Eschenheimer Turm - a tower left over from the old city gate - and then Alt Oper, the old opera house, for some pictures.  I was back at my hotel by 2PM, just four hours after I left.

I can't let vacation time go to waste, so I headed out for another walk.  I had read something that indicated that the Nazis had some connection to a building at Lindenstraße 18, so I thought I'd check that out en route to Palmengarten, a nice garden park.  I did find a newer building at the location, but with a different address, facing the cross street there.  Lindenstraße 18 didn't seem to exist anymore, and there was no historical marker.

Palmengarten was pretty enough for a botanical garden, but I can't say that it was all that special.  And my feet were in no shape to be walking that much - it was hard to enjoy the garden when there was simply no way to stand on my feet without blister pain.  Ugh.  So I hobbled on back to the hotel.  I got dinner at a restaurant a block from my hotel.  No long walking this evening.

I live in downtown Seattle, so I'm used to doing a lot of city walking every day.  I also brought with me a good pair of shoes that I've used for awhile without any problems.  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong all of the sudden, but I've been plagued with blisters on this trip.  The littlest toes on both feet, and now today I added a couple blisters on each of my heels.  Pretty minor stuff as far as problems go, except these hurt - A LOT - when I walked.  Which of course I was walking everywhere, So I got some good bandages, and tonight I drained the blisters and then stayed off my feet all evening.  No nightlife tonight.  The constant pain was taking a good deal of pleasure out of a vacation that in all other respects was going quite well.

Heidelberg Day Trip

Saturday August 25 -

I originally had planned on going to Heidelberg yesterday, but there was a threat of rain in the forecast (which ultimately didn't materialize), so I switched dates.  

I chose Heidelberg for my Frankfurt-based daytrip because I had already heard a little bit about it, and with further reading I found out that unlike much of what I'd seen so far, Heidelberg's historic center was spared in World War II, and so it still has original buildings that date back to the Middle Ages.  Apparently a lot of people choose Heidelberg for similar reasons.  The place was pretty crowded with tourists.

I got up early, prepped my feet for another day of walking, and then headed over to the train station, where I purchased a round trip ticket for Heidelberg.  I was on the train 15 minutes later, and an hour after that I was walking the streets of Heidelberg.  The highlights of Heidelberg are in the Altstadt, or Old City, area, where the city got its start about 800 years ago.  Located in the Neckar River valley, the old city is long but narrow, mostly along the southern bank of the river.  The main shopping and restaurant street, Hauptstraße connects Bismarckplatz, Universitätsplatz, Marktplatz and the Kornmarkt, with Marktplatz and its Heiliggeistkirche being the heart of the city.  

Near the Kornmarkt is a steep road that leads up to Schloß Heidelberg, the castle that sits above Heidelberg.  Although construction at the site dates back to 1313AD, most of the castle buildings and ruins visible today date from the 1500s to 1700s.  Parts of the castle are reasonably intact.  Other parts are little more than empty shells or stand-alone walls.  Part of one tower has slumped off the rest of the tower.  Time and French explosives in the late 17th century have taken their toll on the castle, but it is still quite an interesting site to see, with its mix of Gothic and German Renaissance architecture.  It also offers some outstanding views of the Altstadt and Neckar Valley from several vantage points.

Of course, after seeing the castle, the rest of the Altstadt - by now packed with tourists - could be seen as just another collection of old buildings turned into another tourist trap.  Yes, it was that crowded, at least around the Marktplatz and Hauptstraße.  The kind of crowd where every picture you take includes other people taking pictures of other people.  Kind of like what happens when a large cruise ship dumps thousands of people into the heart of some small town.  Good thing I got here early.

I found a place for lunch and then set off on my afternoon explorations, focusing on places that mostly were quite a bit less crowded.  Heidelberg is famous for its university.  Ruprecht-Karl-University dates back to 1386AD, after a schism in 1378 resulted in competing claims to the papacy, and the resulting unrest prompted Germans at the Sorbonne in Paris to return to Germany.  After touring Peterskirche and checking out Richard Hauser Platz, I toured the interior of Heiliggeistkirche.

I then headed over to Alte Brücke, the Old Bridge. for some views of the city gate there and of the city itself.  The best views of the Altstadt, however, are from the other side.  A steep narrow walkway leads up the hill on the north side of the Neckar to Philosophenweg.  From there it is possible to get the castle ruins, Heiliggeistkirche and much of the Altstadt in a single photo.  The sun wasn't ideal for my photo, but I still got some decent pictures from up there - postcards from this spot are quite pretty.

That pretty much wrapped up my sightseeing plans.  I headed back down to the Altstadt and then slowly made my way back to the train station.  It was an enjoyable excursion, although the crowds diminished the experience.

I sat on the shady east side of the train for my return trip to Frankfurt.  This gave me views of the hills to the east.  A number of them were topped with castles or fortresses of some sort.  I suspect that I probably could have picked any train station along the way for a stop, and I would have found an old town and ruins of some sort.  And probably far fewer tourists.

I wasn't very hungry when I got back to Frankfurt, so I grabbed a sandwich at the train station and ate there.  Then I picked up some beverages for back in the room.  I did head out later in search of an ice cream cone, but once again I decided to skip any nightlife.  After a successful visit to Frankfurt, it was time for me to pack for my trip to Nürnberg tomorrow.

Nürnberg (Nuremberg) - Old City and Kaiserburg

Sunday August 26 -

Both guidebooks that I consulted in planning this trip seemed to treat Nürnberg as a lesser stop than, say, Frankfurt.  And yet, given its sites and its historical significance, both to the Holy Roman Empire and to the rise of the Nazis and the Third Reich, and I found it to be a much more interesting place than I did Frankfurt.

If the Holy Roman Empire had a capital city - which for some reason, it didn't - Nürnberg might have very well been it.  It is home to Kaiserburg, where the Reichstage (Imperial Diets, or parliaments) and courts of the empire met.  In fact, according to the Golden Bull of 1356, each Holy Roman Emperor had to convene his first diet in Nürnberg after his election.  The city embraced the Reformation.  It was also the site of a major battle between Swedish and Austrian forces in the Thirty Years War.  With the end of the Holy Roman Empire, Nürnberg became part of Bavaria.  It became a major industrial center, home to Germany's first railroad (connecting the city to Fürth), and a major toy making center.

My hotel was a few blocks from the train station.  The NH Nürnberg City is very nice, probably the nicest room of the various hotels I've stayed at on my overseas trip.  Although it isn't in the heart of the city, it is close enough to the train station and the Frauentor city gate that location wasn't an issue.

I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and then headed into the city.  My first stop was at Frauentor, one of several surviving gates in the old city walls that surround the city center.  Much of the city center had been been turned into rubble during World War II, so most of what I found inside the walls had been reconstructed or was simply newer construction.

I headed towards St. Lorenz Kirche.  Construction of the Gothic church began in 1270 and lasted for more than 200 years.  It is quite impressive on the inside, although I only got a limited look due to church services underway at the time.

I continued north through the heart of town, crossing the Pegnitz River at Museumbrücke.  At one time the river separated two cities, and a Jewish population settled along the river.  When officials wanted to merge the two towns into one back in the late 1200s, they trumped up some charges against Jews and launched a massacre - 698 people were killed.  The area from which the Jews were pushed out would become the Hauptmarkt, or main market area.  Nowadays the market area features numerous vendors offering produce, baked goods, flowers and crafts.  Except today - Sunday.  I'd find the vendors here later during my visit.

The Hauptmarkt also features the pretty Frauenkirche and a fountain so beautiful that they actually named it the Beautiful Fountain, or Schöner Brunnen, which features an assortment of figures arranged in a four-tier fountain.  It was originally built in the late 1300s, but what most visitors see is a replica.  The original is kept in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum.  

Here the road climbs uphill, past the Altes Rathaus and St. Sebaldus Kirche on its way up to Kaiserburg, the top highlight of the city center.  From 1050AD to 1571AD, Kaiserburg was the official residence of German kings and emperors.  Kaiserburg actually consists of three major components.  The name Kaiserburg also applies to the emperor's Palas and related buildings, which surround an inner court.  These date back to the 12th century, and include the Palas, Knights Hall, two chapels and the Women's Quarters.  The Burgrave's Castle, now mostly in ruins, and the Municipal Buildings of the Free City and related bastions are the second and third components of the complex.  One of their highlights is the Pentagonal Tower, the oldest part of the complex, dating back to 1050AD.  The Freiung area of the the Burgrave's Castle provides some excellent views of the city.  The entire complex is one of the largest fortified buildings in Germany.  The castle was actually a part of a system of fortifications that evolved along the frontier of the empire.  The Hohenzollern Dynasty had used their position at Burgrave's castle to assemble a great deal of land.  But without Nurnberg, their lands were fragmented and thus could not be connected into a single territory.  They were eventually pushed out, so the Hohenzollerns set their sights on Brandenburg, which eventually resulted in the founding of the Kingdom of Prussia.  Kaiserburg grounds, courtyards, fortifications and gardens are open to tourists for free.  Guided tours in the buildings are available at a small price.  

I toured the complex and then made my way over to Neutor, another one of the original city gates.  From there I headed off to explore the northwestern streets of the city center as I made my way towards St. Sebaldus Kirche.  This church dates back to 1273AD, and represents a style as Romanesque architecture was giving way to Gothic.  Behind the altar is the shrine of St. Sebald, whose remains are entombed at the church.  

I made my way back towards the Hauptmarkt and then the train center, getting some more photos of some of the sites I saw on my way into town now that the sun was out in fuller force.  I got dinner at a restaurant in the city center, and then headed to the train station to figure out the schedule for trains to Erlangen and to pick up some diet pop and water.  Then it was back to the hotel to unpack and prepare for tomorrow's planned day trip.

I decided to check out the Vicking Club for my nightlife.  It was located just a couple blocks from the hotel.  I didn't expect much on a Sunday night, and it lived up to expectations.  A nice enough bar, but only 3-4 customers in the place.  I read the various bar rags available and then headed back to my hotel.

Uttenreuth and Erlangen Day Trip

Monday August 27 -

Today was the second day of this trip dedicated to visiting places tied to my family history.  My grandma, Esther Gensicke Wasson's maternal grandmother, Caroline Hoffman (born February 3, 1828), and her parents, Christian and Barbara Hoffman, were from Bavaria.  Caroline married a man in Bavaria named Sauertieg, but he apparently died, freeing her up to marry Friedrich Ottomar Krueger, who had come to the U.S. from Posen Schneidemühl, now Pila, Poland.  The notes that have made the rounds in the family list only Bavaria (Bayern) as the birthplaces of Christian and Barbara.  However, the notes on Caroline says that she was born on February 3, 1828, in Uttenauth in Bavaria.

So how did I end up in Uttenreuth?  Well, first there is the fact that none of my maps of Germany, including my detailed map of Bavaria, mention an Uttenauth.  Second, Google doesn't turn it up except for someone else's online posting of the notes that have made the rounds in the family.  Third, other online sources that focus on Bavarian and German place names, past and present, had no record of an Uttenauth.  Fourth, Google suggested "Uttenreuth" as an alternative "Did you mean?" spelling option.  Fifth, there is indeed an Uttenreuth in the world AND it is indeed located in Bavaria.  Sixth, "-nauth" does not seem to be a German place name suffix, but "-reuth" is (e.g., Bayreuth, also in Bavaria).  Seventh, "-nauth" and "-reuth" look similar, especially in cursive handwritten notes - write them out a little sloppily and then compare the "a" to the "re".  And eighth, searching for "Uttenreuth" in combination with either "Hoffman" or "Sauertieg" actually turns up some pages that put people with these last names in the Uttenreuth area.  Of course, Hoffman and its variants are pretty common in Germany, so the "Hoffman" hits weren't very meaningful.  But the "Sauertieg" hits caught my attention.

So although it is not certain that my great great grandmother and her family were from Uttenreuth, I think that my reasoning is, well, reasonable.  And given that the town is easily accessible from Nürnberg - it is on the bus line just a few miles east of the Erlangen city center, and Erlangen is a short train ride north of Nürnberg - I figured that it was worth checking out.  And even if I'm wrong about the family ties, it still would give me a chance to check out a couple less touristy, more typical German towns.

I headed to the train station and caught the next train to Erlangen.  Although there are buses that run from Erlangen to Uttenreuth, I decided to spring for a taxi for the ride out there - the language difference didn't prevent me from recognizing that the driver thought it was a bit strange to drop some tourist off at an arbitrary intersection in some small town.  (I handed the driver a copy of a map of the town with the intersection marked.)

Fortunately there was a bakery at that intersection - I hadn't had breakfast, so I got something to eat there.  Then I hit the streets.  My map showed that Uttenreuth is a small town with just two churches and two cemeteries - actually, the second cemetery looks like it is part of the adjacent village of Spardorf, just to the west of Uttenreuth, but that was close enough for me to keep it on the table.

I headed north a few blocks, stopping for photos of an inn dated 1843 - making it contemporary with the Hoffmans - and of a memorial to those from Uttenreuth that served in World Wars I and II.  I reached Matthäuskirche a couple blocks east of there.  Matthäuskirche dates back to 1765/66, although the onion dome on its bell tower was added in the early 1900s.  It is a small but pretty stone church, austere on the inside but well-maintained.  On the walls of the entrance to Matthäuskirche in Uttenreuth are plaques that list the names and death dates of local men who died in World Wars I and II.  I checked the names, but did not find any Hoffmans or Sauertiegs.

The church is surrounded by an especially neat cemetery.  A handful of volunteers were tending to it as I walked its rows, checking for names on the markers.  I did find a handful of Hoffmans, in all of its variation, but the graves in the cemetery were all rather new.  The dates easily ruled them out as potential ancestors.

After finishing up at the cemetery I took a different route back to the city center.  Except for one decidedly rustic barn, I didn't see any other buildings that looked like they might have dated back to my ancestors' time.  I then began my walk to the west end of town, where I would find a second church - a relatively new Catholic church building - and then worked my way towards the second cemetery on my map.  Unfortunately when I reached the bridge that crossed the creek that probably marked the western boundary of Uttenreuth, the road was closed.  Not just closed to traffic, but completely impassable.  Just then a jogger emerged from the woods, so I decided to follow that path north where my map indicated I would find another bridge.  It was a good guess.  The bridge I found led right into the second cemetery.

I didn't have any more luck with this cemetery, however.  If anything, it was even newer.  It was a nice walk through the woods, though, so I took that route back.  I didn't head back to the city center, however.  There wasn't much else to see there.  I checked out the fairly modern Rathaus and then found a bus stop.  I took the bus back to Erlangen.

Erlangen is considered one of the best preserved Baroque cities in Germany.  It has a number of historical buildings and a major university.  Of course, the main reason I was there was because it also featured the most convenient train stop for visiting Uttenreuth.  But I figured that I would take a look around as long as I was here.

I got off the bus at the south end of Hauptstraße, or Main Street.  I headed north, looking for photo ops - and lunch ops.  The photo ops showed up first.  I found myself in front of a French Huguenot church, the Hügenottenkirche, that dated back to the late 1600s, the first church they built outside of France.  The Huguenots arrived in 1686, and a new town was built here near the original Erlangen.  The two towns merged in 1806, forming today's Erlangen.  

Further north I found Schloßplatz and Schloß Erlangen. The Baroque palace dates back to the early 1700s.  Today the palace houses the administrative offices of the University of Erlangen.  Behind the palace are the gardens and Orangery, which I would explore a bit later.

I got some lunch and then headed further north, stopping at Martin Luther Platz, where I checked out the Altstädt area and the Dreifaltigkeitskirche.  There is an Erlangen historical museum here, but it was closed for renovation - it's also closed on Mondays, so either way I would have missed it.  I headed back towards the palace where I now checked out the gardens.  There wasn't a lot to the Schloßgarten although the Hügenottenbrunnen fountain was impressive.

My last stop in Erlangen was a bookstore.  I wanted to see if I could find something on local history that included information on Uttenreuth.  There were quite a few books on Erlangen and more broadly on Franconia and Bavaria, but nothing on Uttenreuth.  It wasn't even getting mentioned in the indexes of the books I checked.  I finally found a book on the villages in the Nürnberg area, but it was more than 50 euros for a book that included all of one page on Uttenreuth.  Then I found one that featured 11 bike tours in the Erlangen area.  One of its bike tours passed through Uttenreuth, and the book actually had information on its various stops - including a couple pages on Uttenreuth.  This was in a much smaller book available for less than ten euros.  It even said a bit about Matthäuskirche.  In German, but it was a start.

I headed for the train station with my purchase (at less than 10 euros it still was my most expensive purchase so far on the trip - well, second to the umbrella in Berlin) and was soon on my way back to Nürnberg.

It was just mid-afternoon when I got back to Nürnberg, so I figured I'd hit a few of the minor places on my list, which would free up some more time for tomorrow's plans.  

My first stop was the Handwerkhof.  This is essentially a crafts and dining shopping area set up in medieval setting in an enclosed area adjacent to Nürnberg's Frauentor.   I can't say that I saw anything that much appealed to me from a souvenir standpoint, but I did buy a pack of Lebkuchen, a type of gingerbread cake featured in Nürnberg.  

I continued to follow the city wall westward, checking out a sculpture garden just outside the wall.  I reached Ludwigstor and from there I checked out some of the sites around Jacobsplatz, including St. Elisabethkirche, St. Jacobskirche, and the old Weisser Turm, or water tower.  There was also a rather odd sculpture/fountain that mixed a naked couple, wrestling skeletons, a large iguana-like creature and other oddities in a way that somehow worked.

I then headed back towards Königstraße to find a place for dinner, stopping for pictures of the Fachmarktzentrum (say it fast), Hallplatz and the Mauthalle, built around 1500 as an Imperial Corn Store, but eventually used as a Toll Hall. 

Dinner, some ice cream, and then back to the hotel for the evening.  

I thought I'd give the Vicking Club another shot tonight, but in spite of the advertised 2-for-1 special, I found that I would have been the only customer.  Instead I headed back to my room, and worked on catching up on my travel journals.

And if you're reading this, today you and I have reached the halfway point of my trip.

Nürnberg (Nuremberg) - Nazi Historical Sites

Tuesday August 28 -

Today I saw two very different sides of historic Germany.  The Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds, preserves sites associated with the rise of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler's vision for monumental buildings at that site.  The Germanisches Nationalmuseum showcases the art and culture throughout the history of an evolving German nation.

Nürnberg probably has as strong a claim on being the historical heart of Germany as any city does.  Kaiserburg is testament to that.  Hitler recognized that and elevated Nürnberg from  a "City of the Reichstage" (the Imperial Diets held at Kaiserburg) to the "City of the Reichsparteitage" (the Nazi Party Rallies).  The Nazis had early successes in Nürnberg and held party rallies here in 1927 and 1929.  After the onset of the Third Reich, all six subsequent Nazi Party Rallies (1933-1938) were held in Nürnberg.  During the 1935 rally, the Reichstag (German parliament) met in Nürnberg and passed the Nürnberg Laws, which took rights away from the Jews.  In 1938, Germany's imperial relics were returned to Nürnberg from Vienna.

The annual rallies during the pre-war years of the Third Reich were massive events, drawing hundreds of thousands to the grounds around Großer Dutzendteich, a lake in an area southeast of the city center, for parades, demonstrations, sports events, propaganda, and of course Hitler's speeches.

München (Munich) - Getting There (and not much else)

Wednesday August 29 -

Except for my problem with blisters on my feet and my mild disappointment at not finding any sign of ancestors in Pila or Uttenreuth, this trip has gone extraordinarily well.  So I suppose that having a blah day on Day 16 of a 28-day trip is probably overdue.  And it's not like something terrible happened.  More just a case of nothing particularly good to compensate for a handful of minor annoyances, and not much accomplished.  It just felt like a wasted day.

The morning's objective, of course, was to get me from Nürnberg to Munich, my last stop in Germany.  By train again - ICE 527, first class - as it is just an hour to Munich.  The train was late, no big deal.  But the sign indicating where first class would be put it in the CD and F range of the platform, so I stood at D and looked for car 28, where my reserved seat was.  And since the cars weren't numbered in order, I basically just ended up piling onto the nearest car to avoid being left behind, since I didn't have time to check them all.  It wasn't until I found the lead car that I found car 28.  Silly me, I didn't check the number on the lead car as it passed by, because that would be stopping at the A section of the platform.  I found my seat - with garbage on the seat and the tray down with some dirty dishes on it.  There were other empty seats, so I just grabbed one of them instead.  The non-smoking section of the car (where I was) reeked of smoke as the door between the two sections didn't close.  

See.  Like I said, minor annoyances.

I decided to grab a sandwich and Coca Cola Light at the train station before heading over to the hotel.  Europe is big on serving pop in bottles rather than as a fountain drink, with deposits as high as half a euro on top of the already overpriced pop.  The station has a deposit center where you can return your bottle to get your deposit back.  I usually just throw them out, since I'm not inclined to spend my vacation trying to find a place to return them (if I happen to carry them away from where I bought them).  At least I've seen people going through the trash collecting them - I've even handed empty bottles to a few of them - so someone usually figures it out.  The machine didn't recognize my soft drink bottle, so I got no refund for my deposit.  So much for trying that.

I got into my room, The Atrium (Best Western), just a few blocks south of the train station.  Not much bigger than my Frankfurt single, but a much nicer room, and they even managed to work in not only two chairs, but also a small desk.  No air conditioning, though, but the forecast was calling for highs only in the upper 60s over the next few days.

And rain, off and on.  It was raining during the train ride to Munich.  I could see that the engineer even had his windshield wipers going during the last few miles.  But the sun was teasing its way out a bit as I left the train station for the hotel.  Alas, that didn't last.  It was overcast by the time I set out on foot to check out the city center, and some light sprinkling going on an hour later.  Nothing like last Wednesday morning's downpour in Berlin, but none of last Wednesday afternoon's bright sunshine, either.

My first stop was back at the train station.  I wanted to get some more cash from the ATM, but the machine rejected my card for some unknown reason.  I wasn't running short, and I brought American currency to exchange if I needed to, but at the time it just made me wonder if I'd have to deal with a bum ATM card later in the trip.  However, I did figure out how to get day passes for the local transit system, which I'd put to use for some of my sightseeing plans.

I held off of most scenery pictures, hoping I'd have a sunny day opportunity later in the trip.  Instead, I made an easy afternoon of it, touring the interior of a couple of churches on my list and buying my primary Germany souvenir (a Deutschland stein).  Michaelskirche is the largest Renaissance style church in Germany.  It was built in the late 1500s.  Frauenkirche, Munich's largest (it can hold 20,000 people), is a major city landmark.  The gothic-style church was originally completed in 1488 and features two towers with onion-shaped domes, common to Catholic churches in Bavaria, I'd learn.  The church took a hit during World War II, although the towers survived, and much of the church was reconstructed after the war.  The effect explains why the church seemed much newer on the inside.  Just inside the front door a footprint is embedded in the floor.  The pillars and supports hide the church's windows, so tradition holds that the devil laughed at the hidden windows, stamping his foot in his glee.

Underneath the altar area is a room where I expected to find a crypt.  Instead I found what appeared to be a small chapel.  On the walls were lists of Bavarian royalty, beginning with Kaiser Ludwig IV der Bayer, born in the last 1200s.  The most recent dates are in the 1920s.  The crypt itself contains the tombs of several members of the Wittelsbach dynasty.

Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, and even before he became a Vatican advisor to Pope John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger was the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising.  Frauenkirche is the mother church of the archdiocese and celebrates that bit of its history.

That was my sightseeing for today.  I found the stein I wanted, wisely not waiting until Sunday like I did in Oslo last year, and then explored the city center a bit, located the nightlife area, and then found a place a couple blocks from the hotel for dinner.  Fitting my mood for today, I had breakfast at McDonalds and dinner at Pizza Hut.  I headed out to a bar called Bau for my nightlife.  It would be my primary nightlife spot while in Munich.  I wasn't all that impressed by it, but I also wasn't really all that interested in going out most of my Munich nights, either.  It was raining during the 20-minute walk back to the hotel.

Bavarian Castles Day Trip

Thursday August 30 -

I've been traveling on my own pretty successfully on this trip.  As I did on the last one.  In fact, I think that the last land-based guided tour I took was the Ravenna trip out of Bologna, Italy, a couple years ago.  So it's probably a surprise that I signed up for a guided tour on this trip.  It was a Grey Line bus trip to the castles of Neuschwanstein and Linderhof, with an additional stop in Oberammergau.  But it was mostly just transportation, some time on the ground and a couple castle tours, which made it appealing.  It took me nearly to the Austrian border, as far south in Germany as I'll get on this trip.

The tour, which I booked through Viator.com, started on time, the bus wasn't crowded, and our tour guide was humorous and informative.  And fortunately the tourists on board respected the departure times at each stop (unlike what I would find on another tour a week later - how's that for a reader's tease!).

We made our way out of Munich and headed south on A96 until we neared the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area, just north of the Austrian border.  There we left the main highway and headed for Schloß Linderhof.  

Schloß Linderhof is one of three palaces built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria.  Although Versailles provided the inspiration, Linderhof is quite small as far as palaces go.  Ludwig actually seemed to regard it as a personal retreat.  Among the rooms is a Hall of Mirrors, with mirrors covering most surfaces.  This was a favorite reading room for the reclusive king - I myself am not much of a fan of mirrors, and thus am not too keen on seeing every angle of my image on every wall in the place.  The palace had an audience chamber - typical of palaces for absolute monarchs - but he never used it as such.  Similarly the dining room typically only served him.  

The palace is heavy with rococo flourishes, both impressive for what they show what artists are capable of, and yet something I could do without in my own home.  The surrounding gardens and fountains are considered to be among the most beautiful in terms of their historical garden design.  They certainly compared favorably with some of the massive gardens I saw elsewhere on this trip where whatever the benefits of size were, they didn't compensate for the loss of intimacy that Linderhof achieved on its smaller scale.

It was raining while we were at Linderhof, which was disappointing, and I would have liked more time to have toured the grounds.  Unfortunately, our advertised two-hour visit lasted little more than an hour.

It was back on the bus and off to the nearby village of Oberammergau.  Back in the 1600s, village inhabitants promised that if God spared them from the bubonic plague they would put on a passion play every ten years.  They were spared, and they've been putting on the play ever since then.  The show now involves 2000 people and is famous the world over, drawing approximately a half million people to each decade's performances.  

In addition to the play, the village is known for its woodcarving work and for its lüftlmalerei, colorful frescoes that decorate several buildings in town, depicting traditional Bavarian themes, religious motifs and fairy tales.  We actually saw a fair amount of lüftlmalerei as we drove through a number of area villages, but Oberammergau has a high concentration of them.  Add in the flowers - geraniums in particular were everywhere - and Oberammergau is a very colorful village.

We were given only about a half hour to explore the village on our own - the bus actually parked next to a recommended shop.  I hightailed it out of the bus for a quick 20-minute walk around the small town for pictures of several of the frescoes and of the building that is now home to the passion play.  That gave me 10 minutes for shopping.  I picked up a couple carvings - a hiker and a Christmas ornament.

Then we were back on the road, heading for the village of Hohenschwangau, approximately a mile from the Austrian border and home to both Schloß Hohenschwangau and Schloß Neuschwanstein.  We were only scheduled to tour Schloß Neuschwanstein, so we had plenty of time for lunch and local sightseeing - which would have been a bit nicer had the break in the rain we had at Oberammergau held up.  Instead, it poured the entire time, and low clouds would interfere with our views of Schloß Neuschwanstein.  Given that, the visit was about as good as it could be under the circumstances.

The village today mainly serves as the point from which tourists visit one or both of the castles, so in addition to the restaurants there were a handful of tourist-oriented souvenir shops.  After lunch, I took a walk around, checking out the village, Alpsee (lake) and views of Schloß Hohenschwangau, perched on a hilltop above the village.  This castle was the childhood home of King Ludwig II, and was built by his father on the remains of Schwanstein, a fortress that dated back to the 12th century.  Descendents of the royal family still have use of the castle.

Schloß Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II, although it was never completed.  Given its hilltop location and several round towers, it has the classic fairytale castle look; several sources suggest that it was the inspiration for Disney's Cinderella's Castle.

It is a fairly steep walk uphill (20-30 minutes) to the castle, and for the most part the clouds were so low that it was often hard to see more than a bare outline of the castle from the walkway (the clouds did part briefly).  It is a very popular tourist destination, so castle tours fill up quickly - be there at your appointed time or you'll miss your chance.  The rooms we toured are impressive, but be prepared for lots of stairs.  The swan theme permeates the place, drawing inspiration from Lohengrin, the Swan Knight, and the operas of Richard Wagner.  

Only 14 of the rooms were completed when Ludwig died under mysterious circumstances.  The king's erratic behavior raised enough concerns that a State Commission was convened to declare him insane.  He was arrested and taken to Schloß Berg.  The next evening, Ludwig and the psychiatrist who certified him as insane (without ever having actually examined Ludwig) were both found drowned in nearby Lake Stamberg.  Although his death was rule a suicide by drowning, Ludwig was actually a strong swimmer, the water where the bodies were found was only waist deep, and no water was found in his lungs.

 The completion of the tour pretty much ended our visit.  Of course we had to walk back down to the bus - the rain had eased up only slightly - but we were soon on our way back to Munich.    All in all a nice tour.  Sunny skies would have made it nearly ideal.

I got some dinner and then returned to my hotel room.  In mid-evening I headed out for some nighttime photos of downtown Munich, including Frauenkirche and Marienplatz.  I made my way over to the world famous Hofbräuhaus brewery and beer hall.  Hofbräuhaus dates back to the late 1500s, although the present building is just over 100 years old.  A popular tourist destination, complete with giant pretzels and a lederhosen-wearing oompah band, Hofbräuhaus can accommodate as many as 4,500 beer drinkers at once.

Although the Nazi Party was founded at the Bürgerbräu Keller beer hall (also where the events of the failed Beer Hall Putsch began on November 8, 1923), Hitler and his followers had frequently met at the Hofbräuhaus.  It was here in 1920 where Hitler outlined the 25 Points of the Nazi Party program.  

I returned to the hotel to drop off my camera.  For tonight's nightlife, I checked out Teddy Bar.  Billed for the over-30 crowd, it turned out to be mostly over-55, but I did end up in a few conversations with some of the locals and a Canadian tourist.  Then I headed back to Bau, but it was pretty slow, so I called it a night.

Dachau Day Trip

Friday August 31 -

München (Munich) - Museums

Saturday September 1 -

September already.  The year is just flying by.

Another mostly overcast day, and this one had frequent periods of light rain.  The sun did come out a bit at around 4:30PM, but it didn't last.  I let myself sleep in, or at least tried to once I saw how overcast it was.  After all, I only had two must-see museums on my list today.  And of course a visit to the ATM.

My first sightseeing stop was Marienplatz.  I got there shortly before 11AM so that I could see a performance by Munich's world-famous glockenspiel.  The Rathaus tower was undergoing some restoration work, so it was mostly enclosed in plastic.  Only the glockenspiel was visible.  Featuring what was probably a royal couple and two tiers of mechanical performers, apparently the performers are supposed to, well, perform.  By 11 a huge crowd filled Marienplatz.

Then the show started.  For about 1-2 minutes the lower tier rotated, and the performers hanging from a ring spun around.  And...

Well, that was all they did.  I'd catch their act twice.  Yeah, it's kind of cute, but definitely overrated.  Comments in the crowd in English that I heard ranged from a sarcastic "Well, that was worth coming to Munich for" to "What the f***?!".  Sure, go see it if you're in Munich.  But keep your expectations in check.  After all, it was created long before the age of computers and robotics.

From there I headed over to the Viktualienmarkt, an open air market featuring food, flowers, dining and beer options and some places to buy souvenirs.  It started raining while I was there, and I was actually off to a museum, so I put off a more thorough sightseeing/photo stop until tomorrow.  Which proved to be a mistake as the place is deserted on Sundays.

My target was the Münchner Stadtmuseum, the Munich City Museum.  With the museum undergoing extensive renovation and a clerk who didn't speak English, my first impressions of the place were pretty limited as most of what I saw were quirky displays on puppetry, musical instruments and someone's photography.  Turned out that an extensive display on Munich history was located in a second building, and an exhibit on Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Munich, where their rise to power got its start, was in a third building.  Those were the displays I was most interested in, and both were impressive, helping me understand the social, political and economic conditions in place at the time that contributed to the void that someone like Hitler was all too willing to fill.

After lunch, I headed north, checking out the exterior of the Residenz, the official residence of the Wittelsbach family, the rulers of Bavaria, from 1385 until the end of World War I.  It was almost totally destroyed in World War II, but it underwent extensive restoration and now houses a museum, concert hall, theatre and the Residenz treasury.  

Across the street is the Feldherrnhalle, which honors the Bavarian Army.  In November 1923 this was the site where the Beer Hall Putsch ended, the failed attempt by Adolf Hitler's followers to take over Bavaria.  Hitler would be arrested and imprisoned for a short time.  Sixteen of his followers were killed by the Bavarian State Police; Hitler would regularly commemorate their deaths with ceremonies and monuments after he rose to power.

The Hofgarten lies just to the north of the Residenz.  A traditional palace garden, it was laid out in the early 1600s, and now functions essentially as a city park.

My next target was to the northeast, the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, the Bavarian National Museum.  Bavarian King Maximilian II began the collection in 1855.  The current building features three floors of church art, folk art, sculptures, paintings and other items.  It is an interesting collection, well worth seeing.

By now the sun was out - it wouldn't stay out for long, but I wanted to take advantage of it for some photos.  So I headed back through the Hofgarten to Feldherrnhalle and the Residenz.  The clouds were back by now, but I explored some of the inner courtyards of the Residenz anyway.  That would finish off my sightseeing for the day.

Earlier in the day I saw a sign that said Asado/Steak.  Yes, steak, a baked potato and tossed salad is about as American meal one can get, but it really hit the spot.  Then I did a bit of shopping - mostly just postcards - and returned to the hotel.

I went back to Bau for my nightlife.  It was actually pretty busy when I got there near 11PM.  I had decided to check out NY Club later on as the guidebooks portrayed it as a very popular dance bar, but I was tired when I left Bau at 12:20.  NY Club was on the way back to the hotel, so I did swing by it.  But the whole time it was in view, I didn't see anyone go in, and when I reached the door I didn't hear any music.  Oh well.

München (Munich) - Last Sightseeing Day in Germany

Sunday September 2 -

When I think about a possible trip somewhere for years, do the detailed planning and booking, and then spend nearly three weeks at that place, it's not surprising that I would feel a bit of melancholy on a day like today, my last full day in Germany.  There is a lot to be said for both the anticipation and the actual doing of a trip like this - memories don't compete with that, even when in my case memory is assisted with a couple thousand pictures and my travel journals.

And of course, I figured spending the next seven nights in Vienna would go a long way towards easing the sense of melancholy.

But I had this one last full day here, and I did my best to put it to good use.  Especially because I finally had some sunshine. Well, it was a partly cloudy day, but the sun usually came out for photos when I needed it to.

I headed back towards the city center, getting sunny day photos of the now-familiar sites along the way.  I ultimately made my way over to Peterskirche.  I had toured the church on Friday.  Today I wanted to climb the steps up its nearly 180-feet-tall steeple.  Located just to the southeast of Marienplatz, it featured outstanding views of Marienplatz, the Rathaus and Frauenkirche, especially with the morning sun.  In fact, my favorite photo from the trip is one I got of Frauenkirche from the Peterskirche steeple.  Because Munich, like most European cities, doesn't have many tall buildings, I had generally unobstructed views all directions.  Well worth the climb up.

I had a too-long list of sites to see today.  I wouldn't make it to Schloß Nymphenburg, a Wittelsbach summer palace, but I would see plenty of palaces on this trip, and they kind of blur together after awhile.  I also didn't have time for the sites from the 1972 Olympics.  I probably could have squeezed them in, but after three weeks I was also just getting sightsee'd out.

One of my guidebooks recommended Isartor, the old city gate to the east of the city center near the Isar River, suggesting that it was a popular photo stop.  So I headed over there to check it out.  I think I was the only tourist who did.  I continued on, crossing the Isar River.  At that location is the Deutsches Museum, the largest technological museum in the world.  I decided to pass on it, though.  A couple technology firsts there, such as the first automobile, would have been interesting to see, but from what the literature I read suggested, there was a lot of kids-oriented hands-on stuff, which is a real turn-off for me.  So the museum was pretty low on my list of attractions.

Instead I took a walk through the area to the northeast of the city center, eventually working my way back towards the Hofgarten area.  At the east end of the park I checked out the Neue Stätskanzlei, seat of the Bavarian prime minister.  On its west side is the Kriegerdenkmal, or War Memorial, honoring Munich soldiers and civilians who were killed during World Wars I and II.  "They will rise again" is carved into the side of the memorial, which covers a brass sculpture of a fallen soldier.

Nearby is a large black granite block which serves as a memorial to The White Rose, a resistance group of University of Munich students who from 1942 to 1943 distributed anonymous leaflets opposing Hitler and the war.  Key members of the group were arrested in 1943.  Found guilty of treason, they were executed by beheading.

Next I toured the Theatinerkirche, across from the Feldherrnhalle.  Built in the late 1600s, it is the final resting place for several members of the Wittelsbach family, including a couple Bavarian kings, a Holy Roman emperor and a king of Greece.  The interior has extensive, impressive white stucco decor.  The church is worth a visit just to see that.

The last of my planned sightseeing in Munich took me west towards Königsplatz, the area in Munich where Adolf Hitler set up the Nazi Party infrastructure.  I first stopped at Platz de Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, the Plaza of the Victims of the Nazis, which features a memorial sculpture dedicated to the victims of Nazi tyranny.  Nearby is the Bierbrunnen, or beer fountain, near the site of what was once the Palais Wittelsbach, which the Nazis used as the headquarters of the state police/Gestapo.  Also nearby is a memorial to Bavarian soldiers who died in World War I.  At Karolinenplatz on Brienner Straße is an obelisk that serves as a memorial to the 30,000 soldiers who died in Russia in 1812 during Napoleon's invasion.

Where Arcisstraße crosses Brienner Straße is a sign showing the layout of the area during the period under Nazi rule.  It was here near Königsplatz where the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler had their offices.  Just to the north of the intersection is Führerbau, the building where Adolf Hitler had his Munich offices.  It survived the war largely intact and thus was used by the U.S. Army during the occupation.  The building still stands; today it houses a music and theatre school.

To the south of the intersection is the Nazi Verwaltungsbau, the Nazi Party administrative offices.  This building also survived the war.  On both sides of Brienner Straße are what look like foundations.  These once were the Ehrentempels, Temples of Honor dedicated to the memory of those killed in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.  The sixteen Nazis killed were interred at these temples.  Today they are overgrown with shrubs and weeds.

I was surprised that such buildings were still in use.  But that was in no small part due to the fact that my guidebook made no mention of the Nazi-related historical sites except for a brief mention of the availability of a related city tour, not even when discussing sites near Königsplatz.  Considering that this is where the Nazi party started and where Hitler first rose to power, it is more than a little dumbfounding that a guidebook would ignore this part of Munich's history, especially when it covered Dachau and key sites in Nürnberg. 

There are some art museums at Königsplatz, and the Propyläen Arch.  I got some photos of the arch and then headed south towards the train station.  My primary sightseeing was done.

That said, it was only a little after 4PM and it was a bright, sunny afternoon.  So I finished the afternoon the way I started the morning, walking once again to Marienplatz, this time getting pictures with the afternoon sun.  I got to the Rathaus and decided that as my final meal I would have an authentic German dinner in the Ratskeller.  It doesn't get much more German than that.  And it hit the spot, too.

It was after six.  When I was in Scandinavia last year, I was used to light skies in the evening until well after 8PM, even after 10PM when I was as far north as Trondheim.  But that was in July and August and further north; here in southern Germany in September, daylight didn't last long after dinner.

I headed back to the hotel and spent the evening packing up my stuff and pulling together some notes on my purchases in case that mattered to anyone at customs.  With rain returning in the evening, I decided against going out.  Instead I figured I'd try to catch up a bit on my sleep by turning in early.

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Vienna - Arrival

Monday September 3 -

In retrospect, I probably should have taken the train from Munich to Vienna.  Nothing wrong with the flight or anything, but four hours passed from the time I left for the Munich airport until the time I arrived at the Vienna airport.  I would have seen some more of the German and Austrian countryside, and I don't think it would have taken much longer.  It's easy to forget just how small some of these countries are - Vienna is only 40 miles from Bratislava and within a couple hundred miles of Budapest and Prague.

In any event I got to Vienna and settled into my hotel room shortly after 1PM.  The Pension Liechtenstein isn't my typical hotel.  It is a small pension, after all, and it aspires to provide some very basic rooms and breakfast and that's about it.  When AAA was booking hotels for this trip, we found that there was very little available in Vienna for my first two days here.  It turned out that there was some massive medical convention underway at the time of my arrival (reportedly 30,000 people) so I had few options for my first two nights in Vienna - in fact, when I found the pension on the web, I went ahead and booked it without AAA, because I was concerned that if I waited the weekend, I might lose it and end up somewhere out in the suburbs.

But it is on the northern edge of the Inner Stadt and just a couple blocks from a U-Bahn station, so it served my needs for a couple nights.  I also found that it is about two blocks from Sigmund Freud's house/office, some of my targeted sightseeing stops were just a few blocks away, and the heart of Vienna sightseeing lies just beyond them, so it wasn't a bad location.

I set off on my initial exploration of Vienna - and my quest to find something for lunch.  Unfortunately, the dreary weather that greeted me in Munich followed me to Vienna.  Overcast all afternoon and rain in the evening.

My primary goals for this afternoon's walk - besides getting generally familiar with the Inner Stadt - included finding out how to get to Bratislava, to get some cash, to convert some of that cash to Slovakian money, figure out Vienna's mass transit system, and locate some nightlife spots near my current hotel.  And of course to get some decent photos of what I came across along the way.  I was only partially successful.  I found the right station for Bratislava travel, and I got an 8-day mass transit pass so I wouldn't have to think about it any further.  But the nightlife options didn't look like much, and the money exchange shop I found inexplicably didn't deal with Slovakian money (that would be like exchanges in San Diego not handling Mexican money).  And the grey skies just got darker.

I did get some sightseeing in along the way.  My route took me southeast through the city center, starting with the Schottenstift, a monastery founded by Irish monks in 1155AD.  The nearby Am Hof square is one of the city's oldest squares.  It was here where the ruling Babenberg family built a castle, the home of Vienna's rulers until work on Hofburg got started.

I passed just a few blocks east of Stephansplatz.  My first stops were at the Altes Rathaus - the old town hall - and the nearby Judenplatz.  Wolfgang Mozart once lived at Judenplatz.  Today the plaza is home to the Memorial for the Austrian Victims of the Shoah, the 65,000 Austrian Jews that the Nazis murdered during World War II.  The large concrete block is designed to look like rows upon rows of books.  Carved into its base are the names of the German concentration camps and extermination camps.

I stopped to check out the Hoher Markt, an old market area where Vienna's first mint was founded back in 1194AD.  Further to the southeast I passed a building that was once home to Franz Schubert.  Names of several famous musicians popped up regularly on signs on the buildings I would pass all around the city center.

At Lüger Platz I came across a small section of the old city walls that helped protect the city from conquest by the Turks.  The walls, which were built back in the 13th century, were mostly torn down in the mid-1800s as the city expanded.  They were replaced by the Ringstraße, a roadway that circles the inner city.  Today it is lined with museums, academies, universities and government buildings.

From there I followed a channel southwest through the city park for a few blocks and then headed southeast.  I came upon a substantial monument and fountain dedicated to Soviet troops who were killed in battles to liberate Austrians from fascism.  As with the monument in Berlin, I saw this from the perspective of what the Soviets themselves did to eastern Europe; coming from that perspective and with the American focus of our own history books, and it is easy to forget the Soviet Union's role in defeating Hitler and the Nazis.

Further to the south is Belvedere.  There are actually two palaces here, Unteres Belvedere and Oberes Belvedere.  The palaces were built in the early 1700s as a summer residence.  Today they feature extensive art collections.  The terrace of Oberes Belvedere provides views of the wooded hills to the northwest of Vienna, the Wienerwald, or Vienna Woods.

I continued south to the train station from which I would depart for Bratislava tomorrow in order to orient myself to its location and to check out available departure times.  I then started walking back, but once I reached Karlsplatz I headed into the station to buy a subway pass.  I took the train back towards my hotel and then picked up some dinner at McDonalds before heading back to the pension.  

I figured I'd find a market in my neighborhood to pick up some pop for the evening.  And I did find one - about five minutes after its 7PM closing time.  So I walked around some more and ended up back at the U-Bahn station across from the McDonalds where I bought some Diet Coke and some water.  Back to the pension where I spent the evening reading up on Vienna and Bratislava.  I was tired, so I headed to bed early.  Good grief, it is becoming a habit.  My usual bedtime is a lot closer to 1AM than 11:30PM, but I haven't been much of a night owl on this trip.

Bratislava Day Trip

Tuesday September 4 -

Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is less than 40 miles from Vienna, making them the geographically closest two national capitals in the world.  A short train ride and even hydrofoil rides along the Danube connect the two.

I originally planned to book a sightseeing tour to Prague online with the same company I had booked my Budapest day trip with, but given some of the reviews and I figured I'd be spending a lot of time on a bus for very little time actually in Prague.  Until then I hadn't thought about Bratislava, but it was among the day tours available, so I decided that it was a possibility.  But when it came time to book it, the Bratislava option had disappeared from the website.  So I figured that I'd figure out something once I got to Vienna.  Of course, it is just a train ride away, and my excursion into Poland earlier in this trip proved to be pretty successful - and that involved five trains and an overnight stay.  So well before I reached Vienna, I figured I'd just show up at the train station and book the round trip for the day.  And today was that day.

Slovakia is one of the newest countries in Europe, the result of an amicable breakup of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  So that makes Bratislava one of Europe's newest capitals.  But it is also an ancient settlement with a long, colorful history.  Evidence of prehistoric settlements goes back 7000 years.  The Celts established a fortified town here by 200BC.  The Romans got their hands on it, making it part of Rome's border defense system.  It eventually became part of the Kingdom of Hungary.  When the Ottomans defeated Hungary in 1526, Bratislava (then called Pressburg or Presburg) became the capital of the kingdom, now under the Hapsburgs.  From 1536 to 1830, 11 Hungarian kings and queens were crowned at St. Martin's Cathedral.  During the 1700s, the city became one of the most important in this part of the empire.  However, by the end of the century, the crown jewels were moved to Vienna, and administrative offices were moved to Buda(pest), and Bratislava's decline began.  

Slovakia was a reluctant partner in Czechoslovakia after that country was created following World War I.  Bratislava regained capital status briefly after Hitler annexed part of Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, but the end of the war put an end to that.  The Soviet Union liberated the area from the Nazis only to impose a communist dictatorship on it, which lasted until the Iron Curtain fell.  Not long after that Czechoslovakia broke up into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, or Slovakia.  Today, Bratislava borders both Austria and Hungary, and it is less than 40 miles from Slovakia's border with the Czech Republic.  

I didn't sleep well, so I was up plenty early.  But that only meant that I got to the train station by 7:40AM, got on the 8:26 train, and was on the ground in Bratislava an hour later - and about an hour earlier than I had originally figured on.  I converted some euros, confirmed my evening train's departure time, and then began to explore Bratislava.

For day trippers like me, the primary highlight of Bratislava is Staré Mesto, the Old City.  This is the oldest part of Bratislava, featuring several palaces and other sites that date back centuries.  These include Dóm Sv. Martina (St. Martin's Cathedral, now a concathedral), Michalská Veza (St. Michael's Tower, the only surviving tower from the old city walls), Bratislavsky Hrad (the reconstructed Bratislava Castle), and Primaciálny Palác (the Primate's Palace).  Cobblestone streets (many closed to most vehicles), squares and cafes add to the Old City's charm.  It is now very much a tourist draw, especially for people like me coming out of Vienna for the day, although crowds were nothing like the hordes that descended on Heidelberg.  Throw in some time for museums, shopping and a Danube river cruise and determined tourists could easily fill a couple days in Bratislava.

I took a slightly less than direct route from the train station to the Old City to check out a couple parks along the way.  My beef with my travel guides continues - if you walk from the train station to the Old City, odds are you will walk right by the presidential palace and its gardens, but my guidebook makes no mention of it.  My route took me through the Slobody Nám (the People's Plaza) past Úrad Vlády (the government offices), through the presidential palace gardens and finally to the presidential palace itself.

A couple blocks later, I entered the Old City, passing through the gate at St. Michael's Tower, once part of the old city's fortifications.  I explored the Old City's streets, working my way over to Hlavné Námestie, the main square, for some photos and to see the Primaciálny Palác, an 18th century palace that now serves as the mayor's office.  In 1805 Napoleon and the Holy Roman Emperor met here after a major French military victory to negotiate peace terms.  The Russians were sent packing, several German states broke off the Holy Roman Empire to create a French-friendly confederation, other lands were ceded to Napoleon-controlled Italy, and for all intents and purposes they put an end to the 1000-year-old Holy Roman Empire.  Holy Roman Emperor Francis II became Emperor Francis I of newly created Austria.  I toured the open parts of the palace, both to see its rooms and artwork but also out of historical interest.  

More Old City explorations eventually took me to a plaza near Dóm Sv. Martina.  I was going to tour the cathedral, but they were preparing for noon services, so I decided to get some lunch instead and come back afterwards.  I found a place where I got what were billed as an authentic Slovakian meal and dessert - I'll have to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt on that one as I have no previous experience with Slovakian food.  In any event it was quite good.

Then it was back to the cathedral.  Dóm Sv. Martina dates back to the 13th century, but it underwent a great deal of construction and renovation over the next 600 years.  When other parts of Hungary were conquered by the Ottoman Empire, in 1563 the cathedral became the main coronation church for Hungarian royals, for 11 kings and queens and 9 of their consorts in all.  These included the coronation of Maria Theresa, whose name popped up in Vienna pretty regularly.  The last of the coronations took place here in 1830.  The church is somewhat austere on the inside.  It reportedly did not get much attention when the Communists were in power, although some efforts to restore it are now underway.  But it has some interesting artifacts and of course it has a significant role in Hungarian history, so it was well worth seeing.

Next up was indeed up.  On a hill overlooking the Old City sits the Bratislavsky Hrad, the Bratislava Castle.  It is actually mostly a reconstruction, given the damage done by a long-ago fire.  And even as a reconstruction it is not very interesting to look at - arguably the least interesting looking of the castles and royal palaces that I saw on this trip.  But it offers some outstanding views of the Danube and the surrounding area, as well as some decent views of the Old City itself.  The views alone made the climb well worth it.  

I picked up my lone Bratislava souvenir and some postcards at the castle gift shop, finishing off my major goals for the visit.  I had some time left before my return train, so I headed for the Danube waterfront for some more photos, both of the river and of some nearby monuments, including the third monument of the trip dedicated to the Soviet Army.  Given my Cold War era upbringing, and I must admit that it is a little strange to me to see monuments honoring the Soviets, but the Soviets did free a lot of people from the Nazis (never mind what they replaced the Nazis with).  But the chance to see the world from other perspectives is part of why I travel.

I made it back to the train station with about 20 minutes to spare, just enough time to get a snack for the train and then convert my leftover Slovakian currency back to euros.  It is my understanding that in a couple more years, that won't be necessary, as Slovakia is working towards the adopting the euro.  

I had overcast skies again most of the day, although they were lighter over Bratislava than they had been for a while.  Heading back to Vienna I could see a mix of dark clouds and blue patches, and indeed it was both raining and sunny when I got off the train.  With clouds seeming to be breaking up in the west, I got my hopes up that the pattern may finally be breaking.  Alas, the weather report in the paper I read over dinner gutted those hopes - cloudy skies Wednesday, windy and heavy rain on Thursday, and more rain on Friday.  Where the heck did summer go?

I ended up getting a pizza for dinner at the restaurant that I could see across the street from the pension.  No nightlife tonight.

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Vienna - Moving Day

Wednesday September 5 -

Snow.

Fortunately not in Vienna itself, but it snowed in Austria yesterday, and after record-setting heat earlier this summer, snow this early was headline-making news.  The cool, wet weather system that parked itself over central Europe has been messing with my vacation plans.  I should count myself lucky, I guess, with the weather that I got yesterday in Bratislava.

Unfortunately, the weather forecasts haven't gotten much right, either.  I got a bit of sunshine this morning, which I took advantage of for some Vienna photos.  But as I made my move from Pension Liechtenstein to the Hotel Carlton Opera in my preferred neighborhood, it started raining again - this in the space of a two-mile subway ride.

I got settled into my new room at the Hotel Carlton Opera and then headed out, thinking I'd learn my way around my new neighborhood, get some lunch, and hit the Naschmarkt and a nearby shopping street, hoping to pick up some sort of Austria souvenir so I could get my shopping chore out of the way.  But the light rain turned heavy and the wind picked up, rendering my umbrella rather ineffective.  With tomorrow's scheduled trip to Budapest, I hoped that with any luck this was just Thursday's weather forecast hitting a day early instead.  

My morning sightseeing began at the Rathaus, Vienna's "new" town hall.  From there I headed to the Parliament.  Given how security-concerned everything has become in the U.S., it kind of amazed me that I could walk right up to the front door without even seeing any security staff.

Back up near my pension is the impressive looking Votivkirche.  This church is less than 150 years old.  It was built using money raised in a collection after a failed assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Josef.  Inside it houses the sarcophagus of Niklas Salm, who commanded Austrian forces against the Turks during the Siege of 1529.

I took a swing around the block on my way back to the pension to get a look at the Sigmund Freud Museum.  Freud lived and worked here from 1891 to 1938 - he left in the face of the growing Nazi threat.

I had to be out of my room at the pension by noon.  I checked out shortly after 11:30, headed for the U-Bahn station and headed for Karlsplatz.  It was sprinkling by the time I left the Karlsplatz station to walk the five blocks to the Hotel Carlton Opera.  This hotel was in a better location - and even more so if I had done more to take advantage of the nightlife - but with the efficient U-Bahn system, it really didn't make much difference in the scheme of things.

I read the paper and some travel brochures until my room was ready for me to check into.  I dropped off my stuff and then set out for Mariahilfer Straße, a major shopping street, taking a route that would confirm the location of some nightlife options.  By now, though, it was pouring.  I found a place for some lunch, hoping that the rain might ease up while I ate, but no such luck.

I eventually made my way uphill to Mariahilfer, and checked out a handful of stores.  I wasn't really dazzled with anything I saw, other than the 300 year old Mariahilfer Kirche.  I didn't want to wait until Sunday to look for souvenirs, since a lot of places here close on Sundays, but I wasn't sure I wanted yet another pewter item.

I wasn't really prepared for the cold.  The wind and rain chilled me further.  Simply put, I was not having any fun.  So I cut short my exploration of the area and headed back to my room.  Except for dinner and a grocery store run, I stayed in the rest of the rainy, windy day.

No night life either.  I had to get up at 5:45AM for the Budapest bus.

Budapest Day Trip

Thursday September 6 -

Today I took the last day trip of this vacation, this one a guided bus tour to Budapest, the capital of Hungary.  The weather was decidedly better than it was yesterday, with a mix of clouds, short periods of light rain and short periods of sunshine.

As for my impressions of Budapest, well, it's hard to say.  Today's tour was arguably the worst bus tour I've ever been on, and it captured the essence of almost everything I don't like about such tours.  My biggest regret is that after my good experiences with Poland and Bratislava on this trip, I should have just planned on a solo trip by train.

The tour information said hotel pickups would be at 7:15AM, but be ready before then.  But when I called to confirm, the time was moved up to 6:30.  So I was dutifully waiting in the lobby for them by 6:15.  The night clerk at the hotel told me these folks were regulars, and I may as well go back to my room as they usually don't show up until 7.  And he was right.  The collectors basically rounded up the customers from across town and then brought them to a central bus area where folks were matched with the right tour.

We were soon on our way.  Traffic out of the city was a bit slow because of the rain, but then we got moving pretty well.  We stopped at the border with Hungary for a bathroom break - and I also hit the currency exchange, converting only 40 euros.

After a while we finally hit the city - and its traffic.  A good deal of our visit would be spent on the bus sitting in traffic.  Walking really would have been a whole lot faster for the most part.

We approached the city center, crossed Erzsébet Bridge, passed Erzsébet Tér (Elizabeth Square), where we would be sent off on our own later this afternoon, and worked our way over to Heroes' Square, which celebrates 1000 years of Hungarian history, for a 15 minute stop.

The most dominant feature of the Budapest skyline in the Buda Castle, which sprawls across a hilltop on the Buda side of the city.  It anchors the castle district, and it is arguably the city's top attraction.  Where the tour's advertising said that we would see Vajdahunyad Castle, I mistakenly figured that was the real name of the castle - my limited information on Budapest didn't mention a Vajdahunyad Castle, and it didn't give the castle in Buda's Castle District any name other than Buda Castle.  It also didn't mention any other castles.

Turns out that they're not the same.  We caught a glimpse of the Vajdahunyad Castle (a scaled down copy of a Transylvania castle) as we drove by.  Which was double the half-glimpse we got of the Citadel of Buda as we approached the bridge.  The Citadel dates back only to the 1850s.  The Habsburgs built it to help suppress Hungarian independence efforts.  Both were among the advertised highlights of the tour, but apparently the tour company - Vienna Sightseeing Tours, booked through Viator.com - was kidding.  Four of the seven sites advertised as so-called highlights in fact were drive-by sites.

I figured out a few years ago that when the bus tour brochure says "We'll see X" or "We'll pass X", they mean that we will drive by it at regular traffic speed, and if you're sitting on the wrong side of the bus, well, that's too bad.  I seemed to be on the wrong side of the bus a lot.  I also figured out that if it is not specifically mentioned, you're really not likely to stop and see it.  Which explains why the tour never stopped anyplace to take a good look at Buda Castle.  Folks on the wrong side of the bus I guess just missed out on Budapest's star attraction.

Fortunately, we were scheduled to have some free time in the afternoon, ostensibly for shopping, but I planned on putting my time towards sightseeing.

But first we had to have lunch.  Did we pick a local restaurant?  Nope.  It was a hotel restaurant.  To speed things along, our guide did make a lunch recommendation with chicken vs. pork and assorted side options, plus desert for 11 euros - beverages and tips extra.  She recorded everyone's choices, presumably so she could provide it to the restaurant in advance.  In fact, that's what I figured she was taking care of while we had our 15 minutes at Heroes' Square.  That way we could be in and out of there in an hour.  Because, as she said several times, anything beyond that would come out of our free time.

Apparently she didn't tell that to the restaurant.  We were there for more than an hour and a half, and then our departure was delayed another 10 minutes when some members of our group were inexplicably slow getting to the bus.  Doing what?  Who knows.  But this would be the first of three times these same people did this.

From there we headed for the Castle District, driving past the parliament building along the way, another one of the trip's advertised highlights.  We didn't head to the Castle District to see the actual castle but to check out the view of the Pest side of town from Halászbástya, or Fisherman's Bastion.  The views were quite good, and the sun finally made an appearance for awhile.  We also looked at the outside of nearby Mátyás Templom, or Matthias Church, another of the advertised highlights.  Here we were given a little bit of time on our own, but not enough to stray too far.  Even so, when we were to get back together, the late lunch folks were nowhere to be seen.  This time the delay was less than ten minutes, but they've now wasted almost 20 minutes of my sightseeing time.

And that was our last guided stop.  That's right, 15 minutes at Heroes' Square and 45 minutes at the Castle District was the extent of our time out of the bus with a guide, not counting lunch.

Our bus slogged its way through the heavy traffic, taking a half hour to get to Erzsébet Tér.  Here we were let out with our guide planning to lead folks to the best shopping area - I had my own plans.  Just be back by 4:30 because that was when we were scheduled to leave.

Uh, no we weren't.  The advertised departure time was 5:30, not 4:30.  Well, not today.  So I immediately began mentally editing out some of my planned stops as I made my way to the Danube to get a good look at the Buda Castle.  Then I headed over to the Parliament to get a good look at that as well as the memorials to Hungarians involved in the uprisings against the communists in 1956.  Then I headed to Szent Iztvan Bazilika, or St. Stephan's Basilica.  Along the way I passed a monument to the Soviets - my Russian is too rusty to make out what it was for.  But it was surrounded by two rows of protective fences.  My guess is that the Hungarian people aren't terribly appreciative of what the old Soviet Union imposed on them, regardless of what the monument actually says.

The basilica was my last stop, and I didn't have time to go in.  I was also hoping to get to Dohány Synagogue, but it was 4:25 when I reached Erzsébet Tér, and five minutes was about half the time I needed to get over to the synagogue and back.  So I took a few pictures of some nearby sculptures and then boarded the bus.  

Most folks were back on board on time.  Except for the folks who were tardy twice before - and apparently they recruited a couple of people.  They reportedly had decided to go off for coffee at around 4.  In and of itself not a problem.  But the fact that they didn't show up until 5PM was a problem.  Yep, they were a half hour late this time, time I certainly could have put to good use.

No apologies or anything.  I wasn't happy, having spent more than 45 minutes in total of our time in Budapest waiting for these people, the other folks who were on time weren't happy, the guide wasn't happy, and the driver was downright irritated, even arguing with our guide.  

On the way back we found out why the drive got so obnoxious.  Which made me even less happy.

We were told a handful of times that the driver had to get to an 8:30PM job, which explained part of his anger with the folks who returned a half-hour late.  It also explains why we were told to be back on the bus an hour earlier than Viator advertised.  Of course, it also further justifies my own irritation with the tour because it means that they knew in advance that we were going to be gypped out of part of our day. 

The bus driver dropped us off near the opera house where they were then going to load us onto vans to take us to our hotels.  But we passed Karlsplatz on the way there, so I knew that was just a few blocks from my hotel, and I was likely to find an open restaurant or two around there.  So I got off the bus and just walked away.

Budapest looks like an interesting city, and I'm glad that at least I got a small taste of it, I suppose.  But Vienna Sightseeing Tours did a terrible job - it's hard to turn an interesting city into the worst bus tour ever, but that's what they managed to do.

I got dinner at the McDonalds in the Karlsplatz station and then headed for my hotel.  I went out for some actual nightlife tonight.  Club Date, which is just a block up the street.  And it had an actual crowd, too.  But I didn't stay out too late.  After all, I was up pretty early this morning for the bus tour.  It was raining again when I made the short walk back to the hotel.  Good grief.

Vienna - Rain and Some History

Friday September 7 -

I was pretty tired when I turned in, but even so I was surprised that I slept until the alarm went off at 9:45.  I never sleep that late.  I'm not a good sleeper, and I've had a few problem nights on this trip, but overall I seem to be getting a lot more sleep on this trip than I usually do.

It was pouring when I did get up, and it continued to do so until after 4PM.  I did get some sightseeing in, but between sleeping in and the rain, it wasn't one of my typical vacation days.

Normally I have a list of museums that I want to see when I visit a city that I can use on a rainy day like today.  And Vienna does have a lot of museums.  But the travel information I have emphasizes art museums, and I'm not really one for art museums.  I have hit several over the years, but I'm more of an "I know what I like" art viewer rather than an art connoisseur.  And since old churches and history museums (let alone European palaces) often have a fair amount of old paintings and sculptures, I can't get too excited about making a special trip to an art museum.  So it is pretty safe to say that I didn't come to Vienna for its art museums.

On the other hand, I will seek out history museums.  I like to learn about the places I visit, which is why I chose the museums that I did in Berlin, Frankfurt, Nürnberg and Munich.  My travel information offered only one such museum for Vienna, the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien.  So that was where I spent a couple hours.

The layout takes visitors through time, from prehistoric items found in what is now Vienna through its Roman periods, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, up to the early 1900s.  The period up through the Middle Ages was covered in a portion of one floor, the next floor brought visitors through the Ottoman Sieges of Vienna and the Napoleon era.  The third floor covered another hundred years.  

As interesting a history as Vienna has, the museum seemed to offer little more than a chronological display of some of its collection.  And the fact that it stopped before World War I was a major disappointment.  There was a video that stepped through a couple dozen photos of 20th century Vienna, and that was pretty much it on the last 100 years.  Of course, the last 100 years haven't been all that good to Austria when you consider its status at the beginning of the 20th century.

Speaking of which, I wish I had found an Austrian national history museum - I suspect that there probably is one someplace, but it isn't mentioned in any of the sightseeing information that I've got.

It was still raining heavily, so I found a place for a late lunch, hoping it might ease up a bit while I was eating.  No such luck.

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in town today, and he's going to be preaching at Domkirche St. Stephan, or St. Stephan's Cathedral, on Sunday, so I figured I had better see at least the interior of that church today - security concerns would likely put it off limits to casual visitors at some point before Sunday, so that was my next stop.

The church was founded in the 12th century, built on the site of an earlier church.  It was destroyed in a 1258 fire.  A gothic replacement was built in the 1300s.  It was heavily damaged during the Turkish siege in 1683 and then by Soviet and German bombing during World War II.  It was restored shortly after World War II and reopened in 1948.  Those interred at the church include a Holy Roman emperor, a Cardinal, and assorted princes and dukes, including six dozen members of the Hapsburg royal family.  In addition, there have been more than 11,000 burials in its catacombs.

One of its unique features on the outside is its rooftop.  Different colored roof tiles are used to create elaborate patterns, including the two-headed eagle, symbol of the Hapsburgs.  The interior is quite elaborate, but much of it was off limits to the casual observer as preparations were underway for the Pope's visit, including the installation of several lights and camera mounts for broadcasting his visit.

St. Stephansplatz is surrounded by buildings, so it was difficult getting a decent photo of the cathedral from the outside.  By the time you can get back far enough to fit the church in the frame, you're backed down a side street with some of the view now blocked.  But there are several interesting adornments on the outside of the church for more close in photos, including carvings, some frescoes and a clock with unusual arms.

I then checked out the nearby Deutschordenskirche, the Church of the Teutonic Order.  Founded in Palestine, they made efforts to promote Christianity first in the Middle East through the Crusades, then in Transylvania, and then among the Prussians before ending up being headed by the Hapsburgs.  Today it is primarily a charitable organization.

From there I headed over to Peterskirche, the second oldest church in Vienna, although the current building dates back to the 1700s.  My guidebook describes it as the most lavishly decorated baroque church in Vienna.  That may be an understatement.  The interior is spectacular, including a very impressive dome fresco.

I decided to use the rest of my time in the middle of town to see if I could find a suitable Vienna souvenir.  I ended up settling on a pewter goblet, identical to the one I rejected the other day on Mariahilfer Straße.  Although it was made in Austria, I can't say that it is terribly representative of the country, but I am already taking my chances with three ceramic items now, so this was as good an idea as any.  I think that for the most part the same low-end souvenirs are sold everywhere.

It was shortly after I left the store with my purchase that I could hear some approaching chanting.  Sure enough, a small group of young people had reached Stephansplatz with some anti-Pope posters and banners - the Young Socialists, if I translated their name correctly.  A number of armed police showed up to keep an eye on things, probably outnumbering the youngsters, but it was a pretty easygoing bunch of people on both sides.  "What's the solution?  Revolution!", shouted one of the unimaginative speakers to her coffee house crowd.  Seems to me that if you really wanted to make an impression on your fellow Austrians, you wouldn't go chanting hollow slogans in English to a bunch of tourists.

I walked back to my hotel, looking for dinner options along the way.  It seems that my hotel is rather isolated from such things.  I ended up over at the Naschmarkt for a steak, fries and salad.  Not the Viennese cuisine I had been looking for.

For tonight's nightlife I checked out the Alte Lampe, Vienna's oldest gay bar.  A smallish neighborhood bar, nice enough place but not very interesting when you're alone.  But I'm more interested in my sightseeing options on this trip, so even though it was a Friday night, I was back at the hotel by midnight.

Vienna - Hofburg

Saturday September 8 -

We got some sun this morning, and it lasted until shortly after I worked my way over to the Hofburg Palace complex, arguably Vienna's top attraction.  Unfortunately, while I was inside my first Hofburg stop we began losing the sun.  Clouds and a few short periods of light rain were the weather story for the rest of the day.

I actually started my sightseeing day at the Naschmarkt, a couple blocks north of my hotel.  The Naschmarkt, Vienna's most popular open air market, is a mix of farmers market, crafts and dining, similar to what one can find at Seattle's Pike Place Market.  The Naschmarkt is Vienna's most popular such market and dates back to the 1500s.  I got breakfast here and checked out the various displays before continuing on with my sightseeing.

En route to Karlsplatz I snapped a photo of an interesting building.  Turns out it was the Secession, a Vienna art museum featuring the works of the Secession movement that began in the late 1800s by a group of artists who broke their ties with the Künstlerhaus, which dominated Viennese art, because they regarded it as far too conservative.  Nearby is the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.  Of historical interest is the fact that in 1907 and again in 1908 a young artist named Adolf Hitler was denied admission to the academy for art studies.  He would continue to struggle as an artist until World War I, after which he of course entered politics.  Hitler blamed Jewish members of the academy board for rejecting his efforts to study at the school - the majority of professors on the committee that rejected him were Jewish.  Of course, they were also artists who simply recognized his mediocre talent for what it was.

I made a pit stop at the Karlsplatz station.  Near the opera house it has a bathroom, "The Vienna Opera Toilet", complete "mit Musik" (with music).  The Opera Toilet greets visitors with the sound of Johann Strauss's Blue Danube.  The men's room is decorated to look like a bar, complete with a working piano.  Just don't put the "pee" in "pee-ano".  

I got some sunny day photos of the park at Karlsplatz and then of the Staatsoper, the Opera House.  Just before I reached Hofburg, I found myself at the Monument against War and Fascism.  It was built at the site of an apartment building that collapsed during a March 1945 air raid.  Hundreds of people had taken shelter in its basement that day, and their bodies could not be recovered.  Sculptures at the site are dedicated to victims of Nazi terror, to all victims of war, and to the victims of the apartment building collapse.  

After getting some photos of Albertina Platz, I began my Hofburg visit by touring Augustinerkirche.  The church dates back to the 1300s, and later it would become the parish church for the imperial court.  As such, it was the site of many Hapsburg weddings.  The Herzgruft, or heart crypt, is a room just off of St. George's Chapel.  It holds 54 urns that contain the hearts of deceased members of the Hapsburg family - the bodies are interred elsewhere.  You could call it the heart of Hofburg.

Or maybe not.

Next I took some photos of Josefsplatz and the Prunksaal, or Hall of State.  I passed the Spanish Riding School, a generally popular attraction but not really high on my list.  At Michaelerplatz I checked out Michaelerkirche, the exposed Roman ruins that had been excavated at the plaza, and the sculptures that adorned St Michael Gate before heading into the Old Castle Courtyard.

I did make one quick stop at a shop inside the gate.  Petit point is a Viennese craft made popular during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa.  This type of embroidery uses very tiny cross-stitches to create very small  points of color, as many as 900 to 3500 stitches per square inch.  Combine it with a wide range of colors of silk thread used, and the finer petit point can have an almost painting-like quality to the color.  I bought a small piece that had a 1600 stitches per square inch sample of the petit point as a more Austrian-representative souvenir than the item I got yesterday.

Hofburg has numerous courtyards and wings, and includes more than 2,600 rooms, fewer than two dozen of which are open to the public.  The earliest parts of the complex surround the Swiss courtyard, dating back 700 years.  Most of the additions were added in the last 400 years, as the complex spread out in all directions.  With such a long history, the current Hofburg includes many different styles of building.  Long the residence of the Hapsburgs, today it includes an apartment that serves as the home to the president of Austria.

I explored the Old Castle Courtyard and the Swiss Courtyard and then entered the Schatzkammer, or imperial treasury.  It includes both the crown jewels as well as religious items.  The imperial crown dates back  to 962AD.  Other crowns, coronation robes, and even a saber that once belonged to Charlemagne are on display.

I'd eventually make my way around the entire complex.  Neue Burg is the newest part of the complex.  Completed in 1913, it was the residence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  Expected to be the successor of Franz Josef, this was the Franz Ferdinand whose assassination by a Serbian nationalist triggered a series of events that culminated in World War I.  Given a papal visit, several TV vehicles filled the plaza in front of Neue Burg.

After finishing up at the palace I headed for Kapuzinerkirche and the Kaisergruft.  Kapuzinerkirche houses the Kaisergruft, or the imperial crypt, the primary burial vault for 300 years of Hapsburgs, including 12 emperors, 17 empresses, and numerous other family members (just their bodies, though - their hearts are at Augustinerkirche and their entrails are at Domkirche St. Stephan).  Some of the tombs are rather plain, others are rather ornate.  The most ornate holds the bodies of Emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa (parents of Marie Antoinette, which explains her preference for cake over bread, I suppose).  Napoleon's son was also buried here.  Emperor Franz Joseph was interred here in 1916, just two years before the end of the empire.  His brother Maximillian, who had a short, generally unrecognized tenure as Emperor of Mexico from 1864 until his execution in 1867, is also interred here.

Among the Hapsburgs not interred here are Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, whose assassination in Sarajevo led to the start of World War I.  They are buried at Schloß Artstetten.

I took a walk through the city, working my way over the Danube Canal for a look at that.  I then headed for Ruprechtskirche.  It is generally regarded as the oldest church in Vienna, dating back to 740AD, although most of what is visible today dates only to the 11th century.  Much of the material used to build Ruprechtskirche may originally have been used in a Roman temple that once occupied this site. 

(Sources differ on what may be the oldest church site in Vienna.  Ruprechtskirche is generally regarded as the oldest church site in Vienna.  However, during excavations for installing a heating system at St. Stephan's, hundreds of bodies dated to the 4th century AD were discovered beneath the church, suggesting that St. Stephan's is built atop an older site.)

I then headed back towards Hofburg so that I could visit Minoritenkirche.  A key feature is its large mosaic of Da Vinci's Last Supper.  It offers services in Italian, and they were about to get underway when I got there, so I didn't explore the church further.

I capped off the day with a return to Hofburg in order to check out the Burggarten.  Unfortunately, along the way I tripped over my feet and landed hard on my knees on the cobblestone sidewalk.  Nothing obviously broken, and after catching my breath, I stood up and was able to walk without any problems.  But I found that I couldn't kneel on anything, not even a mattress, for weeks afterwards.  Even the pressure from long pants was bothersome for a few weeks afterwards.  Good thing I had the extra legroom I paid for on the plane home.

Dinner at a Bulgarian restaurant just up the street from my hotel.

Back to Club Date for nightlife.  The web info I had suggested that it became a dance bar on the weekends, but I saw no sign of that.  In fact, the crowd was a bit smaller than on Thursday.  No matter.  With one more day of sightseeing and hoped for sunshine, I want to take advantage of the full day.  So once again I was back at the hotel by midnight.

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Vienna - Last Sightseeing Day In Austria, the Pope, Schönbrunn and Prater

Sunday September 9 -

If the sun were out, I would have used the morning to retake some of my earlier Hofburg area photos with the sunnier skies. But I only got a tease of sun this morning, so there was little point to that.  However, I did tour the royal apartments at Hofburg, something I skipped yesterday.  Much of the focus was on Elizabeth, Duchess in Bavaria who became Empress of Austria-Hungary after marrying her cousin Franz Joseph, then Emperor of Austria.  Elizabeth, or Sisi as her family and friends called her, had trouble fitting in with the Hapsburgs and ended up traveling a lot after her mother-in-law took over the raising of their children.  She was popular enough in Hungary that Budapest's Erzsébet Tér, where my tour bus picked us up for our return to Vienna, is named after her.  At age 60, she was assassinated by a young anarchist.  The apartment tour takes us through rooms that were used by Elizabeth, giving visitors a taste of palace life while telling us her story.

I then headed over to Stephansplatz.  Pope Benedict XVI was celebrating mass there today, so I figured that I would go over and check things out.  I was expecting a bigger crowd outside the church than I found - expectations no doubt fueled by memories of the coverage that Pope John Paul II used to get - but there were a number of people there watching the service on large screen TVs set up around the plaza.  And tourists and others like me who were just checking it out.

Since I don't speak German, I couldn't follow most of what Benedict said.  But as he started offering communion to people inside the church a group of priests (identified by large yellow umbrellas) came out into the plaza to offer communion to those in the crowd.

The ceremony soon ended, and then Benedict came outside and delivered a short talk and a prayer from an outside stage.  I mostly had a direct view, but folks close to the front started holding up flags and banners, pretty much indifferent to the fact that they were blocking the view of those people behind them.

It was at about this point that I left for Karlsplatz to catch the subway to Schloß Schönbrunn, a Hapsburg family summer home.  It was a large yellow palace, somewhat fancier than Charlottenburg in Berlin, of which it reminded me.  Pretty palace, nice gardens, and the fountain (brunn) was indeed pretty (schön).  I didn't tour the inside of the palace, though.  I think I've seen enough palaces now to last me a few years.

After exploring the palace grounds, I got a late lunch and then headed back to the subway station.  From here I headed towards the opposite end of Vienna to the Donauinsel station.  This station is located on a long narrow island between the Danube River and the "New Danube" channel.  Central Vienna is actually set back from the Danube a bit, but it is one of the capitals along the Danube, so I figured I'd check out the view of the river.

And no, the water of the Danube wasn't blue.  Rather it was muddy brown.  I'd blame it on the last week's rain, but I have read similar observations in the travel literature on Vienna.

From there I walked to the Prater, Vienna's answer to Copenhagen's Tivoli.  The Prater features your basic amusement park, with the usual mix of daring and basic rides, midway games and food stands, and throw in a few beer gardens and a couple casinos.  There is also a large park area.  It's nice park and I liked it better than Tivoli, but I'm not really an amusement park person.

But there's a bit of history here, too.  The Prater was first mentioned in a document as a natural preserve as far back as 1403 - the Wurstelprater - making it one of the oldest such places in Europe.  It was opened to the public in 1766, so it has a long-time place in the hearts of the the Viennese people.

It was nearing 5PM now, so I took the subway back to Stephansplatz.  The pope's visit here was now long over, but the rest of his visit in the area was still being broadcast on the big screen TVs.  I mostly wanted to pick up some souvenir postcards, pretty much the last item on my Vienna agenda, and then get some dinner.

I found some cards to complement my own photos - including one that featured the highlight's of the pope's visit to Austria - and then picked up a few more pictures when the sun poked out again for a bit.

For dinner I wanted to find a restaurant that had some traditional Austrian food on it other than schnitzel.  In my notes I had a reference to something called "tafelspitzel", which centered on boiled beef, fried potatoes, apple sauce with horseradish, creamed spinach and chives.  I found it on the menu at the first restaurant I checked.  Other than the cooked spinach, which I simply don't like, it was pretty good.  I then had a dessert consisting of some sort of cream cheese dumpling served with fresh berries, kind of a variation of cheesecake, I suppose.  It was pretty good, too.

Then it was back to the hotel to pack and to get ready for tomorrow's return to the U.S.  Of course, it started raining at this point.  What would a day in Vienna be without rain?

Packed and ready to go, I decided to go to Club Date one last time.

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Heading Home

Monday September 10 -

And that's it.  A morning flight to Copenhagen.  Then a plane to Seattle for the 10-hour flight.  No photos from the plane, even though I had a window seat for the Copenhagen-Seattle leg of the flight.  I was positioned well over the wing, so although I did get some great views of the Danish countryside and Norwegian interior - including Sognefjord and a large glacier - I figured I'd could do without more pictures of Greenland and Baffin Island.  And by then the clouds weren't cooperating much, anyway.

We were on the ground in Seattle shortly after 4:30PM local time, and I was home an hour later.

It was mostly a great trip.  I saw a lot, learned a lot, and I had a very good time.  I could have used another three days in Berlin, and an extra day in any of the other cities would have provided for more day trip opportunities.  

Berlin was the top highlight.  I love that city and would gladly go back there again.  Also memorable but in a far different way were my visits to the Nazi-related historical sites in Nürnberg and KZ Dachau. I think they helped me better understand how someone like Adolf Hitler could come to power, not that I will ever be able to understand how the power he gained in places like Munich and Nürnberg could turn into the atrocities of KZ Dachau.  Never again, we can only hope.

I can't say that I had a great Vienna experience.  The lousy weather was certainly a huge factor there, but by the time I got to Vienna I had already seen several palaces and churches, so it felt more than a bit repetitive.  The side trip to Bratislava was great, everything I would hope for in a day trip to some place I didn't know much about before (sunny skies would have been the only thing to make that trip any better).  Budapest looked interesting, but combine the weather with the worst bus tour I have ever taken, and it didn't really stand much of a chance to me to consider it a trip highlight.  One of the lessons I take away from this trip - especially when I also consider my day trips in Sweden and Denmark last year - is that if I can get round trip train tickets to some day trip target, I'm really better off without the guided tour.

The trip was plenty long.  I've done long trips like this one before - my longest vacation was 33 days - but this felt a bit too long.  I was actually glad when it finally ended.  Compared to my Scandinavia 2006 trip, what was missing this time was something completely different in the middle of the trip - like last year's time in Oppland - just to shake things up a bit.

I'll keep that in mind when I plan next year's trip to Spain.  Yep, I'm already thinking about 2008.

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Souvenirs

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