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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 by 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 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 very photogenic.  In spite of my very 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 1