The blotting paper is full!

Arrived in Dresden late morning after a relatively short drive from Berlin & booked in to our hotel.

Was surprised to be advised that the minibar was complimentary as was the bowl of fresh fruit delivered to the hotel.

Got our bearings and walked into the city which is basically divided into a "new" area and an historic area.

The first item of interest was The Golden Horseman situated at the entrance to


the new area.

We crossed over the River Elbe to the old area and was immediately greeted by


the Catholic Cathedral and off to the side of that the Residenzschloss (Royal Castle)


and to the left of the Schloss the Furstenzug, a 100m tiled wall made out of Meissen





porcelain. Behind the Furstenzug were the old stables. We meandered through


some beautiful streets with exquisite buildings all around and finally ended up at





Neumarkt, a large square surround by beautiful buildings and numerous cafes





In the middle of the square was a statute of Martin Luther and behind that the





Dresdener Kreuzkirche one of the nicest churches both inside and out that we have


seen. There is a cupola which one can access and which gave a fantastic view out





over Dresden. Among many other sights in the historic area there is Zwinger, an old castle/palace which houses an extensive porcelain collection mainly of Meissen





porcelain from the 1700s.

There is just too much to see and take in - the blotting paper is full!

The good (or is that the bad) thing is we do it all again tomorrow when we arrive in Prague where we stay for 4 nights.

Democracy, Opulence & Oppression

Today we had it all.

Our first imperative was to get to the Reichstag building by 9.15 to keep our appointed time to have a tour of the seat of German Government.

We left the Hotel at 8.30 and walked the 3km or so to the building situated east of the Brandenburg Gate.

The Reichstag building was constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire.


It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire.

After World War II, the building fell into disuse, since the parliament of the German Democratic Republic met in the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin and the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.

In 1999 after reunification and following renovation including the addition of the dome the building again became the centre of government.

After going through the security measures they have in place we were soon inside and on the roof for a walk through the dome.


This is quite an impressive structure with some quite unique features not the least being a mechanical blind the monitors the position of the sun electronically and


moves around the central column to shade the inside of the debating chamber.





Having completed the tour we then travelled by U-Bahn to Kurfurstendamm for lunch before travelling onto Schloss Charlottenburg a castle some 8kms west of


the city and which had some lovely grounds. For those that have been to the





Palace of Versailles then you don't need to come here as Versailles beats this place hands down.

Leaving there we again took the U-Bahn and travelled to the north west side of the city to The Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse. There a section of the wall


remains in place. One climbs the viewing platform on the other side of the road


and you look down on that section. At the front is the main wall, then the "death strip" and then a smaller back wall. In the corner is a guards tower - so to escape from the east a person would have to scale the small wall, get across the barren land in the middle and scale the outer wall without being seen by the guard.

Many tried, a lot succeeded but too many died in the attempt


All along the sidewalk there are plaques in the ground marking the spot where


someone (in some cases whole families) failed to get across.

The wall finally came down in 1989 after 28 years so the 25th anniversary of its demise is next year - one can only imagine what it must have been like to live in divided Berlin during that period where the citizens awoke one morning to find that they were cut off from family members who lived 100m away and for the period of the wall could communicate mainly by letter!





We leave Berlin tomorrow to continue our journey.

Berlin has been an incredibly interesting city with history in spades and enhanced by the friendliness of the people who live here.

Walking around Berlin

This morning we met our tour guide and other participants outside Starbucks in Pariser Platz by the Brandenburg Gate for the 3 hr tour of Berlin, a tour that lasted 4 hours.

You will recall that Michael Jackson famously held one of his children out of a hotel


window -well that was this hotel on the Platz.

Around the corner is a sombre monument to the victims of the holocaust consisting of some 2711 odd sized blocks set out in rows. The varying heights symbolise the stacking of bodies in graves. We walked through the maze of blocks and it did really make one think of the atrocities committed on the Jewish people





From there we went to a barren car parking area under which it is said that Hitler holed up in his last days before committing suicide - the bunker has been filled in with concrete so that there would be no memorial to that sadistic individual


Onwards we went to stand near one of the last remaining lengths of the infamous


Berlin Wall - the above photo is taken from the western side of the wall.


Along the road you could follow the direction of the wall as the bottom stones had been left in situ. Following the wall in the direction above led directly to Checkpoint


Charlie which has been retained the way it was during the cold war period when East Berliners were unable to travel freely to the west. It has to be said however that the area is rather naff as it is too touristy.

We then moved through Mitte to Gendarmenmarkt which is dominated by two almost identical churches, one the Franz Dom and the other the Deutscher Dom, either side of the Konzerthaus (Concert House)








On Unter den Linden, the street regarded as the cultural centre of Berlin, is part of


Humboldt University and also Neue Wache which is another reminder of the victims


of war and violence. The building has a single statue above which is an oculus








Crossing onto Museum Island we looked directly towards the modern being the


Television tower and the old, the Berliner Dom being of baroque style


The tour ended here so we made our way to a Starbucks to determine what we would do for the remainder of the day and to refresh.

We "trudged" to look at a piece of more modern Berlin at Potsdam Platz where


there are buildings of the modern generation then we jumped a train to


Wittenbergplatz where there is the impressive department store Kaufhaus Des Westens, the largest department store in Continental Europe with some 60,000 sq m of space set over 6 floors and containing all the well known high class brands.

There is a winter garden restaurant on the top floor and that is where we supped tonight before returning by train to our hotel.

Another superb day in a superb city!

Nabbed by the law

Leaving behind Hamburg we travelled on the A24 to Berlin.

The trip was relatively uneventful from our point of view though there was a rather significant accident on the other side of the motorway that caused that direction to be stationary for at least 4-5 kms - how long before they got on their way would only be a guess.

Throughout the journey there were clusters of wind turbines which made for


majestic sights, at least in our view.

Our hotel is in the Mitte (or middle) district of Berlin and after checking in we went to check out some of the local sights.

While, I assume, the majority of the sights are war related there is certainly plenty of other interesting things to see.

Our first stop was the Bradenburg Gate, a stop that had also been chosen by many


others. It certainly is a centre piece at the side of a large square and an archway to
Strasse des 17 Juni which stretches for approx 2km to the Siegesaule (Victory
Monument) another visually attractive edifice - I have to say that I can't remember


the Germans winning too many recent battles so am unsure what they are recording!


Turning back towards the city we walked through a rather large but well laid out


park known as Tiergarten. Not long after we entered the park we came across an


area which was being used by naturists who were enjoying their day in the sun.

Further through the park there was the Landwehrkanal which was being well used


by some in row boats and others seated on the many benches slurping their biers


Passed the Zoo we strode until we emerged from the park and turned into Kurfurstendamm another of the well renowned European shopping streets.

We walked around 2km down one side of the street passed never ending High Street shops before crossing over and walking back down the other side passed never ending ....(you get the picture).

Some of the buildings along the street were quite delightful but none of the photos





we took really do the grace of the street justice.

By this time we had walked 10-15kms since leaving the hotel and were many kms away from it so after a meal in the area we found the U-Bahn for a quick trip home.

Purchasing tickets from the automatic machine is not that easy with the language issue but I had resolved that it was at 9 stops what I regarded as a short trip so duly purchased 2 "short trip" tickets.

Sherry asked how did I know it qualified for this ticket and I confidently assured her that I was right.

Sitting on the train after around 4 stops a "passenger" comes on board and flashes a card - he was obviously the ticket inspector.

Along with other passengers in our compartment we showed him, confidently I must stress, our tickets and he stared at them for a long time and muttered something in German which went over our heads but we caught the gist of it.

As we stared at him at least 5 of the passengers started badgering the gentleman - I heard him say he was only doing his job (or at least that's what I thought him to say) before he gave us back our tickets and got off the train.

We then asked a lady who spoke some English what the issue was and she told us that a "short trip" ticket was only valid for three stops. "How are visitors supposed to know what constitutes a short trip" she said.

By now we had reached our stop and as we alighted and thanked them all we were wished a pleasant stay. I think thanks to these kind folk we escaped a 40 euro fine each.

I am warming to the Germans!

Tomorrow we have another 3 hour walking tour booked so a good nights rest is essential.