The First Half of a Long Day - Warnemünde to Berlin

Prequel

In 1976, my mother took my daughter to Europe. They visited Berlin - both East and West.

My_grandmothers_photo_of_me_in_1976_Berlin

The above photo shows my 13 year old daughter who was traveling with my mother. She is holding my old Kodak Retina Reflex film camera. They had some problem at Checkpoint Charlie, because my mother's last name was different from my daughter's last name, but they did eventually get through. Initially I wanted to take a private tour and visit this museum, but that did not work out.

End Prequel

19 June 2009 - At some point today, I discovered to my horror that my granddaughter's camera had been reset to take pictures of about 100 pixels instead of the more normal 3000 pixels. I don't think she believed me about it - she kept saying I was looking at thumbnails, but it was true.

20 June 2009
We were supposed to be at the Queens Lounge (i.e. the theatre) at 0700 this morning, so we had breakfast delivered, and as usual, it came 10 minutes before the wakeup call. If I set the breakfast as 0600 to 0630, and the wakeup call to 0540, the breakfast comes at 0530. I can't get it right no matter what I do. I suspect they do our breakfast early because we have no eggs or hot things in it. The only hot thing we ordered was my granddaughter's coffee.

Bow camera picture of the port

Anyway we did get up and breakfast and get dressed and up to the Queens Lounge before 0650 to find that they weren't announcing the groups there and that they had already done our group, which was #1. So we toddled right outside, and there was a tall girl with the number one sign and she gathered all of us together in several parking places marked off on the pavement. It turned out that we were walking across to the train.

Granddaughter's photo of the train

My granddaughter really likes trains.

Crossing the tracks to the train - granddaughter's

Poppies by the tracks

The guide made us go into the compartments in the order that we arrived at the train and in our compartment there were already four people, two by the window. I wanted to go into the next compartment so I could take pictures, but the girl wouldn't let me, and none of the people would move.

The guide said there was nothing to take a picture of but forests (which wasn't true).

Warnemunde Train station

So we sat next to the corridor. It actually turned out to be good as we could go into the corridor easily and put down the window to take pictures of things like the big electricity generating windmills

Windmills from the train

cows and fields.

Fields

We were also in the last car in the train which meant B could go out and take photos of the train tracks behind us.

Granddaughter's photo out the back of the train

Tracks beside the train

No feet

Train control panel

She also took a video. Her camera has been restored to regular picture size. There was a toilet there at the end of the car, which I used

Selfie in the train bathroom

and also a dining car a couple of cars forward if we wented it. I took a photo of the corridor, and my reflection makes it look as if I have no head.

Headless pax

Our minder passed out lunch boxes about 0800 which consisted of a sandwich, water

and a piece of candy called a Haribo Goldbaren which was sort of like gummy bears. Afterwards we got a piece of butterscotch hard candy.

View from the train

Berlin train yard

Our companions turned out to be two couples who were or had been school teachers in Phoenix - one of whom had a replacement knee and who was almost as slow at walking as I am. One of them commented about graffiti and asked whether it was deliberate. So there was a discussion about whether it was tagging or art. B looked for and photographed some of the "art" graffiti. We have also had an on-going discussion about vandalism. She lumps graffiti into vandalism, and I think that vandalism is more than just graffiti.

Graffiti

Mural

Apparently I was so disappointed at not sitting by the window that the guide/minder told me she saved a front seat in the bus for me with an umbrella. Sure enough, when we got to the bus, there was an umbrella across the seats that were right behind the guide's jumpseat.

Looking down on the driver from our seat

We picked up a Berlin guide at this point.

Berlin TV tower

Fountain and Trolley

Canal

Church of St. Mary and Fernsehturm

Wheelchair user

Berlin City Hall

National Berlin Cathedral

Side Dome of Berlin Cathedral

Mural on the cathedral of Jesus

Alte Nationalgalerie

Top of the Gallery and Statue of Frederick William IV of Prussia in front of the Old National Gallery

Humboldt Univesity and statue of Alexander von Humboldt

Archer statue

We were in the old East Germany so we had a tour of the old East Berlin. We saw quite a few Trabi cars which had been - the guide told us - the only cars you could buy in East Germany, and were cheap plastic boxes, which even though they were cheap, you still had to wait several years to get one.

Trabi

Trabi car

My granddaughter loved these cars and so we took a lot of photos of the

Zebra Trabi

About 1030 we got to Checkpoint Charlie and it was clear to me that we were going to get out and walk, so I said I would stay on the bus and I did. These are the photos that my granddaughter took on her walk.

The last Kremlin Flag

Statue on top of Brandenburg Gate

Feet and cobblestones

She walked through and along the old wall which is marked on the road with bricks.

Berliner Mauer 1961-1989

Line where the Berlin wall was

Granddaughter's feet on the old Berlin wall site

Holocaust Memorial - my granddaughter's photo

The bus drove around to meet them on the other side.

Entrance

Holocaust Memorial-my photo

Granddaughter returning to the bus

Berlin Victory Column AKA Goldelse

We passed the Siegessäule on the bus although we did not get to actually visit. It was designed by Heinrich Strack after 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War. By the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). These were called the "Unification Wars". The statue of the bronze Victoria designed by Friedrich Drake is on the top.

According to internet sites: Built on a base of polished red granite, the column sits on a hall of pillars with a glass mosaic designed by Anton von Werner.

The column itself consists of four solid blocks of sandstone, three of which are decorated by cannon barrels captured from the enemies of the Unification Wars. The fourth ring was added by Hitler after the Battle of France ended.

..In 1939, the Nazis relocated the column to its present site at the Großer Stern (Great Star), a large intersection on the city axis that leads from the former Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace) through the Brandenburg Gate to the western parts of the city. The place it originally stood was heavily bombed by the Allies so it probably would not have survived.

The relief decoration was removed at the request of the French forces in 1945, and without a British-American veto, the French would have dynamited the monument after the war. It was restored for the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987 by the French president at that time, François Mitterrand. However, several sections remain in France.

You can visit by walking through one of four tunnels under the heavily trafficked circle, built in 1941 according to the plans of Albert Speer. For a small fee you can climb a steep spiral staircase of 285 steps almost to the top of the column, to just under the statue. From this perspective you can look over the Tiergarten including the Soviet War Memorial, 1946, in line with the Nazi proposed north-south triumphal way by Speer and Hitler.

Detail of the column and Reliefs and entrance door

Victoria at the top

Manhole cover with Berlin landmarks

By 1100 we were at the Brandenberg Gate,

Brandenburg Gate

and I did get out there and took some photos of B.

Granddaughter in front of Brandenburg Gate

Boats on the River Spree

Bundesrat - former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin

Then we stopped for another photo op at the part of the wall that remains.

Berlin wall

Berlin wall

Then because streets were being blocked off for some kind of bike race tomorrow, we went back to Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

and this time it was to go to lunch so I did get pictures of B there after all.

Checkpoint Charlie

We went to a place called Maximillians where we were to have 'typical' German fare.

Maxmillian's sign out front

Outside Maximilians

Bread and I think the board has the wine list

Buffet table

It was a buffet.

Bread and buffet choices

There were two kinds of salad, chicken paprika and sausages and sauerkraut, roast pork, fish and various vegetables and potatoes. Also soft pretzels which were very very salty.

Pretzel

There was a kind of pudding in a glass with raspberry (or some kind of berry) topping on it, which was very good.

Dessert

Bathroom selfie

Parking tag in the bus

Granddaughter outside the restaurant

Then we drove to the dock to get on the ferry

German Museum of Technology with an airplane suspended over it

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

For a Visit to Potsdam