We took the train from Prague to Berlin, it took about 5 1/2 hours. The Prague Train Station is big but pretty logical once you realize all seven platforms are accessed by one central hall.
Some sights along the way….. Dresden looked very interesting from the train.
Berlin
We only had two full days in Berlin and soon realized we would really need a week to do it justice. The weather was finally cooling off, we arrived to cloudy skies and 60 degrees.
Pretty much everyone we ran into spoke English more or less and we were thrilled it was flat, unlike Rome, the hill towns of Tuscany, and the Mala Strana of Prague.
Berlin was the place I was most unsure of when planning our trip. I wasn’t sure about how much you would see of the remnants of WWII and the division of the city into East and West. We saw a lot of both. So much of the city was destroyed that most buildings that look old aren’t really that old.
We stayed at the Adlon Kempinski right next door to the Brandenberg Gate and the American Embassy. It’s the one Michael Jackson dangled his child off the balcony, yikes!
The hotel opened in 1907 and was largely destroyed in 1945 in the closing days of World War II, though a small wing continued operating until 1984. The current hotel, which opened on August 23, 1997, is a new building with a design inspired by the original.
The building is huge and oddly it wraps around the British Embassy. Like everything else we learned about in Berlin, the hotel has a long and complicated history.
The Brandenberg Gate was built between 1788 to 1791 by orders of King Frederick William II of Prussia. And was obstructed by the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989.
The photo below is from Wikipedia showing the Berlin Wall and the Gate. Our Hotel sits where the building is to the left of the gate. To the right is Tiergarten Park, which is huge: 520 acres.
During the Cold War years the Gate was stranded in a wasteland and the city’s historic boulevard, Unter den Linden, was redundant for almost 30 years.
Tiergarten Park
Tiergarten Park began in the 16th Century as a hunting park. And today is Berlin’s Central Park with many paths, sculptures, and gardens.
After the war, the Tiergarten became part of the British Occupation sector of West Berlin. Many of the trees were cut down for firewood and the empty fields were turned into farmlands. Only 700 out of over 200,000 trees survived. All the structures in the park were destroyed or badly damaged and the waterways silted.
We were very curious why there is a Soviet War Memorial for the fallen soldiers of the Red Army in the middle of the Park. In 1945, directly after the fall of Berlin, the Soviets erected the Monument.
Because it ended up in the British sector when the wall went up in 1961 the British allowed the Soviet honor guards to be stationed there.
In 1949 trees were planted once again in the Park and today it is heavily wooded.
One-and-a-half miles from the Brandenberg Gate is the Victory column. We did not make it quite there. It went up in 1873 to commemorate the the Prussian victory in the Second Schleswig War. This was not its original location. It was moved here from a location to the right of the Park. You can’t tell because we were so far away, but it is 220 or so feet tall.
WWII and the Nazis
Just a short walk from our hotel we passed some large empty lots that have been that way since WWII. And we came to another empty lot where Hitler’s bunker was and where he committed suicide.
There is a small sign that our guide said was placed there by a private company not by the government. It is the only indication of what was once there.
We were not on a tour, we planned the trip ourselves, but in some of the cities we took tours through Get Your Guide or other companies.
On February 27, 1933, the German parliament (Reichstag) building burned down due to arson. The Nazi leadership and its German Nationalist coalition partners exploited the fire to persuade President Paul von Hindenburg that Communists were planning a violent uprising to derail Germany’s “national renewal.”
They claimed that emergency legislation was needed to prevent this. Commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree. The decree resulted in the suspension of the right to assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other constitutional protections, including all restraints on police investigations. It remained in effect until Nazi Germany was defeated in May 1945.
This memorial is for 96 political opponents of the Nazi party who were murdered during the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
Checkpoint Charlie was just a couple blocks away. It was one of the most famous crossing points between East and West Berlin. The building that is there is a replica of the original which is now in the Allierten Museum.
Berliner Philharmonie
After our WWII tour ended our guide decided to go with us to a free concert by members of the Berliner Philharmonic orchestra in the Berliner Philharmonie. It is a huge building that faces the Park. Our guide, an Asian American, has lived in Berlin for 22 years, spent the rest of the afternoon with just the two of us!
The building opened in 1963 replacing the old one which was destroyed by British bombs in 1944.
It was at 1 p.m. in the middle of the week and there were probably 1000 in attendance.
The city still has a lot of Soviet-style buildings, our guide compared them to Legos, where they made a few shapes of window, doors and walls, and then just rearranged the pieces giving a slightly different look from one building to the next.
Memorial to Victims of Euthanasia Killings
Outside of Berliner Philharmonie, is The Memorial and Information Point for the Victims of National Socialist Euthanasia Killings. It is a memorial to the people euthanized by the National Socialist Government.
Starting in 1939, the Nazis killed disabled adults and children living in state-run nursing homes or hospitals, in line with their views on racial superiority. While the program was carried out in secret, the scale of the operation meant it soon became hard to conceal.
Because of the numbers they needed to kill, they moved from killing people by injection to gassing them.
After the Third Reich ended the program, the killings continued in Nazi-occupied institutions and care facilities until the end of World War Il in 1945.
This amounted a death toll of approximately 300,000. This is in addition to, and started before, the widespread extermination of the Jewish people
Nikolai Quarter
We were anxious to see the little village Nikolaiviertel, Nikolai Quarter. It is a tiny, one-city-block-sized area in the heart of Berlin. After being bombed and destroyed in WWII, Berlin reconstructed the Nikolaiviertel, which had been the earliest settlement in Berlin, dating back to 1200.
While we were in the neighbor we ate at a tiny Asian restaurant. I had a cold so had amazing lemongrass tea and soup with chicken, lime leaves, lemongrass, ginger, Tom yum paste, tomato, and onion.
Like in Salzberg we saw more other ethnic restaurants than German ones.
Photos around the city:
Some chilling memorials not far from our hotel.
Holocaust Monument and Museum
The Memorial to Jews Killed by the Nazi covers a city block. It consists of 2,710 large blocks of concrete from short ones to very tall, many feet over my head.
It is a place of remembrance and commemoration for the up to six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
Like many of the other memorials in the city, it was controversial, some saying how many times can we say we regret what happened.
The debates over whether to have such a memorial and what form it should take began back to the late 1980s, pressured by a group of private citizens.
Finally. in 1999, the Parliment voted to have one built and it was officially opened on 10 May 2005. We might have walked by the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism if we didn’t know what it looked like.
It is large concrete block with a window you look into and see a movie that shows two men kissing.
There is a sign that tells about the persecution during Nazism and under Paragraph 175, the law during the 50s and 60s that outlawed homesexuality. Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code was not voided until 1994.
Amsterdam
This was my second trip to Amsterdam and I loved it as much as the first time. Yes, you can get high just walking down the street, but what I love is, of course, the architecture, the canals, museums, and boats.
This is my favorite scene in the city and it’s very close to my hotel which is right on the Amstel River.
The last time I was here was only for a couple days so I didn’t see any museums other than the Van Gogh, but I made up for it this time.
I visited the Van Loon House, the Canal Museum, the H’ART Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Botanical Garden, the Holocaust Memorial, and the Resistance Museum! We lucked out most of the trip with only a few sprinkles here and there. Like I said. it cooled off and by Amsterdam we were wearing jackets part of the time. We were so lucky we weren’t in any of the places that got flooded.
Museum Van Loon
My first visit was to the Museum Van Loon, a lovely canal house with garden and coach house. Its first resident was painter Ferdinand Bol, one of Rembandt’s most famous pupils. It was built in 1672 and the rooms display a large collection of paintings, furniture, silverware, and porcelain from different centuries.
The house has a beautiful garden and at the back of it is a coach house which contains a small cafe, an original carriage, and tack for the horses. Still treating that cold, I stopped for a cup of ginger tea. I was thrilled when it came with large slices of ginger instead of a tea bag.
The Van Loons moved into the house in the 18th century. They are closely tied to Amsterdam as members of the family have been city mayors and one held an important position in the East India Company.
The last resident of the house before it became a museum was Thora Van Loon-Egidius. She was Queen Wilhelmina’s Dame du Palais for 40 years and invited important royal guests to the house. The Museum is privately owned by Van Loon descendants and they live on the top two floors.
The Grachtenmuseum
The Grachtenmuseum (Canal Museum) is a fairly new museum where I learned everything about how Amsterdam grew. Not only was the history fascinating, so was the presentation.
A thousand years ago the city was just a small fishing village but in the 12th century a large area of marshes was turned into agricultural land by draining the land with canals. It became a town in 1306 when earthen walls were built on each side of the River Amstel.
More canals were built in 1380 and 1420. In the 17th century the semi-circular canals were being dug to create land to build on and the expansion continued until it took the form we see today.
To build on the land thousands of wooden piles were driven into the soil. As long as the air doesn’t reach the wood it doesn’t decay.
Looking around at the buildings today, you can see, by the way many are leaning, that air had reached the wood. Some houses have had many yards of concrete pumped into their foundations to keep them from sinking and leaning.
The museum tells the history of the canal belt through models, animations, and 3D wall projections. It takes about 40 minutes to tour. In addition there is a beautiful garden.
Bridges
There are about 1900 bridges in Amsterdam and the most photographed one is almost outside the door of my hotel.
It is the Magere Brug. This drawbridge acquired its current form in 1934, but the initial version dates back to 1670.
Its original name was the Kerkstraatbrug, but it became known as the Magere Brug because it is so narrow.
“Magere” translated to English is “skinny.”
According to a popular legend, the bridge is named after two sisters who lived on opposite sides of the river and wanted to visit each other without taking a long detour.
We took a boat tour with a young man that grew up in Amsterdam, he said that about 35% of the bridges and canal walls in the city are in major need of repair. Each bridge has a number so it’s easy to report issues with one.
Hofjes
Like many European cities the city is dotted with hofjes, some of which are open to the public.
A “hofjes” is a Dutch word for a courtyard with almshouses around it.
They were built by a charitable person (like the one near our hotel) or organization (like the Begijnhof) which provided housing for elderly people (mostly women).
There are about 30 in the Canal Ring with most being in the Jordaan District. Down the street from our hotel this white door leads to one. The Begijnhof Is the most famous of all the Amsterdam hofjes. It dates back to the 14th-century and has many historic almhouses, including one of only two wooden houses left in the Canal Ring.
There is also an English Reformed Church and the Catholic Houten Huys. I was glad to see the number of people allowed to enter at one time is strictly enforced since women still live there.
The translation of the words on the door is “Blessed is he who cares for the needy and the weak; in the time of disaster the Lord will save him.”
Dam Boat Guys
We really enjoyed out boat ride with the Dam Boat Guys. Their office is on one of the beautiful and well kept streets in the Jordaan.
One of the owners is from California, and he’s lived in Amsterdam for 11 years. We talked about the need to be able to speak Dutch if you lived there. He said no, and it’s a very hard language for English speakers to master.
Although he’s pretty good at speaking Dutch people still say to him, “You are not from here, are you?” Something I heard myself when I first moved to New Bern.
The boat ride was great with only 6 of us on the boat. The guide was a young man who grew up in the City. We rode through some of the Canals but we also went out to the islands NW of Central Station. This used to be full of warehouses but they have been turned into apartments. It’s beautiful and very quiet compared to the Canal Ring.
He talked about the architecture and how you can tell the era a building was constructed during by the shape of its gable.
He said that by 2035 all boats and vehicles that come into the center of Amsterdam have to be electric. The problem with that is the electric grid is not capable of supporting all of them.
Rijksmuseum
This is what happens when you don’t do your research. I really had no interest in going to the Rijksmuseum because I was under the false impression that it was just full of Rembrant-like paintings. While I appreciate his work and the influence he had, it’s just not the kind of art I’m interested in. Well, I was totally wrong, it’s a wonderful museum full of all kinds of art. I loved it!
Plus, there is a beautiful garden with a neat fountain that shoots water up in a random fashion so you can go in and stand in the middle and not get wet. Another interesting feature is the Children’s Garden.
Children ages 6 and 7 have been planting gardens at the Museum for 100 years. They have a competition each year and the winners get to plant a plot at the museum and harvest what they grow. In addition, they have art lessons at the museum and cook a dish with vegetables from their gardens with the chef at the museum’s restaurant.
Hortus Botanicus
The Amsterdam Botanical Garden is one of the oldest in the world. It was founded in 1590 to serve as a herbal garden for doctors and apothecaries. Physicians and pharmacists received their training and took exams there.
The plantings are mostly done in raised beds. Was I surprised to see carnivorous plants, I should not have been since the whole area was a swamp. But then, the garden has plants from all over the world.
Resistance Museum
I was grateful to spend five days in Amsterdam, which gave me time to visit some of the museums I missed the first time I was there. And while you need to get some tickets in advance, like to the Van Gogh and Anne Frank, I just walked up and purchased tickets to all the museums I visited.
The Resistance Museum, or “Verzetsmuseum” in Dutch, was opened in 1984 and re-creates the atmosphere of Amsterdam during the German occupation of WWII.
This is an exhibition about the everyday life during that time, highlighting the historical events, and resistance of the population against the Nazis.
The Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation was largely a non-violent resistance movement with strikes, sabotage, the dissemination of anti-Nazi literature, and protests. It was the most successful organized networks in Europe, providing safe houses for Jewish families protecting them from being sent to the concentration camps.
The displays are interactive in many cases, and you feel like you are participating in the resistance. Excellent.
H’ART Museum
I told my friend who was on her way to Amsterdam to visit the Hermitage Museum. While there she texted me “where is it?” It’s right around the corner from the hotel. Well, it WAS a satellite of the Russian Hermitage, but when Russia invaded the Ukraine, Amsterdam cut ties with them. It’s now called the H’ART Museum.
Since March 2022, the Amsterdam Museum, the official museum of the city of Amsterdam, can be found at H’ART Museum. While the main location of the Amsterdam Museum in the (City Orphanage) on Kalverstraat undergoes a large-scale renovation, the museum is at this location on the Amstel.
I loved the way they described the items on display, not just with a title and medium, but with an actual story that the piece depicts.
There is a wonderful exhibit, “A Living History of the City,” examining both traditional history and more recent histories of the city. The themes include fashion, the colonial past, the origins of New York City (aka New Amsterdam), to homelessness, the women of Amsterdam, and figures from Amsterdam’s history.
I was surprised that in one of the displays they talked about George Flyd and how his treatment echoed around the world. But what REALLY surprised me was the upstairs that was devoted to the origins of NYC with an introduction by Chief Ridgeway.
Four hundred years ago the first Dutch colonists arrived in the area known today as New York. Their mission, given by the Dutch West India Company, was to establish the colony of New Netherlands, with New Amsterdam as its capital, at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan.
The Amsterdam Museum joined with the Museum of the City of New York and representatives of the Lenape – original inhabitants of this area of the United States – in creating an exhibition about this shared history.
A film with Chief Urie Ridgeway is the first room you enter. He speaks about how his people had lived in the Mid Atlantic for 10,000 years and how the colonists brought their whole civilization to an end.
The Dutch invasion and decades-long colonization of the area in the 17th century had tremendous consequences for the Indigenous people who lived in the region, and on the island which they called Manahahtáanung.
Not only did they lose their land, they were victims of disease, war, and the disappearance of their livelihoods. The colonists deliberately made it impossible for Indigenous peoples to maintain their way of life and culture. There is a great article about this exhibition in the New York Times if you subscribe.
The museum has a large courtyard with sculpture and a great cafe. If you leave out of the side gate you walk right into the Jewish Holocaust Memorial.
Jewish Holocaust Memorial
The memorial, consists of four sections representing the letters in the Hebrew word ???? (from right to left, Lamedh, Zayin, Kaph, and Resh, which means “In Memoriam.”
You wander through the labyrinth of corridors between red brick walls.
On each of the 102,000 alphabetically ordered bricks is a name, date of birth, and age at death of a victim. A separate wall called “1000 Names Wall” of 1,000 bricks at the southern entrance was left blank to accommodate additional names of victims found later.
On top of the brick walls are four huge horizontal stainless steel panels that reflect the environment.
Random Photos:
For the second time I stayed at the Eden Hotel. The location is perfect but be sure to get the upgraded room! My room was very clean but had little character. The last time I was there I guess I had an upgraded room because it was much more interesting. That being said, it’s still a great place to stay, close to things but away from the crazy.
Like I said, I love Amsterdam, so I hate to say it, but it was very dirty in places. What is wrong with people? Trash everywhere every morning for someone else to clean up. I really don’t see how the city can keep up with it. They certainly do try.
I saw street sweepers every morning and a guy walking along spraying the stuff off the sidewalks for the street sweeper to pick up. We’ve been reading about the city wanting to curb some of the tourism and I don’t blame them. I feel bad for its residents.
Of course, it isn’t all over the canal ring, some spots are worse than others, mostly below the train station, but even then there are streets that are beautifully kept by the people who live there or have businesses on that street.
Food
I’ve been told by a friend I don’t talk about the food enough! Well, this might be too much of a description but we ate at an amazing Turkish restaurant called “Ali Ocakba??.”
The waiter brought a tray full of starters and explained what each one was, like roasted eggplant with yogurt, hummus, cheese with pesto, Kuru cacik, kopoglu, and so on — we ordered four.
Then we got roasted eggplant, with potato, green pepper, onion, and tomato sauce to share for our entree.
We finished with baklava with pistachio filling served with ice cream to share, omg.
We each had two glasses of wine, $90 euros. The service was wonderful as was the ambience.
My last day I had breakfast at a small cafe and ordered Eggs Benedict. I was asked if I wanted ham or bacon. I wish I would have taken a photo of it. There were 2 thick pieces of toast, 2 eggs, the sauce of course, but what made it special was there was also yellow and red cherry tomatoes, pomegranate seeds sprinkled around, and a few tips of asparagus to add to the color. It was beautiful and tasty!
Take-aways from this trip:
Five days is a good amount of time to get to know a city or a small area, but to get to know the area outside of the tourist area you probably need more than that. My thoughts about each of the places I visited this time.
Rome – you could spend a year there and maybe not see all the museums and historic sites. I love it but it’s too big to walk everywhere, too spread out, too hilly. I’ve been twice, will I go back? Maybe.
Manciano – the place we visited that was the least touristy, where hardly anyone spoke English. It was wonderful but I would not go back, only because we saw pretty much everything there was to see and other parts of Tuscany we wanted to see were a couple hours away. Hill towns of Tuscany – would I go back? Some of them I would.
Pienza for sure. Actually, I would stay close to it and visit the lesser-known towns from there. Just driving through the countryside was breathtaking. It would be a place I could go for a month or more to paint, relax, and just be.
Florence – this was my second visit and pretty much saw everything I want to see. So doubt I’ll go back.
Salzburg – I felt totally comfortable in Salzburg and would go back by myself in a minute. It’s clean, easy to get around, very walkable, and music everywhere. Next time I would rent a car to explore the countryside. I thought about renting a car to drive there from Florence rather than fly, but dropping a car off in another country made it cost twice as much.
Prague – Amazing architecture, I did not see a lot of the museums. Would I go back? The currency and language were hard to get used to and it’s a little rough around the edges. Would I go back? Maybe.
Berlin – I did not even scratch the surface. Got an overdose and good reminder about WWII, the Cold War, the Holocaust, so many museums we did not get to. Would I go back? Don’t know, probably not.
Amsterdam – Second visit, love it. Would I go back? Next time I think I would rent a car and explore the area rather than stay in Amsterdam. It was quite a month!
Where to next? A quick trip to New Mexico to visit Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch then NYC to see the Christmas decorations.
In case you missed Part 1, view it here – Part 2, read it here.
