Welcome To East Germany -
Okay, it hasn’t been East Germany since 1989, but it still differentiates our current location. It’s Thursday night and we arrived in Berlin yesterday morning.
We had a great trip. Left Aix-en Provence Tuesday afternoon and took the three-hour TGV (high speed train) to Paris (six-hours on a highway in a car). I’ve got to say it again – what a great train. We disembarked at Paris Gare Lyon and took a 15-minute cab ride through Paris to Paris Gare Est, where the German trains come and go. It was exciting driving through Paris. It is really an intriguing place. Old and charming and there’s lots of it.
Our German train, I didn’t say high-speed, left at 7 pm for a 14-hour journey to Berlin. We really liked the train trip. Certainly, it was different. The train was long and all cars, except one, were comprised of compartments. We had probably the oldest car on the train, but we liked our spacious compartment, which was designed for six people. The dining experience was barely an experience. Every few cars there was a little closet where a grumpy German train employee sold food. The best suggestion is to bring your own food on this train. The train wasn’t photogenic, but as you look at the photos the kids were happy to be on the top bunks. None of us had ever spent the night in such a situation. The mattresses (seat cushions) were hard and the pillows were soft. I slept like a baby and I believe the rest of the group enjoyed the same experience. Obviously, we saw some countryside at the beginning and the end of the trip. The primary impression is of pretty flat farm land between Paris and Berlin. We keep getting hit over the head by how much food is being produced from these crops. France is loaded with growing farm land and Germany looks the same. The communities we saw from the train were totally different than we are use to in the south of France. The French communities had more single family homes and the countryside was, again, really impressive.
Berlin Central Station is magnificent. Take a look at the photo. The long distance trains arrive and depart at the lowest level, which you can see at the bottom of the photo. The local trains go through the shopping center-like station and you see the concrete at the top of the photos and that’s holding up the tracks of the local trains. The photo is showing the center of the station with restaurants and stores, while there are structures on either side that are parking garages. The station opened in 2006 and must be the nicest in the world.
Yesterday was a rainy and cool day (the forecast for the entire trip was upper 60s, lower 70s and rain), so we got out the umbrellas. We decided to take the city bus tour (hop-on and hop-off), which turned out to be a good idea, and included a boat trip on the River Spree. The strongest impression of Berlin is that it reminds us of a U.S. city. Well, everything we’ve seen in two quick trips to Germany reminds us of the United States, while virtually nothing in France reminds us of the U.S. I thought Berlin most reminds me of Washington, DC, with very few high-rise buildings. The key for Berlin is that about 70% of the city was destroyed by bombing in World War II and most of the rebuilding has happened since 1960. So, it is a very modern city with very wide and beautiful streets. Most everywhere we were you’d be hard pressed to think you were not in the United States. Our first hop-off was at Check Point Charlie where there were all sorts of confrontations with Soviet troops. They had a piece of the Berlin Wall there and Keaka and Sophia posed at the wall. There was a small museum at the site and both kids were very interested in the material presented, as were mom and dad.
After hoping back on the bus, we got off at the Berlin Cathedral to take our River Spree boat trip. The Cathedral, in a photo, is actually only about 110 years old. There is all kinds of construction going on in Berlin, all on the heals of lots of new buildings. One photo from our boat shows a new building right on the river bank. The river also goes in front of the train station (see photo), which you saw the inside of. Another new building we passed is a key government building (see photo). Back on the bus we passed the Brandenburg Gate, which is where John Kennedy gave his famous Berlin speech 51-years ago today. And then it was back to the train station and our rental car.
I was quite curious as to what we’d see that would reflect East Berlin. Today you can’t tell the difference between the two Berlins. That’s the simple answer.
And then it was on to the German countryside.
The Wilsons
