Today, Tuesday 28, we spent the day at Potsdam and Sanssouci. This involved us leaving home at 8.30 with our packed lunches and getting a couple of trains to take us the 22km. We were at the booking office just after 10am and made our bookings to visit the main palace – the Sanssouci palace. We checked about an hour later and our time slot was booked out by then so we were lucky.
We decided to slow our pace on Monday 27 after the challenging exposure to Luther and his friends yesterday. The blog definitely can’t be managed if one spends ten or eleven hours out of the house and then cooks and eats a relaxed dinner on one’s return! So today we set out after blogging and lunch to explore the recommended Bernauer Strasse section of the Wall to the north of the city centre. That proved to be another very reflective afternoon. Dwell a moment on the featured image for this blog.
Today, Saturday 25, was our earliest start as we had a booking for 9am to visit the Dome of the Deutsche Bundestag. The Bundestag is usually known as the Reichstag but it seems they are in the process of renaming it so it better reflects Germany today when it no longer has a King or Emperor. 10 out of 10 for a most professional visit. We got there early but were allowed to proceed immediately. Security was high. We needed to show our passports on entering, then a typical airport check before being loaded into the biggest lift we have ever experienced. 42 jolly and excited persons were crammed in and were taken up 4 floors to the bottom of the Dome.
We definitely set out to pace ourselves a little more carefully today, Friday 24. We devoted the morning to blogging on yesterday, leaving in time to make the 1.00pm Reconciliation Prayer service around the Cross of Nails at the Kaiser Wilhelm Church in accordance with the Coventry Cathedral initiative for every Friday. However there are exceptions to every rule, and it wasn’t held today. We undertook our own Reconciliation meditation in the beautiful Church instead. Picked up salmon and some vegetables at the Friday Wittenberg Platz market and then spent the rest of the day at the Museum in the Kulturbrauerei exploring with a different approach ‘everyday life in the GDR’.
Today we spent almost all day in the section of central Berlin where the Jewish population mainly lived. The day was wet and cold. It is so like Melbourne, a bit colder, but it is very hard to tell what the weather is going to be like from one day to the next.
Today, Wednesday 22, on the suggestion of Jen and Dave’s friend’s mother, we went to the villa of Max Liebermann on the shores of Lake Wannsee, on the outskirts of Berlin, in a posh area consisting of lots of large villas. Took us just under an hour on the amazing transport system – 2 trains, then a bus which dropped us at the door.
Our visit today (Tuesday 21) was to the DDR or GDR Museum, depending on whether you call it the Deutsche or German Democratic Republic Museum. Seems to be used interchangeably. The museum provides an accessible experience of how it was to live in former East Germany with the Wall, and under socialism. It is very practical. For example, there is a Trabi – the East German car which was produced in competition to the Beatle. A very basic car with apparently very weak brakes and no fuel indicator. But it was a car.
Today, Monday 20, was a bit different, but kept up our standard of great days. After blog writing and admin, we walked to an area 15 minutes away called Kurfürstendamm where we met a couple, Helga and Volker Henckel, for lunch. They are the parents of Timo, a friend of Jen and Dave’s in Canberra. Both German, he was born in Poland and she in Cologne. They have travelled a lot and we found we had a lot in common.
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