Elegant Elbe: Day 14
Day 14: Saturday, November 11, 2023 - Berlin, Germany
The day's statistics:
- Weather: upper 50s, sunny
- Steps: 3,515 Linda; 14,950 Steve
- Miles traveled (approximately): 18
There was an enclosed bath area - a glass wall with a door between the rest of the bathroom and the tub / shower.
What makes this a little interesting is that the shower faucet and head were not in the tub - but to the side. The tub had its own faucet.
There was a large floral pot, and an interesting table with flowers, in the lobby that we passed on the way to breakfast.
Breakfast was a full buffet at the hotel. It included the usual - except for eggs. There were no eggs on the buffet (hard boiled not included).
I saw an employee restacking the clean plates and asked him about the eggs. He said to just ask our server for any eggs that we wanted.
Really?!? Great. When our server asked for our coffee order, we placed an egg order. Linda got her egg benedict, and I got a mushroom, onion,
pepper, and cheddar omelet - with a side of bacon, sausage, and potatoes from the buffet.
When I saw a couple other Viking travelers equally perplexed about the lack of eggs - yes, it was obvious on their face and in their actions -
I told them about placing the order with their server.
On the way back to the room after breakfast, we saw this in the lobby too.
After collecting what we needed for our excursion, we returned to the lobby, and got another picture of the wooden sculptures.
We boarded the bus for a 9:00 departure for the Panoramic Berlin excursion. Our guide was Lother (Luther), and our driver was Yurk.
Just outside the hotel is this sculpture.
We learned that there were these "Buddy Bear" bears around the city - 550 in all.
A couple duplicate sculptures - more visible in the daylight.
A building that was used by the nazis.
A US war B52 hanging outside a museum.
Across the city there are cobblestone markers indicating the site of the original Berlin wall.
There were some parts of the original wall that were still standing.
There is a spot in the middle of a street called Checkpoint Charlie, that is supposed to represent the
spot where papers were checked before people were allowed to cross between East and West Berlin.
The communist flag - here symbolically too - has to be replaced every couple of years due to its fading.
The plaque on the front of the sandbags reads: "To commemorate the tank stand-off at Checkpoint Charlie on October 27th, 1961, and in gratitude
to Lt. General Lucius B. Clay, Berlin envoy of US President John F. Kennedy, for his resolute action in defending the freedom of Berlin.
Former quarters for German soldiers.
This was the site of Hitler's bunker where he committed suicide - though the bunker isn't there anymore.
This is the Holocaust Memorial. It is a field of various sized cubes / stone in rows and columns, 2,711 in all. When one walks to the center,
it becomes very quiet. We did not have an opportunity to test this.
Further on.
We passed the back of the Brandenburg Gate, then headed down the street that split a large park, to a monument -
that had statues nearby - before turning around.
We passed in front of the parliment building, on the far side of the field. Then turned right, approached down the left side, turned around
at the end, went back across the field, and then down the right side. The glass dome on the top has a pedestrian walkaround, and the space
allows people to look down on the government proceedings so they can see everything that is going on.
We circled around and were now at the front of the gate, though it was being rehabilitated.
Berlin Cathedral, with the TV Tower in the background.
We passed some churches and the Berlin train station, but they were on the other side of the bus and the pictures didn't come out well.
We covered a lot of the city, and heard a lot about the history, and saw a museum, the cathedral, TV tower, sculptures, parliment, and
various architecture. We eventually made our way back to another large portion of the wall. Unlike the unadorned portion of the wall earlier,
this wall was thoroughly painted on one side - section after section after section, all painted in different motifs - with the other side
being plain white. While this wall is in its original location, some don't consider it "original" because it has been painted (even though
the wall underneath is original). It wasn't painted like this until after the end of communism.
The bus stopped and I got off for a couple more pictures, including the back of the wall. I convinced Linda to step off for a quick selfie too.
Across the street from the bus stop was this sculpture that read "Love Hate" (though I don't think it means "Love [to] Hate" but rather
"Love [and] Hate") - but the same was in either direction.
We boarded the bus and continued - it's a long wall. Some of the images were abstract, others whimsicle, and others subtly - or even
overtly - political. Looking at all these pictures now, I don't know why I didn't slide over to the other side of the bus, though there
is a possibility it was because I was able to take wider shots from further away.
The oddity of the architecture of this building is lost in the reflection of the window.
We finally arrived back at the hotel at about 1:00. And parked out front was a Rolls Royce - an older one, but a Rolls nonetheless.
We headed up to the room for a brief rest and so Linda could raise and ice her leg. We had less than an hour to recooperate as our next
excursion was at 2:00.
We headed to the lobby, with me pushing Linda in the wheelchair, for our Flavors of Berlin excursion. "Food, glorious food" is one of
the best ways to immerse oneself in a culture - which is why we like to do this sort of excursion.
One of our fellow travelers overheard our discussion about how to keep ourselves protected with the rain while Linda was
in the chair while I was pushing her. The woman offered to let us borrow one of their waterproof cover jackets. They just
asked that we drop it by before the night was over.
Our guide was Anika, and it was the two of us with Sue, Rick, and Bob (whose wife wasn't feeling well).
We were going to walk and use public transportation to move around the city. If it wasn't for the wheelchair,
Linda probably wouldn't have been able to participate.
We walked out of the back of the hotel, and headed to the Potsdamerplatz where the soon-to-be-Christmas Market was.
On the street behind the hotel is Haus-Huth. Akina had a historical photo showing that house. As we stood amongst the
development that had since taken place.
We all huddled into the elevator - the stairs weren't an option (though we did walk right past an escalator) - to go down to the subway.
As we walked through the underground tunnels, anywhere we had to use an escalator - they were easier to get to and faster to use than the
elevator - Linda was able to stand up, step on the riser, and ride it to the top. I would pause for four or five risers, then slide the
wheelchair onto the escaltor, and meet Linda at the top. She'd be a couple steps forward and I'd just wheel up behind her and she'd sit.
Going down stairs actually really wasn't a problem. One time she went down and when I attempted to pick up the chair to carry it down -
which I had done before and was able to do - a young lady insisted on helping carry it. Well... OK.
We boarded the subway and headed a couple stops away. As we approached our first food stop, we passed by another soon-to-be-Christmas Market.
Each city in Germany had its own brewery, and there are more than 5,000 breweries in Germany.
We arrived at BBQ Kitchen. We ordered drinks - most had beer, but I had wine.
We had currywurst with bread. The sauce is NOT ketchup.
While we were eating, Anika stepped away for like ten or fifteen minutes. We were done and just waiting for her. Then she came back
with a bag. She told us she visited a vendor in the market and picked up some boulette. They were sort of like little squished meatballs,
or tiny little meatloafs. Regardless, they were pretty good.
The entreé portion of our flavors was over, and we headed out.
We passed through the soon-to-be-Christmas Market, crossed a couple streets, and headed to a "mall".
The mall was more of a residential complex. There were a series of connected buildings, creating eight courtyards - the archways
between each were numbered - with shops on the lower levels and three to five stories of residences above them.
The next flavor stop was at Sawade, an old family run chocolate store that specialized in truffles, and had a wide selection
of them, and other sweets. We each had one of whatever flavor we wanted. Linda tried the house specialty one which was a multi-layer
confection, while I tried the peanut butter.
Drop a Euro into this vending machine, and things spin, turn, move, and make noise, and a truffle rolls down rails until it drops out.
It is on a platform that's about a meter (three feet) high, and the contraption is another 2 or so meters (six feet) tall.
It didn't readiily fit into one photo, and the background didn't help making seeing the device any easier either.
On the wall just outside the shop.
We continued on to our next flavor stop.
Aseli, a store that sold marshmallow-like sweets in various shapres - mice, aligators, boobs - was our next stop.
They were not really to our liking, though - the one we tried almost had a banana flavor.
We continued on and came across a restaurant that was in what could be called the basement. And there was a line too.
A spiral staircase to one of the residential areas.
We were in an interesting and rather busy alley.
Then we headed to our last and final flavor stop: caffe Sant' Angelo.
We had our choice of a slice of cake, and a beverage. We shared a carrot cake with creamcheese frosting, and each had a coffee.
Our flavors tour was over, and it was time to head back to the hotel.
We started out, going back to the train station that was near the soon-to-be-Christmas market.
We had two stops to go to the Potsdamerplatz, then the three block walk to the hotel.
While we were at the staircase above, the couple that lent us their jacket passed by and asked us how everything was going.
By 6:00, we were back. We said thanks and good-bye to Anika.
We spotted a few of the bears around the city, and this one, in the hotel lobby, was called "sil-bear".
We headed to the room quick so we could drop off the wheelchair as the next excursion was mostly bus, so
it wasn't needed. We didn't have too much time because the next excursion started in a half-hour.
Our third and last excursion of the day was called Berlin by Night.
Our guide was Anika. Again. And our driver was Hasson. There were only ten of us on this excursion. It was scheduled until 10:00
and we think that the reason there weren't more is because a number of passengers had 3:00 AM departures and a 10:00 return from
the excursion would have just been too late.
So we boarded the bus and headed out. I tried to capture as many pictures of the lit night sights as I could, while on the moving bus -
or stationary without the monopod - while playing with the camera settings to do what I could do. Plus there are windows and reflections
on the bus, and a couple of these are even cellphone pictures so fiddling with the settings isn't even possible. I also enjoy seeing and
recognizing sights at night that we saw earlier in the day.
We headed out.
The little figure on the crosswalk signs is SO popular, there is a store dedicated to him.
The bus backed down the road as far as it could, we got out, and made our first stop of the evening -
Nolle Restaurant.
"Food, glorious f--" wait, what?!!? Didn't we just finish the "Flavors of Berlin" food tasting excursion,
like, a half hour before this excursion started? Yes. Yes, we did. And let's just say that it was a scheduling
error because we didn't notice that the "Berlin by Night" excursion included dinner.
Because of Linda's slower mobility, when we got into the restaurant, our group was no longer visible. We walked around a
little and found them in the far, back, left corner.
We started with potato soup; then had currywurst [again, though we actually like the other one better as it did not have a skin
on it like this one did]; veiner schnitzel with sausage, potatoes, and greens, with fresh sauerkraut on the side; and apple
strudel with ice cream (that we brought back to the hotel for future consumption, though we ate the ice cream at dinner).
It was an interestingly decorated restaurant.
There were plan trees, artwork, round glass negatives / images on a half-wall, and a collection of hats on wooden heads.
After more than an hour eating, drinking, and being merry, as Anika was assumedly taking care of the bill,
we headed out so we'd have a head start to the bus.
After we were all on board, we headed to our next destination.
Out next stop was a the TV Tower. It has an observation deck (and a restaurant) - and that's where we heading
(the deck, not the restaurant, thank goodness).
The bus stopped about a block and a half away, and nine of us headed out - Linda stayed behind.
We passed through security, then entered the lobby area, and Anika went to take care of our tickets.
Just outside the elevator was this Buddy Bear, named Alex 35. In order to get to it, one would have had to buy tickets go to the
observation deck - so all 550 Buddy Bears can not be seen just by walking / driving around the city.
There ARE steps to get up to the deck - or more importantly, to get down should something go awry - but we rode the elevator -
which had a window in the ceiling of it to look up at the shaft - to the deck.
It was a less than one minute (one minute) ride to the deck 200 meters (640 feet) up.
One of the small problems with the design (yea, like I would know that, right?!!?) was that the lighting actually shown right into
the windows. So it actually obscured looking out a little - and that's relevant in some of the pictures and light glare.
We were told some history about what we could see, and about the tower itself. The views were great from up there.
After taking a bunch of pictures, I realized that I could also take a walk-around video. So that's what I did...
It IS a public location, and there were people looking out windows, but I did the best I could. I also don't have a gimbal [yet]
so there is a fair amount of visible walking motion - if this gives you sickness or headache, avoid watching the video.
We were at the observation deck for over a half-hour. We took the elevator back down. And I had another idea for another video.
We exited the tower, Anika called Hasson, and by the time we got back to the drop-off point, he was waiting.
We boarded, and headed out.
We passed in front of the parliment building and turned around in the same spot we had earlier in the day. What makes these
lights interesting is that they are NOT direct lights, but rather that the light is shown straight up out of the top of the
pole and onto the domed disk and reflected outward - a great way to disburse more light with less bulb.
It took twenty-nine (29!) tries - night, moving bus, low light - and these were the best ones. At least one of them has the TV tower in the background.
Our last stop was at the gate. At least this time we were at the front of it.
We pulled over to the side and some of us got out for photos. We stepped off and were actually now at one of the back corners of the parliment
building. And directly in front of the bus, inside a mall or office building of some kind, was a very large statue of a guy.
While I was taking my photos, some random guy asked me to take his with his phone - I guess he assessed that I wasn't going to run away with it.
In hindsight, I wish I got a better shot of just the charriot on top of the gateway.
After our last stop, we headed back to the hotel. Right near the gate we passed the US Embassey.
We arrived back at the hotel just after 10:00 - again iterating the travelers leaving early in the morning were wise to not participate.
At some point, I discovered that I was no longer in possession of my Switzerland hat. I asked at the front desk
if they had a lost and found - they did - and if that hat was in it - it wasn't.
Tomas asked if there was something he could assist with. He checked the Viking L&F to no avail too. He said he'd ask Anika about it to see
if it was on the bus. It was never found.
After getting to our room, I headed to the room of the couple that lent us their jacket. There was a note on the door
to not disturb, but kindly put the jacket in the bag hanging on the doorknob.
Our rooms not only have doorbells on the outside, there are "Do Not Distrub" and "Please Service the Room" buttons on
the inside that light colored lights on the outside, removing the need for the doorknob hangtag.
On the way back, I noticed that one room had BOTH lights light - but they are contradictory lights...
Today was a busy day, and it was already "late". We washed up, and went to bed.