July 2, 2014 - 9:35pm flight out of Detroit.
Day 1 – July 3, Hamburg
The flight from Detroit to Hamburg was on time and fast. I arrived in Paris a half an hour early. I watched the movie Gravity, they served dinner, and then I started to watch Frozen when I was able to fall asleep. I am not sure how much quality sleep I got, but I was woken up by breakfast being put in front of me. I was not able to see the Eiffel tower on either flight, still not sure how far it is from the airport. My flight to Hamburg was delayed by about 10 minutes. I got my bags and passed through customs quickly to then find out Mikes plane was delayed 10 minutes later than mine. I waited for him and we meet up at the car rental spot at 3pm. We got a blue Ford something or other, lol. Mike was pissed that we had to walk past the Porsches to get to it. We had some minor issues with the GPS at first since Germany is called Deutschland. Once we got to our hotel we had to find parking, it took a while, but Mike figured it out.
Our trip had begun. We knew we wanted to see St. Michaelis Church and the Reeperbahn. Over all we were going to walk at least 4 miles and pass things on the way. We headed out through the train station at rush hour then made our way to the Rathaus (town hall building) and passed two churches. We traveled past a lot of shopping places and saw more church steeples. There was one steeple being reconstructed with full scaffolding all the way around it.
Then we made it to one of Hamburg's most popular landmarks, the Church St. Michaelis, also called "Michel." It is one of the 5 main Protestant churches in Hamburg. The original church built in 1647 has been replicated in 9 different cities around the world. The church we saw is a reconstruction, 3rd one on the site, completed in 1912 because it was demolished during World War II. We purchased a ticket to go in the crypt and up the bell tower. In the crypt there was a 30-minute movie about the 1,000 year history of Hamburg and its churches, but it was in German so we couldn’t understand it. The tower has the largest tower clock in Germany, 26 feet in diameter. We saw two sets of hands of the clock in the crypt when we went on a tour. We were able to take the elevator to just above the clock. From the viewing platform we were able to see the Elbe River, located the churches we just walked past and the train station, we could also see the Alster lakes. Inside the church was magnificent, the white walls were accented with gold and it had one of the biggest organs I have ever seen. The church has 2,500 seats and most were numbered.
Next we went to the Reeperbahn, the center of Hamburg's nightlife and home to the legendary Red Light District. The street was lined with bars, restaurants, theaters and nightclubs. There was a Harley Davidson gathering going on so there were rows of bikes. There was also prostitutes, sex shops, sex museums, and strip clubs (none of which we took part in). I am happy we were out of there by dark. It was time for the walk home. We decided to take the scenic route though some cool parks (Planten un Blomen and Stadtpark). We ended up at Binnenalster which is part of the Alster lake, where there was live music being played that echoed over the water. It was nice to sit and relax for a few minutes before heading back to the room for the night.
Day 2 - Leaving Hamburg
The alarm was set for 7:15, but we were both wide awake at 6am and tried to go back to sleep. When we got up we had breakfast at the hotel and decided to relax till check out. We both fell back to sleep. After dropping our luggage off at the car, we went to see the first church that we missed and then walked around to look for other landmarks. At a little after 1pm we headed to the airport to pick up Jeff. On the way we think we saw an airbus beluga airplane landing, Mike said there were only a few of them in the world. Then headed to Saltau, but we experienced some congestion on the autoban. The other side the highway was at a standstill. There were people standing outside of their cars or sitting on them. We made it to Eggershof, but had no idea where to check into the farm. We ended up calling Dave who let us know they were pushing back the BBQ due to the Germany soccer game. We figured out the housing situation and were able to settle in then go upstairs to watch the game. Germany won!! We will get to see the next game in Germany on the 8th. We are on a farm which smells like a farm, but it is beautiful. Housing is a tiny room and we shared the master key to the floor and one bathroom for 8+ people.
The BBQ was very nice. Almost everyone who flew in meet for dinner, we had a mix of people from America, London, and Germany. There was even a couple from South Korea. We were able to see the space for the reception, but there was a wedding going on. The pork was amazing and they had tomatoes with mozzarella cheese and two other really good salad dishes. I had my first German light beer which was good. After dinner we all mingled then watched the next soccer game to see who would play Germany on the 8th. Brazil won and at about that time everyone dispersed and headed to bed after a long day of traveling.
Day 3 – Wedding Day July 5th
We started the day with breakfast on the farm. I had a really good chocolate waffle/muffin pastry. To pass time before getting ready for the wedding we walked around the farm, some people were playing volleyball, soccer or playing in the pond. Ten people getting ready for the wedding with one bathroom, was a little rough, but we made it work. The Zion Lutheran church was very small. Mike was asked to help take pictures and he asked me to take video with his little camera. I pinched my finger opening the tripod, started bleeding and found out that two pieces of the tripod were missing so I had to hold the camera on the tripod the whole time I was recording. The wedding was a little different, they walked in together, there were no bridesmaids or groomsmen, and they did the marriage vows at the beginning of the ceremony. The ceremony ended with a lot of singing in both German and English. The wedding ended with everyone outside congratulating them followed by cake and tea. The timing was perfect, right as everyone headed inside it started to rain then pour. It was either a German or family tradition to form a processional back to the reception where the cars all turned on their lights and honked the whole way. Dave and Helen actually were driven in the same exact car her parents rode on their wedding day. It was awesome! When we got back to the farm we had some appetizers that were kinda like pizza bread and champagne. There was a lot going on for the reception. They had a blank puzzle for all the guest to put there thumb print on, a photo booth with crazy props, and we played an ice breaker game to mingle and learn everyone’s name prior to dinner. Dinner began with the singing of grace in German, then we were served soup brought in in a traditional manner. Mike loved the spatzals. After dinner the program started which consisted of people singing, a video of friends from London, her dad gave speech, Peter gave a speech, her sisters sang a song, games, poems, making of a Malawi cake, cutting the cake (which Helen made herself) and the regular wedding dances (with everyone holding sparklers), and a bonfire. We were up till after 3:30 dancing to not the greatest DJ, but it was a lot of fun.
Day 4 – Travel to Berlin
We woke up earlier to try and get on the road, but we were not able to check out of the farm. We ended up giving Helen our money and got on the road at 9am. We were told that we should not see trucks on the autoban since it was Sunday, but we defiantly saw a few. We arrived in Berlin at about noon and parked near the oldest public park in Berlin, the Tiergarten. We then walked to the Holocaust Memorial, with its two thousand, seven hundred and eleven gray concrete slabs (called stelae). They are placed in rows and differ vertically, from eight inches to more than fifteen feet tall. They lay over 4.7 acres. We went through the Information Center underground which told all about the Holocaust. The worst part was a room full of letters/diaries/poems of people in the ghettos or camps that they tried to send to their families.
Then we headed to the Brandenburg Gate. It was built in 1791 as a symbol of
peace. During the cold war, when Berlin
was divided, the Brandenburg Gate stood between East and West Berlin in the no
mans land. It was here that former President Reagan (1987) said his famous words, “Mr.
Gorbatschow, tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbatschow, open this Gate.” After the
wall fell in 1989, the Brandenburg Gate became the symbol of Germany's
reunification. We purchased a pretzel
from a street vendor and two cold cokes.
Then we headed to the Reichstag building to see if we could access the
dome. We had to wait in line a half hour
to make a reservation and talked with a couple from Australia. We had 3 hours to kill before we could get
into the dome so we walked to Checkpoint Charlie. From 1945 to 1989 it was the most well-known
checkpoint in Berlin. The checkpoint was
controlled by the US. The checkpoint was
in use for foreigners and diplomats, the allied forces and their relatives. They had actors pretending to be soldiers
guarding the checkpoint and you could pay to get your picture taken with them,
it was very touristy. We did not go in
to the museum
From there we went to the Topography of Terror. This was the former site of the Gestapo headquarters. It has an indoor and outdoor exhibition that runs alongside a preserved section of the Berlin Wall. After the war the grounds were leveled and initially used for commercial purposes. It now provides information about the headquarters of the National Socialist SS and police state and reveals the European dimensions of the Nazi reign of terror. We had to leave without seeing the whole thing in order to get to our reservation at the Reichstag building. On the way back we attempted to find Hitler’s bunker, but did not have any luck. Later we found out that we were only a block away.
The Reichstag is the seat of the parliament of Germany, but it has a glass dome on the roof terrace. The view was cool and the purpose of it was to create a sense of political transparency. We traveled up the winding path for a 360-degree audio tour of Berlin. It was extremely hot in the dome especially on the sunny side. Mike got some cool pictures. After that we headed back to the car through shady Tiergarten park and to the hotel. The Radisson Blu hotel has a huge aquarium in it and is the first hotel to have air conditioning (Mike is still not happy that the Hotels don’t have ice machines). We went to dinner at “Andy’s” where I had a chicken sandwich and Mike tried a XXL currywerst. Then we went back to the room to plan what we were going to see before leaving Berlin the next day.
Day 5 – Last day in Berlin
This morning we had breakfast at the hotel. It was by far the best breakfast we had so far. Mike had a big plate of meat and I had a wide variety of food, fruit and a waffle. I attempted to try a smoothie, but it was not very good. We checked out of the hotel and went on a very long walk to see some sights Mike wanted to see. We first went to the East Side Gallery. It was not what I expected, all it was was paintings on the wall and graffiti. Some of the paintings were not even good. From there we took the scenic route passed by St. Thomas Kirche (church), gypsy housing, St Michael’s church (catholic) and then to the Gendarmenmarkt (market). The Gendarmenmarkt is square in the site of a concert house and the French and German cathedrals, but it was all blocked off for some reason. From there we walked to the library and Berlin State Opera house (Bebelplatz) where we saw the memorial of the burned books. On May 11, 1933, 20,000 books that conflicted with Nazi doctrine were burned. The memorial was a glass window on the ground that looks below into a room of empty book shelves, which was hard to see at first. Last we saw the Berliner Dom up close. It was just starting to rain as we headed to the car.
The last stop on the way out of Berlin was the Führer Bunker, which we missed the day before. There is only an information board with a map of the ground floor of the bunker. It was here, below ground where Hitler committed here suicide with his wife in April 1945. Then we headed down to Dresden. There are so many things to see in Berlin, but we saw all the big things.
The ride to Dresden was only two hours and we saw some cool windmills, sunflower fields and started to see some rolling hills. We were able to see quite a few steeples as we entered the town. We checked in to Innside and they gave us a single bed, I made sure they changed it to two twin beds. Then we went looking for a spot to eat dinner. It took forever to order, but we ate right next to the Frauenkirche (a church), where street performers were playing. First, we listened to a little band and by the time we got our food two people were singing opera. They were really good and loud. The only song I knew was “Alleluia”. I ate pork and potatoes and Mike had veal and noodles. From there we headed to the terrace to see what it was like at night. The Brühlsche Terrasse is nicknamed "The Balcony of Europe", the terrace stretches high above the shore of the river Elbe. This balcony was once Dresden's defensive wall on the River Elbe. The view was really cool because they had a lot of the building lite up. We didn’t really know what we were looking at, but we went for a loop back to the hotel. We saw more street performers and the remains of a building they were uncovering before they build something new on it.
Day 6 - Dresden
Dresden is known for the devastating and controversial Allied bombing campaign of February 1945. US
and Royal Air Force bombers dropped explosive on the city for three days, destroying 13 square miles of the city and causing fires. Mike and I had a hard time getting up, between all the walking and staying up to call home we were pooped. Mike said there was a thunderstorm, but I slept right through it.
Since it was calling for rain starting at 1pm, we decided to take a walk around the city and see some of the things we missed last night. We saw the Frauenkirche again. This is the Church of Our Lady. In World War II, when air-raids wiped out the city, the grand Frauenkirche collapsed into a 42 feet high pile of rubble. We think they preserved a small piece to the side of the building, but since we can’t speak Germany, we were not sure what the sign said. From our research, the ruins were left untouched for over 40 years as a reminder of the destructive powers of war. In 1994, the reconstruction of the church began, almost completely financed by private donations and was completed in 2005. The original church was Roman Catholic, but became Protestant during the Reformation, the current building was built Protestant. It features one of the largest domes in Europe.
We then walked to the Zwinger Palace, a medieval fortress that houses a porcelain museum, picture gallery, armory, the Math & Physics museum, and the Old Masters Gallery (works include ones by Raphael and Rembrandt). We walked up to the roof and looked down into the court yard. It was really neat to see. Then we walked down the bridge over the Elbe river and took some photos back at the city.
Mike was excited to see the Bundeswehr Military History Museum, the military
museum of the German Armed Forces. It is
one of the major military history museums in Germany and located at the former
military arsenal. The museum was
re-opened in 2011 with a new concept of showing both a chronological display of
history as well as a thematic exhibition. The thematic part of the museum
focuses on the human aspects of war, while the chronological part shows the
evolution of German military technology.
We spent about 5 hours at this museum.
I only found the first 2.5 hours interesting. The new part of the museum had all kinds of
different war related artifacts organized in major categories. They had some interactive sections to help
break up all the reading.When we left the military museum, we attempted to go to a bar Mike had read about, but we could not find any parking and decided to head back to the hotel. We then went to dinner by the Frauenkirche and sat inside because it was about to rain again. The restaurant was called Dresden 1900. Mike had Batzen (pork) and I had Schnitzel (breaded pork tenderloin). To drink, Mike tried a dark beer and I tried “Diesel,” a beer and coke mix, it was really good. I don’t really like how restaurants are so laid back, it takes a while to get service and the check. It would help if we knew a little more German. We headed back to the hotel in some light rain and stopped for ice cream. We then started watching the Germany futbol game in the hotel room to avoid going back out in the rain. At half time Germany was up 5 to nothing and ended up winning the game 7 to1.
Day 7 - Regensburg
This morning we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel before starting our day trip down to Munich, stopping to explore Regensburg. On the three hour drive we saw a lot of rolling hills of the country. It was beautiful, but then the rain came and we could not take good pictures. The temperature has been dropping as we travel south. Regensburg is one of Germany's oldest towns, founded by the Romans in 179 A.D. Regensburg has many landmarks, many we did not see, which date back to the Middle Ages. The three things that we saw were the Cathedral of St. Peter, Old City Hall from the outside and the Stone Bridge. Since 2006, Regensburg has been a UNESCO World Heritage site. We parked right on the river (Donau) down from the Stone Bridge and walked, in light rain, to the Cathedral of St. Peter Cathedral a 13th-century cathedral. It had 14th century stained glass windows and a smiling angel of Gabriel (one of the first statues with an expression for that time period).
From there we went to the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall) and saw it from the outside. We tried to find the Kepler memorial, but didn't see it. Mike said that this was the town Shindler was from, but we didn’t know if there would be anything about him here. Next we went to the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge), which was under construction. We could not get good pictures between the rain and the bridge being covered in scaffolding. Built between 1135 and 1146, it is Germany's oldest vaulted stone bridge and has many sections still in their original state. The bridge was once considered the 'eighth wonder of the world' and it was the largest of its kind in the world.
It stated poring so we headed to the famous "Wurstkuchl" restaurant, founded over 500 years ago and presumably the oldest fast food restaurant in the world. We sat with a couple from California and their friend who was from Hamburg. He helped us translate and recommended we get the sausage and sour kraut. It was really good. Mike loves the sour kraut here. It was a great way to get out of the rain.
From there we headed down to Munich (1.5 hours) to check into our final hotel. Parking has been a pain. This hotel had a parking garage for only 8 cars and was extreme tight. Mike did a great job backing into a tilted space. We checked in, but again they didn't have us in twin beds. They put up a cot for the night and will move us in the morning to the correct room. The room that we had was just renovated. From the hotel we walked downtown and saw 3 of the churches. We ate at a brewery and each tried one of their beers. The food and beer was good, we even got to watch most of the soccer game while we ate. Argentina will be playing Germany on the day we fly home.
Day 8 - Munich - Dachau Concentration Camp
Today we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel. The weird breakfast food for today was chicken wings. We then walked to the train station to join our day trip of Dachau. The concentration camp is about 10 miles northwest of Munich, we took a train and bus to get there. The bus took about the same path the prisoners walked if they arrived here by train. The people of Dachau knew what was going on at the camp and were forced to heckle and torture the prisoners as they walked 45 minutes to the camp. If they did not, they too could be imprisoned in the camp. Established on March 22, 1933, it was one of the first concentration camps in Germany and served as a model for all other camps. Dachau was one of the longest running concentration camps in Nazi Germany. On our way, the tour guide made it clear that we were going to see a Memorial Site. Most of the camp has been removed. We were shown the SS quarters and the spot where the SS recruits were indoctrinated into a system of torture, humiliation, and killing of people.
We walked into the camp and followed the path the prisoners took upon their arrival in the camp. We walked into through the gate saying “Arbeit macht frei” "Work sets you free," into the courtyard. This camp had the saying on the gate before Auschwitz (one of the leaders was trained here before controlling Auschwitz). In the courtyard was the roll call area where prisoners were forced to line up to be counted, often having to stand motionless for hours in all different weather conditions.
From there we were taken through some history of the camp and walked through the memorial museum. During its 12 years of operation, over 206,200 people from more than 30 countries were imprisoned (most documentation of the camp was not destroyed by the Nazis before it was liberated, unlike other camps). Dachau had the most recorded survivors. Jews, political opponents, homosexuals, gypsies, members of the Jehovah's Witness, and priests were imprisoned here with more than 40,000 of them dying. American troops liberated the survivors on April 29, 1945 and they had a picture of that day when the prisoners were standing on the death strip smiling. We did not get to see the whole museum, which was disappointing. Highlights we did see were a whipping rack, an authentic prisoner uniform and a wheel barrel used for moving goods and human bodies.
Next, we were shown the barracks as they evolved over the years to accommodate so many people. They were built to house 210 men and ended up having over 1,000 in each. The original sinks were the only thing original about the reconstructed barracks. They have laid what looks to be foundations for the placement of where the other 32 barracks stood.
There were two crematorium. The first had only two furnaces and then the second crematorium was part of the building that held the gas chamber complex (completed in 1943, but claimed to never be used). This part of the memorial was the largest cemetery of unknown people in Germany with thousands of peoples ashes spread around it. Of all the places we saw, this was the most moving. It is sad to think about and see what was being done in these camps. The whole day was cold and cloudy which was very fitting. There are now 4 memorials set up on the site (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Russian). Compared to my experience at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, the photographs and descriptions were far less graphic and disturbing. However, standing where people were shot, tortured, beaten and humiliated made me very uneasy. It is sick what was done here.
After getting back to the train station, Mike and I walked past a church and park then ate burgers for dinner at a burger restaurant. From there we headed back to the hotel to plan out our last two days. The weather is calling for rain the next three days, which is not going to be fun.
Day 9 - Neuschwanstein Castle
We walked up to the Hohenschwangau castle for our tour and it was not raining. This castle was lived in and really neat to see. All of the rooms had painting directly on the walls. The first thing we saw when we entered was an oversize pool table with ivory balls. King Ludwig’s favorite animal was the swan so there were swans everywhere. After the first castle the rain stopped, but it was still cloudy and foggy. We started our hour walk to Neuschwanstein Castle. The hill was steep, but had two waterfalls to see. Neuschwanstein is the most photographed building in Germany and Mike took his share of photos. King Ludwig II designed his dream castle in 1869, but it was never completed. Instead of an architect he hired a theatrical set designer to create his vision. Highlights of the tour included an artificial grotto and his bedroom with all kinds of word carving. King Ludwig had a weird love for the works of Robert Wagner, most of the rooms have scenes from his works. The Castle was really cool to see inside and out. It would have been better if the weather was not so bad. I would have like to see more of the Alps.
We walk up to Mary’s bridge, which crosses a waterfall/river, to look back at Neuschwanstein Castle and the plains beyond. It was cloudy and sprinkling a little, but we got some good pictures. Then we made our way down the mountain to eat dinner before driving back to Munich.
Last Day In Germany - Munich
The morning started off rainy and was calling for showers most of the day so we decided to do a bus tour of the city. We passed the English Garden which is one of the world's largest urban parks. We did not get to see the guys surfing the river, but we did see two of them in wetsuits with their boards. We saw the BMW factory/museum as well as the Olympic stadium of 1970 something. We saw Marienplatz again and learned about a bunch of other sites.
We saw the New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) again with its famous 43-bell, 28 foot Glockenspiel. The figures in the clock move 3 times a day. At 5pm and we were able to see the end of the show.
Then we were off to see three churches. First we went to St. Peter's Church (Alter Peterskirche). It was very nice inside. The church was rebuilt in the late 1300's, but, it is still the oldest parish church in Munich. The church was decorated with gold on white walls. There was a box of bones and a skeleton. The creepy gem-covered skeleton was St. Munditia. There was a painting on the ceiling which showed St. Peter being crucified upside-down.
Next, we saw the Frauenkirche, the Cathedral of Our Blessed Lady, the city's largest church; it holds up to 20,000 people. It was very boring inside, I was unimpressed. The towers of the cathedral survived heavy bombings in WW2 when the rest of the church was leveled. However, scaffolding covered one of the towers completely while we were there so you could not see how it should look.
Then we went to St. Michael's Church (Michaelskirche), which was a really big church. The alter portrait has a gleaming bronze sculpture of Archangel Michael fighting a demon. The church's vaulted roof is the second largest in the world after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The main attraction is the crypt which holds King Ludwig II. Since it was Saturday we missed seeing the crypt because it closed at 2:30pm.
After seeing the two other churches we decided to climb up 306 steps to the top of St. Peter's bell tower, aka Alter Peter. Beside the really narrow stair case and over crowdedness the sun was out and we had a good view of Munich even a slight glimpse of the Alps. We headed back to the hotel then out to dinner at another brew house. This one was called Paulmer Brauhaus where we ate more pork and tried their beer. Then it was back to the hotel to pack up so we are ready to leave early in the morning for the airport. It has been a great trip. Not sure I will ever make it back to Germany.
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