Second, and final, full day in the German capital.
We start the day with no real plans, other than having a boat trip booked. As we get ready to head out exploring, AfD (Alternative for Deutshland) are being discussed on the telly. They are an extreme right wing populist party and polls indicate they could potentially win the forthcoming elections. If that happens it would be the first time Germany has elected a far right government since the end of the Second World War – in which their last far right government wreaked havoc and evil upon the world.
We decide to take a leisurely stroll into the centre of the city this morning. The area is very modern, lots of glass and steel. A complete contrast to the areas we visited yesterday.
The first landmark we happen upon is a huge memorial to the Jews who lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis. It consists of two thousand seven hundred huge concrete blocks laid out in a grid. The tops of the blocks look reasonably flat, but as you walk into the grid you notice that the ground falls away and rises again, so although the blocks look the same hight from the edge, some of the blocks are just 3 feet high, whilst others are 12 feet high.
As a work of art it’s quite interesting but it’s not immediately obvious what it represents. Apparently it symbolises an ordered system that has lost touch with reality.
It is reasonably new, only completed in 2004 after two years of construction. So clearly the memory of the atrocities of the war are still there, which makes it all the more incredible that the AfD are on the verge of power.
The memory of the war has a curious impact on the German psyche. For instance, FC St Pauli in Hamburg have had a huge left wing fan base for many years. Many people know the team throughout the world because of their anti-fascist progressive fan base, rather than how good the team are at kicking a football around for ninety minutes. However, German collective guilt comes into play. Whilst progressives around the world are supportive of the plight of Palestinians, many in the St Pauli fan club see that as antisemitism. They feel obliged to support the Jewish state – even though what Israel is doing in Palestine is not too dissimilar to the behaviour the Germans feel guilty about. This has led to many international St Pauli fan clubs cutting ties.
I don’t believe Israel is doing what they are doing because they are jews, they are doing it because of the far right elements in their government. Personally I think suggesting that all Jews support the actions of Israel in Palestine is actually antisemitic. Not all Jews support the current wave of ethnic cleansing.
I generally try to keep politics out of these travel blogs, but I think as we are in Berlin, it would be remiss to ignore the rise of the AfD, especially as we today visited the Holocaust memorial. I don’t for one minute pretend to have some insight into the mind of the German people, but it is fair to say, it is more complicated than probably any other European country. Throw in the Berlin wall and people who grew up in a Soviet state living alongside people who grew up in a capitalist state – and it all gets very complicated. Again, to quote Johnny Rotten, “I gotta go over the Berlin Wall, I don’t understand this bit at all.”
A short walk from the Holocaust memorial sits the Brandenburg Gate, now fully open after spending many years sat in the no man’s land between the Berlin walls. Completed in 1791, it marks the start of the road from Berlin to Brandenburg. A huge plinth sits atop six large pillars and has a Romanesque look to it. On top of the plinth sits a bronze sculpture of a bloke in a chariot pulled by four horses.
Up until 1961 it was a gateway between East and West Berlin and people could travel freely through it. This all stopped when the wall went up.
Throughout its history it has been a potent symbol of Germany and has been used as the backdrop for many big events.
We stop to buy a fridge magnet in the shop at its base then have a coffee in a famous American tax dodging chain. There are lots of tourists about, obviously. But as I’m sat watching the world go by I can’t help thinking about how few tourists we encountered yesterday on our alternative walking tour. Obviously I’m in no position to moan about tourists, after all, I am one, but there’s something to be said for hanging out with locals.
Having seen the gate in pictures and movies pretty much all my life, it’s not really surprising in any way. It’s bordering on underwhelming, probably because of its familiarity.
We walk towards the Riechstag, which is only around the corner, and stop for food. We have dumplings in mushroom sauce. It’s odd how you can have dumplings all over the world and they will be completely different. I love the fluffy balls we drop into stews in the UK. But in China they are filled parcels of filo pastry and in Poland they are like ravioli but with the pastry made of potatoes instead of pasta. We order them not really knowing what to expect. It turns out German dumplings are like a vegetarian black pudding, sliced then plonked on top of a thick mushroom ragu. And they are delicious. The meal is only spoiled by me finally getting stung by one of the many wasps we have encountered around the city.
After lunch, we stroll past the reconstructed Riechstag building. The seat of the German parliament, it burned down just as old Adolf was engineering his way to power in 1933. Some say it was an early example of a ‘false flag’ operation, with the Nazis doing it themselves but blaming it on the commies to justify a crackdown. But nobody really knows who started the fire. The facade of the building has been restored and a modern new building has been constructed inside, including a large glass done giving views over the city.
The Riechstag sits on the banks of the River Spree, and this is where we are booked for our boat trip. There are shed loads of big boats pootling up and down the river carrying tourists. Most of them huge, carrying two or three hundred people. We have opted for a much smaller affair that looks a bit like the African Queen. It has vases of fresh flowers sat on top of crisp linen tablecloths and waiter service. The boat is apropriately named ‘The Hemmingway’.
We are soon drinking cocktails (gin and tonic for Megan and Moscow Mule for me) as we steam down the river like Humphery Bogart and Audrey Hepburn. I say ‘steam’, but we are proudly advised that the boat actually has an electric motor.
We pass museums, cathedrals and historic train stations. We make a mental note of riverside pubs to stop in when the trip is over. A very refined pre-recorded voice tells us the history of some of the places we pass.
We had been in a melancholy mood sat drinking coffee looking at the Brandenburg Gate. Perhaps it was an anticlimax after our day of counterculture. A reminder that the ‘straight’ world is a bit sterile, commodified and, well, straight. But as we drift up and down the river, sipping cocktails with our pinkies in the air, we see that Berlin really does have a lot of interesting things to offer. But we are in no rush to see them, because we have already decided to come back soon.
When we rejoin the world of ‘landlubbers’, we head straight for the nearest riverside pub and I go for a Long Island Ice Tea, whilst Megan sticks with a G+T.
We sit for a while watching boats cruise up and down the river, and trains going over our heads. For the restaurant we are in is next to a railway station and bridge. Friedrichstrabe station to be precise. Despite being in East Berlin, because it is a major junction for various train lines, it was one of the few stations in East Berlin where West Berliners could get off to cross the border. It was known by some as the Station of Tears, because of the many emotional goodbyes in the station.
It’s also handy for us because we can go from here straight back to Urban Spree and the bombed out railway station. When we get back to the hood we go back to the Asian Street Food restaurant to have another perfectly sized portion of Buddah Rolls, which is exactly what we needed at that moment. At this point it is worth mentioning, despite Berlin being a twenty-first century city at the heart of the EU, the biggest capitalist bloc on the planet, not everywhere takes cards. It is important to make sure you have some folding Euros in ya back pocket.
Buddah rolls necked, we head back down into the old railway station. – RAW Friedrichshain. It’s now a collection of a dozen or so bars, art spaces and skateboard parks. It’s strewn with graffiti everywhere. Whilst it has a very DIY, autonomous ‘grassroots’ vibe to it, it hasn’t escaped gentrification and there are a few commercial ventures that are trying to be ‘down with the kids’.
We start off in what claims to be the smallest nightclub in the world. It’s actually inside a former telephone box. We pick our song then pogo about to Rage Against the Machine for five minutes, before staggering out to meet two young Americans who congratulate us on rocking the house.
Next stop is Casseope, a large courtyard with graffitied walls and a bar. They are playing cool music and bizarrely there’s a 100 ft climbing wall with people in various stages of ascent and descent. Beer and climbing walls, what could possibly go wrong? It reminds me of a pub we went to in Guildford where they had axe throwing in the beer garden. I try to compare and decide which is the most dangerous, but then realise the climbing wall is actually separated from the bar, and people are not actually climbing whilst pissed. Guilford retains its most dangerous pub honour.
Actually, as an aside, our tour guide yesterday had told us about a pub where all the seats are toilets, so you don’t need to interrupt your drinking by going to the bog.
As we sit in the court yard I can hear shouting and banging. It sounds like a fight, but nobody sounds bothered. It’s bothering me though so I go to check it out. I discover that not only does the bar have a climbing wall, it also has a skate park.
As they call last orders we head back to the U-bahn, which after only forty-eight hours we are now surfing like locals.
Between the station and our hotel we stop off at sports bar for our first cider of the trip. Ironically, these places are usually the biggest tourist traps in any city. But we sit watching Bosussia Dortmund beat HEBC Hamburg five-nil, sat amongst the most ‘local’ crowd of drinkers of any pub we have been in so far. *they take cards, but the barman doesn’t speak any English – or at least he didn’t feel like speaking any tonight when serving tourists.
Then we head home, contemplating our last day. We don’t fly till 10pm so have a full day to explore, but it never feels like that, it always feels like you’re killing time. We shall see.