Berlin

We have only been to Berlin twice-once in 2002 and again in 2006, so the photos that follow are culled from those two visits.

Berlin wasn't a city on our wish-list for a vacation. The lure to get us there was a Wagner Festival being held at the Staatsoper on Unter den Linden, the street that the Brandenburg Gate is on.

 We could see 4 Wagner operas (of the 10 being given as a cycle of his most popular works) during the week with an orchestra led by Daniel Barenboim, who was also the Music Director of the Chicago Symphony at that time. The casts for the opera were top drawer singers, worth getting on a plane for. We were joined on this adventure by Arthur and Lisa, two great friends from New York.

Using Tripadvisor, which is always my first point of reference for hotels, I found a Hilton located in Gendarmenmarkt, formerly in East Berlin and only 10 minutes walk to the Opera House.

The Festival was happening at the end of March which isn't the best time for weather, alas.

We flew from Chicago to Frankfurt as there are no direct flights and then caught a regional airline to Tegel airport in Berlin. A taxi to the hotel on a grey Sunday morning, past rows of dull apartment buildings wasn't the most welcome introduction. Jet lag of course doesn't help- gloomy skies make you want to sleep, sunshine helps keep you awake.

Within minutes of checking into our hotel I looked out of the window onto Gendarmenmarkt and saw snow gently falling....doh! A sigh but luckily it didn't last long and after a beer in the restaurant and a good lunch (yes-Weinerschnitzel !) my mood was lifting.

The view from our window

This is one of two identical churches that bookend the Gendarmenmarkt Square

In the distance is the Soviet era TV tower

A walk around the square in warm clothing showed us restaurants and shops, which because of the weather and the fact that it was Sunday, weren't busy. It added to my subdued mood.

Back in the hotel, after dinner, Arthur came up with the idea of booking a limo and guide for the following morning so we could get an introduction to the city. The concierge picked up the phone and arranged it and next morning we had our driver in an S Class Mercedes. He spoke very good English, which helped as our German at that time was in an infant stage.

I ran the camcorder more than the camera, which was my modus operandi back then and the video was analog so can't appear here, in the digital age.

First stop

The 1936 Olympic Stadium. The interior was closed, alas, so we had to make do with an exterior view.

Here I am with Arthur and Lisa, with the car and driver in the background.

During our two hour tour we stopped by the Staatsoper

The theater is next to the wide-open Humboldt Square. Here under a glass ceiling is a Jewish Library where the Nazi Party (NSDAP) removed all the books and burned them. The shelves lie empty.

None of us needed any reminders of the dark past of this city before, during and after the Second World War. The Berlin wall had already being brought down 13 years before we arrived and the city was in a rebuilding phase with construction cranes everywhere.

Even though it was the end of March there were a great many tourist buses and accents from the world over. The brief tour helped my mood considerably as I saw the beauty of the city now. It wasn't snowing and it drizzled lightly off and on during the day. Better weather must surely be ahead!

Four of our nights were spoken for: four nights of unforgettable Wagner Opera in a small theater which olds about 1250 people so you are never far from the stage and with an orchestra numbering up to 120 players the music is loud and that just added to the immersion and excitement. During the 1 hour intermissions (twice as long as we are used to in the USA) there was ample time to enjoy drinks and snacks (at street prices-not the inflated "airport" pricing we see in USA opera), go to the bathroom or in my case, step outside for a cigarette and a beer from a nearby food truck.
So the lure-the Wagner Opera-was well worth the trip.

When we have time we like to get out of whatever big city we are staying in and explore further afield. This means renting a car and I did so at a nearby Hertz office. I rented a Mercedes E Class and had to get help when I picked it up in the Hertz garage, opposite the Tiergarten (large park featuring the Berlin zoo) as the instruction manual for the Navigation System was in German. I can order a beer and a schnitzel in German, no problem, but an instruction manual was beyond me.

On a day with no opera in the evening I suggested we go for a drive. "Where to?" said Arthur and Lisa. "A mystery drive" said I. Arthur and Lisa were big Wagner fans, like us, and my secret plan was to drive to Bayreuth to visit Wagner's Theater and his home and to have dinner too.

We set off. Bayreuth was 250 miles away! A crazy plan for sure but it would be an amazing surprise for my passengers. Getting out of Berlin can take a while as it is a big sprawling city, not laid out in straight blocks as we find in America but once we reached the autobahn we could speed up and enjoy the long drive. At one point, going down a long hill I looked at the speedometer and saw that we were doing 140 mph. I glanced in the rearview mirror to see if Arthur and Lisa were looking nervous but they were both asleep! That's a testament to the great smooth roads and the power of a Mercedes engine and suspension.

With one stop for a snack of bratwurst in a roll (like a large savory hotdog) and a hold-up when we came upon 10 miles of single lane roadworks we came to the signs for Bayreuth in under 3 hours and the surprise was now apparent to Arthur and Lisa. They were ecstatic with our choice of destination and soon we were on the Green Hill, looking at Wagner's magnificent theater, the Festspielhaus.

......and standing next to his bust in one of the many gardens there

As you can see we were dressed for cool weather.
From the theater we drove to the center of Bayreuth to Richard Wagner Strasse to visit his home which he lived in from 1872 until his death in Venice, February 13, 1883 at age 69, from a heart attack. This is the rear of his house which is now a museum. We had last visited it in 1999 when we attended our first Bayreuth Festival.

Wagner's former home-called Wahnfried

We were only in Bayreuth for three hours and had dinner at Weihenstephan on Bahnhof Strasse (see my Tripadvisor review) and by now, in late March, it was getting dark so I faced a 250 mile drive back to Berlin.

It was a tough drive in the dark, at high speed, especially the barrow section with the roadworks (2 lanes wide in this direction where I was very close to the trucks I was overtaking). But we arrived safe and sound in Berlin by 11 pm and were soon sound asleep after a nightcap in the hotel lounge where there was a free bar- beers and spirits for the taking! Also there was a superb espresso machine and so enamored of it were we that as soon as we got home to Chicago we ordered one (a less expensive, less industrial one) which has kept us jacked-up on a caffeine high ever since!

Next up-another excursion. Sans Souci Palace gets a visit