Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Heritage, Heartache and Holiday: A Balancing Act in Eastern Europe

“I said what I meant, and I meant what I said”…although it’s now months later, here is the promised return of my trip report!

We left Vilnius on Baltic Air and connected in Copenhagen (great airport!) on Scandinavian Air. Tip: don’t drain all your local currency before boarding an intra-European flight because some of these airlines do not serve anything free! We scraped together a few litas and found a few stray Euros left over from DH’s business travel to buy water on the two flights. (We just go to a cash machine when we arrive in a foreign country, instead of exchanging money ahead of time.)

I felt a bit apprehensive arriving in Berlin, because I had so enjoyed staying in these small, old town centers and just walking out the door for all the day’s adventures. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the bustle of a big city and the chore of navigating around. Indeed, the culture shock was greater coming from Vilnius than if we had traveled directly to Berlin from home.

Our hotel choice was, intentionally, quite different than our previous stops. We picked the Grand Hyatt in hyper-modern Potsdamer Platz, and to my great surprise, we ended up love, love, loving our stay there. The staff at the hotel was incredibly welcoming and accommodating without being the least bit obsequious. The room layout with the bathroom and closet being almost like a separate room was great. The rooftop pool and spa area was fabulous (with a full windowed view of the city, although the skyline isn’t that beautiful; now if this had been overlooking Krakow….) The breakfast buffet was incredible – outstanding quality smoked fish, cheeses, unusual fresh pressed fruit juices, and the hot chocolate came with steamed milk and three shot glasses with milk, dark and white chocolate chips.

Okay, enough about the hotel!

There is so much to see and do in Berlin, but it should come as no surprise to my faithful readers to learn that the bulk of our tourism centered on historical sites and museums. Cultural Berlin will have to wait for us for another time. (We did make a brief stop at the Pergamon, and had to wait on line for half an hour just to enter, as there was only one attendant working the cash register – and this was on a Saturday. Huh??)

Our main stops were the Jewish Museum, Checkpoint Charlie, the Story of Berlin, the Topographie of Terrors, the Reichstag Dome, KaDeWe and some street fairs (one being a regular Saturday morning flea market, where I did find a few wonderful treasures). We wandered around some neighborhoods, with our favorite being Prenzlauer Berg, which had a very East Village feel on one side, and a West Village feel on the other (referring to Greenwich Village in New York City).

Architecturally, Berlin does not offer the charm of many other European cities, and some of its more famous structural features that survived the war were, in fact, a bit of a turnoff for me. Standing at the Brandenburg Gate, I could only picture militaristic might on parade along the broad boulevard. Similarly, the Gendarmarket, which the guidebooks all cited as such a beautiful square to me felt bombastic (if buildings can be described that way).

We saw evidence of the continuing revitalization of East Berlin by the myriad of construction cranes littering that side of the city when we stood atop the Reichstag.

My favorite foods were bretzels (soft pretzels) and Berliner Weisse, a beer flavored with raspberry syrup or a green one (I think sweet woodruff). DH was appalled to see beer being drunk with a straw and by its sweet taste! We visited two beer gardens, which were self-serve. Question: does anyone know if beer gardens have changed, or are they just different in Berlin than in Munich, where my husband recalls the strapping waitresses hoisting several tankards at a time? We were also shocked that the beer garden in the Tiergarten didn’t serve wurst, so of course, we had to stop at another one as well! Going to these beer gardens were like eating at a catered picnic, and we thought that they were a very relaxing way to have a meal in a big city.

Bicycle is a popular mode of transport (but where were the helmets?) and taxis seem to be just for tourists. When we left KaDeWe in a downpour, a line of taxis was waiting, despite the crowds standing in the store foyer. If this had been New York, getting a taxi in that weather – fuggedaboutit!

As far as the museums, each offered something of interest, although the standout was the Jewish Museum. Entering this, you see a sign that said “Two millennia of Judaism in Germany,” and unfortunately, my first thought was, “Which Hitler tried to wipe out in one decade.”

The museum takes you through these two thousand years with very inventive displays, all enhanced by the innovative architecture of the building. The hall that focused on the rise of anti-Semitism in the 1800s, when persecution of Jews shifted from a religious to a racial focus, showed the fertile ground Hitler had to sow his rise to power.
After moving through the timeline of historical exhibits, one can visit a series of very modern, experiential areas that focus on the emotional impact of the Holocaust and the resulting diaspora of Jews to other lands. These were very unusual and creative ways to involve the museum-goer and were very powerful experiences. Finally, I recommend spending time with the headphones at the end to listen to the accounts of Jewish people who have lived in Germany since WWII.

Checkpoint Charlie Museum had an amazing display of the ways people escaped from East to West Berlin. The Story of Berlin was a multimedia tour through the city’s history, although it provided a bit too much of a “can’t see the forest for the trees” amount of information, and I had to ask my husband to periodically give me a historical overview to understand the details I was seeing. To me, the most amazing artifacts were film clips, one which showed glimpses of what Berlin looked like before its destruction in the war, and the other of the woman clearing out the rubble stone by stone.

I think the Topographie of Terrors, site of the SS and Gestapo headquarters, is not open now as it was when were there. Again, the exhibit provided a little TMI (too much information) in the headphones (necessary as the exhibits were only in German), but what was particularly interesting to me was the history of the site since the war, as the city struggled with what to do with the site.. It was only in the 1970s that public attention was paid to its historical significance; prior to that, it was looked at as a site for development. Controversy apparently continues on the best way to turn this into a museum.

For the Reichstag, we made reservations for lunch so we could avoid the line, and enjoyed this experience. The dome is amazing, and it’s worth taking the time to read the circular display detailing the Reichstag’s history.

Next installment will wrap up Berlin and move on to Hamburg!