Trip Report: NW Germany, Berlin and Paris, June-July 2017
Sep 12th, 2017, 11:51 AM
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Trip Report: NW Germany, Berlin and Paris, June-July 2017
Trip Report: Northwest Germany, Berlin and Paris—2017
This is a continuation of our 6 week trip to Europe. Its overall costs are given at the beginning of the Danish trip report.
For this portion of the trip we used the Michelin Green Guide for Germany, Fodor’s Germany and the Michelin map of Northwest Germany.
At the end of our Danish travels we took the train from Kolding to Schleswig, with a transfer in Flensburg. The train ticket includes the bus ride from the train station to the center of town. The tourist office is about two blocks from the central bus station. We inquired about rooms and she suggested a hotel by the waterfront, which we accepted. (Hotel/Restaurant Strandhalle $284 for two nights). It was well located although a little expensive considering the room —but it had a nice view—and it had an excellent buffet breakfast.
Schleswig is a nice town, with an older section near and behind the cathedral, a former castle which is now a large museum—so large that we never saw the inside of the main building. The outer building—former stables and barracks?—contained a special exhibit of Emil Nolde, which then evolved into an exhibit of Ernst Barlach sculptures, and after spending more than two hours there, we decided to skip the main building which apparently contains one of the largest Jugenstil art collection in Germany; I regret not seeing it. Its official name is Schloss Gottorf Landesmuseen.
We found in Schleswig several services that were less visible in Denmark: the Post Office, a laundry service, a store where I could buy a German chip for the cell phone I purchased in Denmark (as of July 1, that phone could be used in France without roaming charges), and the public library where we could, for a nominal fee, use a computer to check our e-mail.
The most interesting neighborhood for us was the Holm neighborhood and the nearby Sank Johannes Kloster, now a retirement complex. It also had an interesting fish restaurant, Zur Schleimöwe (http://www.schleimoewe.de/Site/Das%20Restaurant.html ), where we had a very good meal for 30.50€ (here’s what we had: 1 Krabben Salat, 2 Matjesfilet, a Holmer Fischplatte, 1 Schleswige Teller, water and beer).
Our second meal was in a brew pub by the waterfront. Service was so-so mainly because our waitress’ English was almost non-existent and we were passed over to another waitress who spoke English but did not become our service person for the rest of the meal. I mention this because less so in Denmark but definitely in Germany, English, at least in smaller towns and less well known cities, English is not necessarily common. The only fluent English speakers were the young woman at the tourist office and the young man behind the counter at the hotel. My German is passable as tourist German (getting tickets, rooms, food, and even negotiating insurance waivers at the car rental) but menus can be a problem. For example, what is Labskaus? The server at Zur Schleimöwe simply refused to serve it to me. Having looked it up on the internet, I realize that I eventually had a bad version of it. It tasted like a ground meat which was briefly cooked by pouring boiling water over it. It reminded me of a never-to-be-found-in-a-restaurant Dordogne dish that a friend, born and bred in the Dordogne, prepared in front of us, and which consisted of ground horse meat mixed with boiling water until it turned grey.
It was pouring rain when we took a taxi to pick up the car rented through Autoeurope with Avis as the rental agency. There was no-one in the office when we arrived, but a note to go across the way to the Hyundai or Kia showroom and ask for help. The man spoke no English and clearly was unfamiliar with the process. I had to communicate that I understood that there would be a hold on my credit card but that I was not to pay for the CDW. I do not know if it was intentional or by error, but when we got back to the States we had two $246 charges dated from that pickup day. Autoeurope agreed that it should not exist, and within 5 weeks the charge was reversed—originally Avis said that they had no record of my having picked up the car. Since I had paid that charge in euros, I was given credit in euros, and due to the decreasing value of the dollar, got an extra $20 in the process. The man got the car, parked it, and disappeared after giving me the keys. I had to go back in the dealership and ask someone else to set the language of the navigation system to English. We drove off in a downpour.
We intended to drive along the coast, to experience some of the Baltic landscape in that area. But the roads do not follow the seashore, we saw no signage for coastal access and the navigation was complicated by the many <i>umleitungen</i> that we encountered. We drove on past Kiel, and rather trying to find the coast, we headed for the lake area of that region. We stopped in Plön, walked up to the castle which is closed to the public with guards at the gate, but the view from the terrace over one of the several lakes that encircle the town was very nice. In town we then discovered <i>mettwurst<.i> served on an open sandwich. Basically it is pork tartar, milder than beef tartar. My feelings about this is that the German health authorities have no intention of having its population catch trichinosis. If it is sold in a town bakery, which is where we found <i>mettwurst<./i> and beef tartar sandwiches, it is safe to eat.
Eutin, the birthplace of Carl Maria von Weber, has a pleasant central square, a castle with an extensive garden including an enormous <i>potager</i>. We wandered around the old town, the garden of the castle, had a drink on the main square and drove off to Lübeck. Between Plön and Eutin, I would choose the latter.
Our Airbnb apartment in Lübeck was located a ten minute bus ride from the old city in a Jugendstil neighborhood with wonderful surviving mansions. Ours was one of them, but we did not experience the space in all its glory; the apartment is a basement apartment carved out of storage, what must have been a coal cellar and whatever other uses one has for a cellar. The room was large, as was the bathroom, but contained just the bare essentials, which was fine with us. I could not get the lights and the fan to work on the stove, but we had not planned to do any cooking anyway. It is advertised a a “Gemütliches Appartment in Jugendstilvilla”, hosted by Frank on Airbnb ($125 for two nights). We arrived too late to go to the supermarket—there is a fairly large organic supermarket nearby—and walked to the next large street where we found a local restaurant, somewhat in the style of a neighborhood Parisian bistro: drinks counter and tables for customers who plan to spend some time wither drinking or eating.
The next day we took the bus to the center of town and spent the day wandering around. The signature towers contain a museum of the city of Lübeck of some interest. Niedergger is an obligatory stop and can’t be avoided, it is right by the Rathaus. The Heiligen Geist Hospital is worth a visit, and because we could not get in the recommended restaurant with traditional food without a reservation, we ate in the cellar of the hospital that has been converted into the Kartoffelkeller Restaurant, also serving traditional food. It has all the appearances and atmosphere of a Ratskeller.
Here are the pictures for this portion of the trip:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...371708544/show
The day we left Lübeck was market day in front of the local organic supermarket. We picked up lunch items and took off for Bremen via Lüneburg. Lüneburg was a salt town in the late Middle Ages, furnishing the Hanseatic towns with the salt needed for the preservation of their fish. It has an extensive historic center with distinctive architecture. The Rathaus can be visited on tour. It rained on and off throughout the day, but we found a dry bench under a tree to have our lunch. We were very taken by the town, it should not be missed.
We were glad we had the navigation guide in the car. About 15 kilometeres outside Bremen we hit a monstrous traffic jam on the Autobahn and left for the side streets, figuring that the system would recalculate the itinerary, which it did. When we left Bremen, the same stretch of highway was jammed heading into town; perhaps that is normal—we never found out why the traffic jam.
Bremen is worth a day’s visit, with a two night stay. We spent two days there, which allowed us to do a laundry and also discover that there is little of tourist interest besides the center of the town. We visited the city’s History Museum—a long tram ride from the center. We did not feel that it was well organized and gave little sense of Bremen as a Hanseatic city. In the basement are vitrines of its collection not regularly exhibited, like an organized antique store, or a curiosity shop. There is also a post-W.W.II rescue boat that can be visited, said to be the first of the current class of sea rescue boats used in the North Sea. We took a tour of the city, which gave us an explanation of what we had seen the day before. The guide said that taking a boat tour of Bremenhaven, about 60 kilometers from Bremen, is worth a visit if one is interested in seeing a modern commercial port facility. We thought that the tour included the Rathaus. It does not, and the Rathaus is about the only building that survived the W.W. II bombing intact.
We stayed in the “Latin quarter”, or so our host identified it. It was the smallest efficiency apartment we rented on this trip, although functional as we were able to cook a meal. The bathroom was small, looked like it had been built in the 60s, but the shower was fine. We paid $145 for three nights. On Airbnb it is identified as a “charmante 1-Zimmer Wohnung, Altbau Viertel”, a short tram ride to the center of town. The neighborhood has many small coffee shops and restaurants, several supermarkets within walking distance, a laundromat, and is very mixed—some streets looked well kept with individual housing, others looked more run down. Our building was closer to the latter category. I would not hesitate to stay there again, but “charmante” it is not. We liked the neighborhood, and saw enough small local restaurants that we regretted having purchased food for a home meal. We had a nice meal in a local Korean restaurant named Kimchi.
Here are the pictures from our stay in Bremen: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...464152943/show
We used out navigation system to get out of Bremen and to the Lüneburger Heide. Unfortunately the system did not take into account various detours, and we lost considerable time getting to the location we had specified. We were there later than anticipated, and because of our more limited walking ability, could not hike to the point of interest indicated on the map. As an alternative we drove off to Suhlendorf, which according to the Michelin Guide has a windmill museum. Once we reached the village, it took us half an hour to get to the museum because the center of town was closed and required a detour which made the way to the museum absolutely confusing. We finally found someone who knew how to get there. It’s not a big museum, and the attendant was obviously impressed that we came all the way from California. The museum contains a dozen or more models of different windmills, a full size windmill for which we were given the key (there was no one else around), and other outlying building containing exhibits of other local trades. If passing by it’s worth a stop if only to stretch the legs.
Here are the pictures of Lower Saxony (Lüneburg and Suhlendorf): https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...371820524/show
We arrived in Magdeburg too late for the tourist office. We parked in the garage attached to the large shopping mall by the train station (parking was very cheap, maybe one euro for a couple of hours). We asked in the Art hotel located in the Hundertwasser building if a room was available, but not surprising, there was none. The clerk directed us to another hotel which was also full, and that clerk to a third hotel where we got the last suite available. So one night in Magdeburg cost us $220, with an excellent buffet breakfast.
Magdeburg was pretty much flattened out during W.W.II. There is a marker for the two Baroque buildings on the main avenue that survived the bombing, otherwise it is the Hundertwasser building and the cathedral which contains an impressive W.W.I memorial by Barlach that are the main attractions of the city. It can be done in one day, both sites are a short walk from the train station.
We had planned to stay two nights, but the price of the hotel and the limited attractions pushed us onward. We planned to go to Stendal, a sort of literary pilgrimage since it is the source of Henri Beyle’s <i>nom de plume</i>. According to the guidebook, Tangermünde was worth a stop. It turns out to be a very attractive town overlooking the Elbe, and a tour (only in German) would be available in the late afternoon, which would make our arrival in Stendal again a little late for the tourist office. Tangermünde has a tourist office, and we asked about rooms. It turns out that there are rooms available above the tourist office, 65€ for an en suite room including a breakfast which definitely did not match the Magdeburg or Schleswig breakfast, with the room facing the town’s central square and old Rathaus. There is a fancy hotel in Tangermünde with swimming pool and steam baths, housed in the former castle. The town is surrounded by extensive walls and has many restored old houses. It is a jewel.
The pictures of Magdeburg and Tangermünde have been incorporated in a previously created Saxony-Anhalt set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...933295930/show
The drive to Berlin was hellish. We left Tangermünde at 8:30 to drive 140 km. to Tegel airport, with the car to be returned by noon; we did not get there until 12:15. First of all, the navigation system refused to recognize Tegel and the map of Northwest Germany does not go as far east as Berlin (Tangermünde was already off the map). The weather was very rainy on and off, as it had been throughout our German travels, and we hit monstrous traffic jams on the Autobahn. The navigation system—set for Berlin, I figured that Tegel would appear on signs once on the ring around the city—suggested a detour that took us to a dead end; it was some type of playland with little shops and some farm animals in corrals. We turned around and headed back toward the Autobahn, and we were offered another detour, which was no better than the Autobahn because it “by-passed” the Autobahn construction site by going under it to rejoin it half a mile farther. We eventually leave the traffic jam behind us and the rain gets worse, making the reading of the signs much more difficult. It was a real downpour that Berlin had not experienced in years. Near the airport we hit an underpass where the water went halfway up our wheels. 20 minutes later it was completely flooded and my cousin who came to pick us up at the airport had to detour on city streets. We began and ended our trip in a downpour.
Our Berlin stay was a family reunion to celebrate a double birthday. There were relatives from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the U.S., some who participated because they happened to be between events in Europe or happened to be in Berlin and came to the celebration. Altogether, including SO’s, we were 19 at the celebration. And it went on and on, with smaller gatherings before and after. But we did get some time on our own and with our NYC family.
One priority was to visit the Brücke Museum on the western edge of Berlin. It’s a small museum with constantly rotating exhibits as the building is too small for its entire collection. Anyone interested in Expressionism should visit the museum.
For Picasso and Klee, nothing beats the Berggruen collection in a building facing the Charlottenburg Palace.
And of course there are the museums on the center island, of which we visited the Pergamon—the Greek forum itself is closed for renovation, but there are other unforgettable exhibits in the museum.
We visited the Berlinische Galerie-Museum für Moderne Kunst, and found the building more interesting than the collection itself. It is located in the Kreuzberg district that offers a variety of architectural buildings in mainly quiet residential streets.
The time spent with the NYC contingent took into account that it included a 5 year old. That meant meeting at the Science Museum after visiting the Berlinische Galerie. We did not go in, but were told that the annex has a section oriented toward 5 year olds. Nearby is the relatively new park constructed—à la Promenade plantée—on RR switching yards, Park at Gleisdreick and Flaschenhalspark, where the RR tracks have been left in place, with trees growing in the middle of them and in one instance using the metal rails to hold wood chips, thus creating a walking path. The Berlin Zoo was another destination, and the 5 year old found the playground there more interesting than the zoo itself.
Food:
If in the area, I highly recommend Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap at Mehringdamm 32, 10961 Berlin.
Café-Restaurant Pinelli, Ebersstraße 67, 10827 Berlin, is another place for a low cost lunch platter. It is a social restaurant named after Philipe Pinel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pinel
For a cold cut meal, I recommend browsing in the food section of KaDeWe to pick up smoked sausage, ham, fish, various salads, cheese, breads.
Our celebratory meal was in Anabela’s Kitchen, Pestalozzistr. 3, 10625 Berlin, Germany, a Portuguese restaurant. It’s good but a little pricey.
The Berlin set has been created over several visits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...174831107/show
From Berlin we took EasyJet to Paris and spent a few days there with friends.
One day was a very pleasant outing to Chantilly, where, between talking, having lunch at their Restaurant du Hameau and seeing the special exhibit in the basement of the chateau, we never got to see the main part of the castle and its collection. The castle is an easy train ride from Paris.
We also visited the refurbished musée Rodin, and saw a large exhibit in the Palais de Tokyo on three painters—Giacometti, Derain and Balthus—which did not enlighten me as to their friendship, except that it existed. I am not crazy about Balthus, but there were some surprising Derains which I associate mainly with pre W.W.I movements.
The annex to the musée Guimet, the hotel d’Heidelbach, had a small exhibit of “Porcelaine, chefs-d'œuvre de la collection Ise” and the main museum had an exhibit of Japanese prints in its library.
Frank Gehry is not my favorite architect; there is too much me, me ME, in his designs. I liked his chair museum in Weil, and the Disney Center in L.A. from the exterior (never saw the interior), but was not crazy about Bilbao, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton building is just too much. There is the wow factor as one approaches it, but anything above the ground floor (four levels) is essentially a pean to Frank Gehry. The glass structure is not a roof, but an open structure. We happened to be there as a thunderstorm was passing, and walking to see the different views meant getting wet. The exhibition space, partly on the main floor and underground worked well, at least for the exhibit that was there, although I am not sure that the space can change to accommodate other type of exhibits. I don’t think that the space is worth the $32 for two entrance fee. Our Parisian friends boycott it because it has destroyed what had been dedicated green space.
We also took a green space walk in the 17th arrondissement, starting in the north and ending at the entrance of the parc Monceau. Those pictures are in the Paris IV set.
The one public eating place I recommend, aside from the Chateau de Chantilly, is Azabu in the Quartier Latin http://azabu.fr/#/ACCUEIL-01-00/ The food is excellent, prices are not outrageous: $400 for six.
Somewhere in these sets are the pictures from this year: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...7624827228334/
The chateau de Chantilly pictures are at the end of this set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...183666335/show
From Paris we flew home via Toronto.
My apologies for any errors, but I can't preview the document at this time. I'll just have to correct errors as they are discovered.
This is a continuation of our 6 week trip to Europe. Its overall costs are given at the beginning of the Danish trip report.
For this portion of the trip we used the Michelin Green Guide for Germany, Fodor’s Germany and the Michelin map of Northwest Germany.
At the end of our Danish travels we took the train from Kolding to Schleswig, with a transfer in Flensburg. The train ticket includes the bus ride from the train station to the center of town. The tourist office is about two blocks from the central bus station. We inquired about rooms and she suggested a hotel by the waterfront, which we accepted. (Hotel/Restaurant Strandhalle $284 for two nights). It was well located although a little expensive considering the room —but it had a nice view—and it had an excellent buffet breakfast.
Schleswig is a nice town, with an older section near and behind the cathedral, a former castle which is now a large museum—so large that we never saw the inside of the main building. The outer building—former stables and barracks?—contained a special exhibit of Emil Nolde, which then evolved into an exhibit of Ernst Barlach sculptures, and after spending more than two hours there, we decided to skip the main building which apparently contains one of the largest Jugenstil art collection in Germany; I regret not seeing it. Its official name is Schloss Gottorf Landesmuseen.
We found in Schleswig several services that were less visible in Denmark: the Post Office, a laundry service, a store where I could buy a German chip for the cell phone I purchased in Denmark (as of July 1, that phone could be used in France without roaming charges), and the public library where we could, for a nominal fee, use a computer to check our e-mail.
The most interesting neighborhood for us was the Holm neighborhood and the nearby Sank Johannes Kloster, now a retirement complex. It also had an interesting fish restaurant, Zur Schleimöwe (http://www.schleimoewe.de/Site/Das%20Restaurant.html ), where we had a very good meal for 30.50€ (here’s what we had: 1 Krabben Salat, 2 Matjesfilet, a Holmer Fischplatte, 1 Schleswige Teller, water and beer).
Our second meal was in a brew pub by the waterfront. Service was so-so mainly because our waitress’ English was almost non-existent and we were passed over to another waitress who spoke English but did not become our service person for the rest of the meal. I mention this because less so in Denmark but definitely in Germany, English, at least in smaller towns and less well known cities, English is not necessarily common. The only fluent English speakers were the young woman at the tourist office and the young man behind the counter at the hotel. My German is passable as tourist German (getting tickets, rooms, food, and even negotiating insurance waivers at the car rental) but menus can be a problem. For example, what is Labskaus? The server at Zur Schleimöwe simply refused to serve it to me. Having looked it up on the internet, I realize that I eventually had a bad version of it. It tasted like a ground meat which was briefly cooked by pouring boiling water over it. It reminded me of a never-to-be-found-in-a-restaurant Dordogne dish that a friend, born and bred in the Dordogne, prepared in front of us, and which consisted of ground horse meat mixed with boiling water until it turned grey.
It was pouring rain when we took a taxi to pick up the car rented through Autoeurope with Avis as the rental agency. There was no-one in the office when we arrived, but a note to go across the way to the Hyundai or Kia showroom and ask for help. The man spoke no English and clearly was unfamiliar with the process. I had to communicate that I understood that there would be a hold on my credit card but that I was not to pay for the CDW. I do not know if it was intentional or by error, but when we got back to the States we had two $246 charges dated from that pickup day. Autoeurope agreed that it should not exist, and within 5 weeks the charge was reversed—originally Avis said that they had no record of my having picked up the car. Since I had paid that charge in euros, I was given credit in euros, and due to the decreasing value of the dollar, got an extra $20 in the process. The man got the car, parked it, and disappeared after giving me the keys. I had to go back in the dealership and ask someone else to set the language of the navigation system to English. We drove off in a downpour.
We intended to drive along the coast, to experience some of the Baltic landscape in that area. But the roads do not follow the seashore, we saw no signage for coastal access and the navigation was complicated by the many <i>umleitungen</i> that we encountered. We drove on past Kiel, and rather trying to find the coast, we headed for the lake area of that region. We stopped in Plön, walked up to the castle which is closed to the public with guards at the gate, but the view from the terrace over one of the several lakes that encircle the town was very nice. In town we then discovered <i>mettwurst<.i> served on an open sandwich. Basically it is pork tartar, milder than beef tartar. My feelings about this is that the German health authorities have no intention of having its population catch trichinosis. If it is sold in a town bakery, which is where we found <i>mettwurst<./i> and beef tartar sandwiches, it is safe to eat.
Eutin, the birthplace of Carl Maria von Weber, has a pleasant central square, a castle with an extensive garden including an enormous <i>potager</i>. We wandered around the old town, the garden of the castle, had a drink on the main square and drove off to Lübeck. Between Plön and Eutin, I would choose the latter.
Our Airbnb apartment in Lübeck was located a ten minute bus ride from the old city in a Jugendstil neighborhood with wonderful surviving mansions. Ours was one of them, but we did not experience the space in all its glory; the apartment is a basement apartment carved out of storage, what must have been a coal cellar and whatever other uses one has for a cellar. The room was large, as was the bathroom, but contained just the bare essentials, which was fine with us. I could not get the lights and the fan to work on the stove, but we had not planned to do any cooking anyway. It is advertised a a “Gemütliches Appartment in Jugendstilvilla”, hosted by Frank on Airbnb ($125 for two nights). We arrived too late to go to the supermarket—there is a fairly large organic supermarket nearby—and walked to the next large street where we found a local restaurant, somewhat in the style of a neighborhood Parisian bistro: drinks counter and tables for customers who plan to spend some time wither drinking or eating.
The next day we took the bus to the center of town and spent the day wandering around. The signature towers contain a museum of the city of Lübeck of some interest. Niedergger is an obligatory stop and can’t be avoided, it is right by the Rathaus. The Heiligen Geist Hospital is worth a visit, and because we could not get in the recommended restaurant with traditional food without a reservation, we ate in the cellar of the hospital that has been converted into the Kartoffelkeller Restaurant, also serving traditional food. It has all the appearances and atmosphere of a Ratskeller.
Here are the pictures for this portion of the trip:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...371708544/show
The day we left Lübeck was market day in front of the local organic supermarket. We picked up lunch items and took off for Bremen via Lüneburg. Lüneburg was a salt town in the late Middle Ages, furnishing the Hanseatic towns with the salt needed for the preservation of their fish. It has an extensive historic center with distinctive architecture. The Rathaus can be visited on tour. It rained on and off throughout the day, but we found a dry bench under a tree to have our lunch. We were very taken by the town, it should not be missed.
We were glad we had the navigation guide in the car. About 15 kilometeres outside Bremen we hit a monstrous traffic jam on the Autobahn and left for the side streets, figuring that the system would recalculate the itinerary, which it did. When we left Bremen, the same stretch of highway was jammed heading into town; perhaps that is normal—we never found out why the traffic jam.
Bremen is worth a day’s visit, with a two night stay. We spent two days there, which allowed us to do a laundry and also discover that there is little of tourist interest besides the center of the town. We visited the city’s History Museum—a long tram ride from the center. We did not feel that it was well organized and gave little sense of Bremen as a Hanseatic city. In the basement are vitrines of its collection not regularly exhibited, like an organized antique store, or a curiosity shop. There is also a post-W.W.II rescue boat that can be visited, said to be the first of the current class of sea rescue boats used in the North Sea. We took a tour of the city, which gave us an explanation of what we had seen the day before. The guide said that taking a boat tour of Bremenhaven, about 60 kilometers from Bremen, is worth a visit if one is interested in seeing a modern commercial port facility. We thought that the tour included the Rathaus. It does not, and the Rathaus is about the only building that survived the W.W. II bombing intact.
We stayed in the “Latin quarter”, or so our host identified it. It was the smallest efficiency apartment we rented on this trip, although functional as we were able to cook a meal. The bathroom was small, looked like it had been built in the 60s, but the shower was fine. We paid $145 for three nights. On Airbnb it is identified as a “charmante 1-Zimmer Wohnung, Altbau Viertel”, a short tram ride to the center of town. The neighborhood has many small coffee shops and restaurants, several supermarkets within walking distance, a laundromat, and is very mixed—some streets looked well kept with individual housing, others looked more run down. Our building was closer to the latter category. I would not hesitate to stay there again, but “charmante” it is not. We liked the neighborhood, and saw enough small local restaurants that we regretted having purchased food for a home meal. We had a nice meal in a local Korean restaurant named Kimchi.
Here are the pictures from our stay in Bremen: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...464152943/show
We used out navigation system to get out of Bremen and to the Lüneburger Heide. Unfortunately the system did not take into account various detours, and we lost considerable time getting to the location we had specified. We were there later than anticipated, and because of our more limited walking ability, could not hike to the point of interest indicated on the map. As an alternative we drove off to Suhlendorf, which according to the Michelin Guide has a windmill museum. Once we reached the village, it took us half an hour to get to the museum because the center of town was closed and required a detour which made the way to the museum absolutely confusing. We finally found someone who knew how to get there. It’s not a big museum, and the attendant was obviously impressed that we came all the way from California. The museum contains a dozen or more models of different windmills, a full size windmill for which we were given the key (there was no one else around), and other outlying building containing exhibits of other local trades. If passing by it’s worth a stop if only to stretch the legs.
Here are the pictures of Lower Saxony (Lüneburg and Suhlendorf): https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...371820524/show
We arrived in Magdeburg too late for the tourist office. We parked in the garage attached to the large shopping mall by the train station (parking was very cheap, maybe one euro for a couple of hours). We asked in the Art hotel located in the Hundertwasser building if a room was available, but not surprising, there was none. The clerk directed us to another hotel which was also full, and that clerk to a third hotel where we got the last suite available. So one night in Magdeburg cost us $220, with an excellent buffet breakfast.
Magdeburg was pretty much flattened out during W.W.II. There is a marker for the two Baroque buildings on the main avenue that survived the bombing, otherwise it is the Hundertwasser building and the cathedral which contains an impressive W.W.I memorial by Barlach that are the main attractions of the city. It can be done in one day, both sites are a short walk from the train station.
We had planned to stay two nights, but the price of the hotel and the limited attractions pushed us onward. We planned to go to Stendal, a sort of literary pilgrimage since it is the source of Henri Beyle’s <i>nom de plume</i>. According to the guidebook, Tangermünde was worth a stop. It turns out to be a very attractive town overlooking the Elbe, and a tour (only in German) would be available in the late afternoon, which would make our arrival in Stendal again a little late for the tourist office. Tangermünde has a tourist office, and we asked about rooms. It turns out that there are rooms available above the tourist office, 65€ for an en suite room including a breakfast which definitely did not match the Magdeburg or Schleswig breakfast, with the room facing the town’s central square and old Rathaus. There is a fancy hotel in Tangermünde with swimming pool and steam baths, housed in the former castle. The town is surrounded by extensive walls and has many restored old houses. It is a jewel.
The pictures of Magdeburg and Tangermünde have been incorporated in a previously created Saxony-Anhalt set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...933295930/show
The drive to Berlin was hellish. We left Tangermünde at 8:30 to drive 140 km. to Tegel airport, with the car to be returned by noon; we did not get there until 12:15. First of all, the navigation system refused to recognize Tegel and the map of Northwest Germany does not go as far east as Berlin (Tangermünde was already off the map). The weather was very rainy on and off, as it had been throughout our German travels, and we hit monstrous traffic jams on the Autobahn. The navigation system—set for Berlin, I figured that Tegel would appear on signs once on the ring around the city—suggested a detour that took us to a dead end; it was some type of playland with little shops and some farm animals in corrals. We turned around and headed back toward the Autobahn, and we were offered another detour, which was no better than the Autobahn because it “by-passed” the Autobahn construction site by going under it to rejoin it half a mile farther. We eventually leave the traffic jam behind us and the rain gets worse, making the reading of the signs much more difficult. It was a real downpour that Berlin had not experienced in years. Near the airport we hit an underpass where the water went halfway up our wheels. 20 minutes later it was completely flooded and my cousin who came to pick us up at the airport had to detour on city streets. We began and ended our trip in a downpour.
Our Berlin stay was a family reunion to celebrate a double birthday. There were relatives from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the U.S., some who participated because they happened to be between events in Europe or happened to be in Berlin and came to the celebration. Altogether, including SO’s, we were 19 at the celebration. And it went on and on, with smaller gatherings before and after. But we did get some time on our own and with our NYC family.
One priority was to visit the Brücke Museum on the western edge of Berlin. It’s a small museum with constantly rotating exhibits as the building is too small for its entire collection. Anyone interested in Expressionism should visit the museum.
For Picasso and Klee, nothing beats the Berggruen collection in a building facing the Charlottenburg Palace.
And of course there are the museums on the center island, of which we visited the Pergamon—the Greek forum itself is closed for renovation, but there are other unforgettable exhibits in the museum.
We visited the Berlinische Galerie-Museum für Moderne Kunst, and found the building more interesting than the collection itself. It is located in the Kreuzberg district that offers a variety of architectural buildings in mainly quiet residential streets.
The time spent with the NYC contingent took into account that it included a 5 year old. That meant meeting at the Science Museum after visiting the Berlinische Galerie. We did not go in, but were told that the annex has a section oriented toward 5 year olds. Nearby is the relatively new park constructed—à la Promenade plantée—on RR switching yards, Park at Gleisdreick and Flaschenhalspark, where the RR tracks have been left in place, with trees growing in the middle of them and in one instance using the metal rails to hold wood chips, thus creating a walking path. The Berlin Zoo was another destination, and the 5 year old found the playground there more interesting than the zoo itself.
Food:
If in the area, I highly recommend Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap at Mehringdamm 32, 10961 Berlin.
Café-Restaurant Pinelli, Ebersstraße 67, 10827 Berlin, is another place for a low cost lunch platter. It is a social restaurant named after Philipe Pinel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pinel
For a cold cut meal, I recommend browsing in the food section of KaDeWe to pick up smoked sausage, ham, fish, various salads, cheese, breads.
Our celebratory meal was in Anabela’s Kitchen, Pestalozzistr. 3, 10625 Berlin, Germany, a Portuguese restaurant. It’s good but a little pricey.
The Berlin set has been created over several visits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...174831107/show
From Berlin we took EasyJet to Paris and spent a few days there with friends.
One day was a very pleasant outing to Chantilly, where, between talking, having lunch at their Restaurant du Hameau and seeing the special exhibit in the basement of the chateau, we never got to see the main part of the castle and its collection. The castle is an easy train ride from Paris.
We also visited the refurbished musée Rodin, and saw a large exhibit in the Palais de Tokyo on three painters—Giacometti, Derain and Balthus—which did not enlighten me as to their friendship, except that it existed. I am not crazy about Balthus, but there were some surprising Derains which I associate mainly with pre W.W.I movements.
The annex to the musée Guimet, the hotel d’Heidelbach, had a small exhibit of “Porcelaine, chefs-d'œuvre de la collection Ise” and the main museum had an exhibit of Japanese prints in its library.
Frank Gehry is not my favorite architect; there is too much me, me ME, in his designs. I liked his chair museum in Weil, and the Disney Center in L.A. from the exterior (never saw the interior), but was not crazy about Bilbao, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton building is just too much. There is the wow factor as one approaches it, but anything above the ground floor (four levels) is essentially a pean to Frank Gehry. The glass structure is not a roof, but an open structure. We happened to be there as a thunderstorm was passing, and walking to see the different views meant getting wet. The exhibition space, partly on the main floor and underground worked well, at least for the exhibit that was there, although I am not sure that the space can change to accommodate other type of exhibits. I don’t think that the space is worth the $32 for two entrance fee. Our Parisian friends boycott it because it has destroyed what had been dedicated green space.
We also took a green space walk in the 17th arrondissement, starting in the north and ending at the entrance of the parc Monceau. Those pictures are in the Paris IV set.
The one public eating place I recommend, aside from the Chateau de Chantilly, is Azabu in the Quartier Latin http://azabu.fr/#/ACCUEIL-01-00/ The food is excellent, prices are not outrageous: $400 for six.
Somewhere in these sets are the pictures from this year: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...7624827228334/
The chateau de Chantilly pictures are at the end of this set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...183666335/show
From Paris we flew home via Toronto.
My apologies for any errors, but I can't preview the document at this time. I'll just have to correct errors as they are discovered.
Sep 12th, 2017, 12:10 PM
#3
<<For example, what is Labskaus? The server at Zur Schleimöwe simply refused to serve it to me. Having looked it up on the internet, I realize that I eventually had a bad version of it. It tasted like a ground meat which was briefly cooked by pouring boiling water over it.>>
A native german speaker may correct me, but I suspect that it is a local version of "Leberkäse" [literally Liver-cheese] which the waiter probably knew you wouldn't like. That happened to me once further south in Germany when i insisted in ordering a dish which turned out to be a local method of making things out of a pig's head which would probably have been better left unmade; our german friends warned me I wouldn't like it and they were right!
Despite this your TR is very enjoyable - I love Germany but have yet to explore the part that you describe. Should you want to go again, you might find Hannover and the Harz Mountains rather easier to navigate, though I can't promise that it will be any easier to get to Berlin airport. We once tried to leave it to get to Potsdam, and had the same sorts of problems.
PS - turns out I was wrong, no liver involved, it's beef:
https://epicureandculture.com/tradit...many-labskaus/
A native german speaker may correct me, but I suspect that it is a local version of "Leberkäse" [literally Liver-cheese] which the waiter probably knew you wouldn't like. That happened to me once further south in Germany when i insisted in ordering a dish which turned out to be a local method of making things out of a pig's head which would probably have been better left unmade; our german friends warned me I wouldn't like it and they were right!
Despite this your TR is very enjoyable - I love Germany but have yet to explore the part that you describe. Should you want to go again, you might find Hannover and the Harz Mountains rather easier to navigate, though I can't promise that it will be any easier to get to Berlin airport. We once tried to leave it to get to Potsdam, and had the same sorts of problems.
PS - turns out I was wrong, no liver involved, it's beef:
https://epicureandculture.com/tradit...many-labskaus/
Sep 12th, 2017, 12:28 PM
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It is difficult to scare me off with almost any European dish. As mentioned in the Denmark report, I had bull's balls, so named in the restaurant, no euphemism. I've had the pig's knuckle in Poland, Romania, and its Berlin version: Eisbein with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. I looked up labskaus once home, and it is a form of corned beef--but the dish I had was pretty tasteless. I am hoping to try to deal with a pig's head this season; the problem is in finding enough people willing to eat it. I recall an episode of the Edwardian house where it was served to an unappreciative audience.
Sep 12th, 2017, 02:51 PM
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Hi, I liked your report very much. I've had Labskaus before and been taught how to make it by my friends from Bremen. It's a dish made with minced up corned beef and mashed potatoes, seasoned with the liquid from canned beetroot and gherkins, served up with chopped beetroot, gherkins, fried eggs and (optionally) rollmops on the side. It is a very hefty meal. My friend's mother knew what went in it but didn't know what 'corned beef' actually was (that was the English name on the tin, and not the German name). I imagine your waiter in the restaurant thought you wouldn't like it but it can be quite nice.
Another one to try in northern German restaurants is Strammer Max - a slice of hefty brown bread with ham, cheese and a fried egg on the top, garnished with gherkins. The recipe might vary a bit; some restaurants include vegetables on the sandwich. Another stick to your ribs dish.
Lavandula
Another one to try in northern German restaurants is Strammer Max - a slice of hefty brown bread with ham, cheese and a fried egg on the top, garnished with gherkins. The recipe might vary a bit; some restaurants include vegetables on the sandwich. Another stick to your ribs dish.
Lavandula
Sep 12th, 2017, 07:40 PM
#6
I am hoping to try to deal with a pig's head this season; the problem is in finding enough people willing to eat it. I recall an episode of the Edwardian house where it was served to an unappreciative audience.>>
The only story I know about a pig's head being served up for dinner concerns a very grand lady indeed who gave orders to her chef for the head to be prepared, complete with apple in its mouth etc. Unfortunately as the maid was carrying it in, she dropped the whole lot and stood there looking most dismayed. Without showing any concern, the hostess simply told her to "pick it up, and go and get the other one".
The only story I know about a pig's head being served up for dinner concerns a very grand lady indeed who gave orders to her chef for the head to be prepared, complete with apple in its mouth etc. Unfortunately as the maid was carrying it in, she dropped the whole lot and stood there looking most dismayed. Without showing any concern, the hostess simply told her to "pick it up, and go and get the other one".
