Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and Bavaria Part 1

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I've had a few bad travelling experiences in my life, but none remotely compare to the journey from Wroclaw to Berlin. First of all, the train for which I had a ticket turned out to not exist, even though the timetables said it did and no-one knew why the timetables had changed. An hour later and another train was scheduled to leave – this was when the real problems started. Wroclaw station is being renovated at the moment so everyone has to wait outside – the streets were absolutely packed with hundreds, probably thousands of people with large backpacks and tents – I had no clue where they were going. I learnt soon enough, when everyone poured onto the platform I wanted. The train, when it arrived, was already full beyond limits, but we all just had to pour onto this cramped train. I gathered that a music festival was taking place and everyone was taking the night train to wherever it was. Polrail just kept allowing more and more people on – we waited in the station for well over an hour after we were scheduled to leave as more and more people tried to cram their way in. I was squished in the aisle, with barely enough room to stand but no room to move at all. The train eventually left – this being the first night trip I've done on this journey, I was expecting to get a reasonable amount of sleep, but of course standing up all night any question of sleep was impossible. To make matters worse, so many people were smoking on the train (I don't mean just tobacco) as well as getting drunk – there was a fight at the other end of the carriage as well. I was supposed to be changing trains at 4am – we arrived at that station 2 ½ hours too late, and to my dismay everyone else got off as well, though luckily they weren't heading to Berlin. I managed to catch a later train to Berlin, which was peacefully empty, allowing me to catch up on a bit of sleep before arriving in the German capital.

Berlin was a lot smaller than I was expecting it to be. There is considerably less to see and do than London or Paris for example. That said, it was still a very nice city to visit. And very interesting from the historical point of view with regards to the differences between East Berlin and West Berlin. The centre is really compact, focused around one main street, Unter den Linden, off of which are nearly all of the major sights. At the eastern end is Alexanderplatz, which is home to Berlin's tallest structure, the Fernsehturm TV Tower (a product of 1960s East German design). West of here is the Berlin Dom (Cathedral) and the Museum Quarter, which sit on an island in the River Spree. And even further west of here are Berlin's main two sights – the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, both of which are symbolic of reunification. The Brandenburg Gate marks the end of the city centre – beyond is the gigantic Tiergarten park, which stretches all the way to the borough of Charlottenburg. The other main sights in central Berlin are the remains of the Wall and the reconstructed Checkpoint Charlie – not much of the wall is actually still in situe, but one small part is preserved, which was interesting to see. There are a couple of grand squares too, one containing the “German Cathedral”, the “French Cathedral” and the Theatre, and another containing the Humbolt University. It was in this second square that the notorious Nazi book-burning occurred.

Outside of the centre, Charlottenburg is a well-to-do borough in the former West Berlin, and which is home to the Charlottenburg Palace, formerly home to the Prussian Royal Family. Very similar to the palaces in Vienna, though definitely worth seeing. I also visited the city of Potsdam, which is 20km outside of Berlin and the capital of Brandenburg State. I only had a few hours in the city, which turned out to be nowhere near enough as Potsdam is a gem of a town, filled with parks and palaces amongst other things. It is the German version of Windsor I suppose. The main palace, Schloss Sanssouci, although not overly ostentatious,
is set in majestic gardens and surrounded by many other ornate structures. I would have spent much longer in Potsdam if I had the time; I was late as it was meeting a friend who was arriving at the airport (some of the underground lines have very, very infrequent service). My friend's arrival unfortunately coincided with some bad weather – we did the bus tour of Berlin in the pouring rain and had to wait under the Brandenburg gate for some time afterwards before braving the pouring rain. The most interesting sight we saw in Berlin was probably the 1936 Olympic Stadium, in the far west of Berlin and which is now home to Berlin Hertha FC. The architecture of the stadium, as well as the story of the 1936 Olympic Games were both equally interesting. The view from the top of the Bell Tower over the stadium and central Berlin beyond was also impressive. The worst thing we did in Berlin was going to the top of the Fernsehturm TV Tower on Alexanderplatz – it was quite expensive to start with (€12), and the views were just not worth it – we went up at sunset expecting to see the whole city lit up, but by the time we got to the top (9pm) it was dark and virtually no building was illuminated. Plus the windows of the tower are sharply angled, making photographs virtually impossible to take. That was rather a disappointing end to our stay in Berlin it must be said, but I still enjoyed the visit and will no doubt one day be back.

After Berlin, the next stop was the capital of Saxony, Dresden. I thought Dresden was a nice city, especially given that more or less the whole city is modern, having been more or less reconstructed after the Second World War to its pre-war appearance. A lot of the buildings were very beautiful, but nearly all were black (not sure if intentionally or from pollution) - including the town hall, the palace and most of the churches – and this made them less attractive than if they had actually been clean. There was a fair amount of construction work going on in the city centre as well which slightly detracted from Dresden's positive aspects. The first thing we did in Dresden was climb the tower to the Rathaus (the City Hall), which itself is covered in scaffolding. The view from the top was quite impressive though, and we could see quite clearly what exactly there was to see in the city. The building that stands out the most is the Frauenkirche – a (non-blackened) church on the main square, which has only been recently rebuilt after being destroyed in WW2. The gold cuppel on the top of the dome was donated by the city of Coventry. Behind the Frauenkirche were some more impressive buildings – I'm not quite sure what exactly they were though – and behind them is the River Elbe. Along the Elbe runs Bruehl's Terrace, which is a riverside promenade passing many of Dresden's highlights. To the north is the Zwinger Palace, once home to the Saxon princes, but unfortunately closed for a special event when we visited, and in any case partially covered in yet more scaffolding. Around the palace was another ornate church and the Semper Opera House, which is one of the most famous in Germany (so my guide book says). From Bruehl's Terrace we took a cruise along the Elbe to Pilnitz Palace 8km upstream. By this time the weather had seriously deteriorated so the rain somewhat impeded the views of the picturesque Elbe Valley. Fortunately though, by the time we arrived at Pilnitz Palace 2 hours later, the sun was back out, allowing us to walk around the scenic grounds of the Saxon Palace before returning to Dresden by boat, with the skies opening up once again as we sailed along the Elbe.

After Dresden, we moved on to the nearby city of Leipzig, the largest city in Saxony. Leipzig was definitely less interesting than Dresden, but still worth visiting in my eyes. I don't think many international tourists visit the city, but it is very much popular amongst the Germans – possibly not surprisingly given its historical importance, with famous residents having included Bach, Schumann, Schiller and Goethe. Leipzig, like Dresden was in East Germany prior to Unification, so there are a lot of communist-era buildings lurking around – although Dresden had a lot outside of the centre, there seemed to be a fair number of hideous concrete towers in Leipzig's actual centre (a few just off the main square). There was definitely less to do than in Dresden as well – the main attractions are the main market square, the nearby Nikolaikirche (St Nicholas's Church) where the fall of communism in East Germany began, the Thomaskirche (St Thomas's Church) where Bach is buried, and the Neues Rathaus (City Hall), which dates back 500 or so years but which I didn't find at all impressive. Leipzig's claims to fame lie outside the city centre – it has the largest station in Europe (apparently, though I'm not convinced) as well as the largest memorial in Europe – a large tower called the Völkerschlachtdenkmal a couple of kilometres outside the centre which commemorates victory over Napoleon in 1813. We did visit the Völkerschlachtdenkmal and it was actually quite interesting, though there were lots of building works going on both the inside and externally, and although the views from the top of the tower were impressive, the city centre was too far off to see that well.

After Leipzig, we headed south into Bavaria, starting off in Nuremberg. Nuremberg turned out to be a lot nicer that I was expecting – the city centre, which retains most of its medieval city walls and towers, was bursting with charm, and the views from the Kaiserburg (Castle) were quite something. The large squares are dotted with historic churches and other quaint buildings. In one such building i the Nuremberg Toy Museum, which showcases the development of toys over the last few centuries; Nuremberg seems to have a rich history of the toy industry in Germany. For me, the most interesting sights were outside of the city centre, namely the Nazi Rally Grounds where the famous Nuremberg rallies took place. The main building is actually well preserved, and is in fact the largest Third Reich building left in Germany. Inside is a museum chronicling the history of the Nazis and the rallies etc.; outside there are ruins of more Nazi-era buildings though none are in quite the same condition as the main Congress Building.

From Nuremberg, it was only an hour to the Bavarian capital and third city of Germany, Munich. The most visited city in the country held high expectations for me – it wasn't quite the picturesque city I was expecting, though it was certainly a nice city to visit. There were quite a few sights to see in the city, though unfortunately a large number of the historic buildings (in fact most of the landmarks) had scaffolding over at least part of them. One of the twin towers of the cathedral for example was covered, as was a small part of the Rathaus (City Hall) on the Marienplatz (main square). The tower of the Rathaus has a musical clock that plays three times a day to a packed square full of tourists – it really wasn't worth all the fuss. Around the main square are a few beer halls, though not as many as I expected. The one we went to was probably the largest (4 floors of a gigantic building!) with a live German oom-pah band. A lot of Munich seemed to be about fulfilling tourists' stereotypical expectations, with people wearing typical Bavarian clothes (leiderhosen and the green hats for example), which was nice to see but in some places a bit over-the-top. The main building in the city centre is the Residenz – the palace of the Bavarian rulers up until 1918 (the main façade was covered in scaffolding). This building was deceptively large – it took quite a while to get around all of the rooms and the Treasury. Some of the palace was damaged in the war, so some of the rooms are named after painting or items of furniture that no longer exist. In a couple of the rooms, there were messages saying what the room was before 1939, but that they decided to restore it to something else instead, which seemed a bit odd. Outside the Residenz and the Palace Gardens is the Englischer Garten, which is one of the largest urban parks in Europe and one of the focal points of the Oktoberfest. The Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower) in the centre is surrounded by a 6000-seater beer garden for example.

I went up the tower of St Peter's Church just off the main square, which entailed climbing a very narrow (2 way) spiral staircase and arriving at a platform on the top that was impossibly overcrowded. That said, the view was worth it (as long as I looked away from the cranes and scaffolding below). The other tower I went up was the Olympic Tower, located in the Olympic park a few kilometres from the centre. You couldn't really see the centre from here, but the views of the Olympic park as well as the adjacent BMW complex definitely made it worth while. Plus it offered an inside terrace, which was useful given that it started to pour down when we arrived. There isn't much to the rest of the Olympic Park – the main stadium looks like it's been downsized somewhat, and although we went to the Swimming Hall and a few of the other arenas, nothing else was that interesting. The other main site just outside the centre is the Schloss Nymphenburg (Nymphenburg Palace), which was the main summer residence of the Bavarian rules in the 18th century. The front façade, surrounded by swan-filled lakes, was the most picturesque, however the centre of the main palace building was once again covered in scaffolding. The tour inside the palace was incredibly brief – it seems only a few rooms in the main wing are open to the public (and they were being renovated as we walked around), even though the palace is absolutely enormous. The English Gardens to the rear looked a lot more English than the ones in Munich and were more interesting than anything inside.

After Nyphenburg my friend flew back to the UK, but I stayed in Munich for a while, doing several day trips into Bavaria from the city. The problem with day trips in Bavaria is that there is simply too much choice – there are so many places to pick from! Getting around was not a problem – a “Bayern Ticket” for unlimited use on all trains in Bavaria (except the expresses) costs only €21 a day, though the real bargain is for groups – a ticket for up to 5 people only costs €29. The first place I visited was only just outside Munich, and that was the town of Dachau, which is of course known worldwide for its concentration camp. Dachau was a lot smaller than Auschwitz and not quite as horrifying; that said 42,000 people still died here and as Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp, it was the model from which all other camps evolved. Not that much of the camp has actually survived – none of the barracks have (though 2 have been reproduced), and in their place several churches and memorials have been erected, including a Carmolite nunnery around one of the original watch towers. The main gate house, known as the jourhaus, through which all prisoners would have entered, has been restored, and the Maintenance Building, where the administration was centred, now houses the museum. Some of the photos and videos in the museum were incredibly graphic; nevertheless it was by no means as gruesome as Auschwitz. Outside the camp, the town of Dachau itself was quite interesting – virtually no tourists were there, so it was much quieter than the crowded camp, yet it has a well-preserved centre, and is in fact much older than Munich. The town is a gentle climb up from the camp and the station, but the views from the Royal Palace, the centrepiece to the town, reached as far as Munich.

The following day I went a bit further a field of Munich. My first stop was the historic city of Regensburg, which is one of the best preserved cities in Germany as it was not (heavily) bombed in the war. The city was very impressive – the old town, centred around the Gothic cathedral and the Town Hall, rises above the River Danube and the Roman Bridge, which is the oldest bridge over the Danube (13th century) and the city's most famous landmark. I liked the narrow and winding medieval streets in the city centre as well, but the bridge, with its views over the old town and cathedral, was definitely something special. From Regensburg I continued to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which is located about halfway between Munich and Frankfurt on the “Romantic Road” in the north of Bavaria. It was quite far to come, but I had heard that it was a peaceful and idyllic medieval city that was well worth the visit, and so it turned out to be. It didn't start out peacefully though – it seems I timed my arrival with the opening day of a music festival just outside the town, so the train there was crammed with loud festival-goers, though of course nowhere near as bad as the train from Poland to Berlin. The medieval Altstadt (Old Town) of Rotherburg was quite simply extraordinary. I think I can safely say that is the most beautiful town I've ever been too, full of medieval charm and character with lovely views of the surrounding countryside as well. I made my way to the Marketplatz where I climbed the Rathaus (Town Hall) tower where the views were simply breathtaking. The tower is centuries old and getting to the viewing platform wasn't that easy – the last part of the climb is a near-vertical ladder, which leads to an incredibly cramped viewing platform. It was certainly better organised than the Munich tower – only 20 people are allowed upstairs at one time, unlike in Munich were people just kept piling to the top of the tower. Anyway, from the top I could see the whole town, with the extensive town wall and all the historic buildings within it. The town is shaped like a face, with the castle gardens jutting out to form the nose. I walked along a good section of the town wall after coming down from the tower – besides more great views, I was surprised by how quiet it was – there were plenty of tourists on the main square, but given that Rothenburg is one of the most visited towns in the whole country, it really was quite peaceful in most places. Tallinn is known as having the best example of medieval walls in Europe, but in my eyes Rothenburg's walls are far superior – you can actually walk along them for one! I just about had time to visit the castle, from where the views over the walls to the south and north were amazing to say the least, though to the north you could see and hear the festival that the people on the train had been making their way to – it did seem strange that they chose a medieval town known for its tranquil beauty for such an event. I really found it difficult to fault the town – if anything I made an error in not allowing myself enough time to enjoy all of its splendours. It was a long 3 ½ hour train ride back to Munich, which is why I unfortunately couldn't stay as long as I wanted. In hindsight, it would have made a much better daytrip from Nuremberg.

The next day I stayed marginally closer to Munich. I stopped off in Augsberg, a city of 300,000 people just 45 minutes from Munich, but didn't stay too long as, although the city was quite pleasant, it didn't have that many impressive sights. Just the usual cathedral, main square and Town Hall, and a fair distance of city wall, though not as attractive as in Rothenburg. From Augsberg I continued to Ulm, just over the border in Baden-Wurtenburg. Ulm has one very large claim to fame – all too literally – in the form of its cathedral (Munster), which is the tallest in the world, reaching 161m. Cologne's Munster is more well known, but Ulm was built around the same time but made to be fractionally taller than Cologne. There were 768 steps to the top, along 3 different spiral staircases. Had the people coming down read the no-entry sign at the top of the up stairs, it would have made life a lot easier, as passing people in the narrow stairs wasn't exactly easy. I thought I had got to the top only to find another, even narrower (and 2-way) stair case to the top of the spire itself, where the outside ledge was minuscule but the views
over the city impressive. There wasn't much else to see in Ulm. Most of the city seemed relatively modern, though a small part between the Munster and the Danube was more historical, with a lot of traditional buildings (quite a few watermills on the many shallow streams) including what is apparently the world's most crooked hotel.

After Ulm, I travelled 2 hours north-east to the walled city of Nordlingen. Nordlingen was a bit like Rothenburg, only not quite as nice. If I hadn't have been to Rothenburg, I would probably have been a lot more impressed. As soon as I got to the town, I went straight to the main square and up the 90m tower of St George's Church for a panoramic view of the town, with the wall and the 12 gate towers visible. Whereas Rothenburg has magnificent countryside views and plenty of medieval buildings in the town, Nordlingen didn't really have that many interesting buildings, and the views are not as good as the town is situated in the centre of a 25km crater (created by a meteor millions of years ago and which was used by NASA for training astronauts for the moon landings). I walked around the whole length of the city wall – pretty good views along the way. Just not quite as good as Rothenburg. I got back to Munich late in the evening and the next day headed south into the Bavarian Alps – the next blog will come from there.

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