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I was thinking how strange it is that in the past year I have spent time in Berlin 5 times but there is still so much to discover. On our first night, we enjoyed a very nice dinner with Barlis and Hanna at an amazing little French restaurant Entrecote. Afterwards, we took a walk downtown and stopped in at a little place called Newton's which always reminds me of my old friend Sandy Newton. We reminisced that last time we were at Newton's we were writing a few last minute Christmas cards, warming up from the day at the Christmas market. The next day after a dreamy sleep at "The Pink Hotel" we decided on a bus tour of Berlin since there is so much to see and I never feel like we never even scratch the surface. The bus tour company was excellent, providing narration in both German and English with 13 stops throughout the city but drive by photo opportunities at many others. If you stayed on the bus the entire time, the tour was 2 hours but you were able to get on and off as often as you liked, with a new bus coming every 15 minutes.
TV Tower
You can take an elevator up and eat at the restaurant in the rotating ball towards the top I finally got a closer look at the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie as well as the Berlin Zoo. We has a nice lunch of a traditional Berlin favorite, currywurst, and one of Ralf's favorite, for lack of the proper name, raw meat with onions at the Brandenburg gate.
After leaving a traffic laden Berlin,where I was certain we were going to be side swiped at least 250 times, but somehow managed to escape the city unscathed, a very stressed Ralf and I headed for the quiet village of
Burg where our destination was a huge wellness center with salt baths, saunas, steam room and gorgeous relaxing areas. I don't know how widespread this tradition is in Europe but I can tell you it's one of my favorite things while traveling in Germany. It is so wonderfully relaxing. The facilities and designed to promote wellness and relaxation with the most comfortable chairs, sunny areas to read or rest, spa music, and in this case a fireplace where you could just curl up after a sauna and frigid shower! (Okay, so that part is not so relaxing but it does feel good after sitting in the sauna long enough!) Our
plan was to stay in a nearby inn where Ralf had made reservations. We did check in and the place was lovely but unfortunately there was no Wi-Fi coverage or cell phone coverage there and the whole day Ralf had been dealing with contractors at one of his buildings which flooded overnight when the adjacent river came over it's banks back in Chemnitz. We decided it was best that he assess the situation firsthand so we headed back. Now, we have something special to look forward to on our next visit to Germany to return to the inn which was a remodeled stable quarters, very cool. All in all it was a good decision because when we arrived back at 10:00pm we toured the building at the basement level had filled up with several feet of water and the water was just several inches from the stairwell hallway where an elevator would be impacted and another level of businesses. Ralf was able to get another employee onsite to help secure more pumps to get some of the water out. Today we just hoping that the additional rain forecasted today does not do more damage and that the clean-up can begin
in the next days when it is supposed to be dry here.
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