Many Facets of Berlin

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Adlon Hotel

Flea market at the Tiergarten 

Forest of the Tiergarten

Book burning memorial at Bebelplatz

Pergamon Museum

Market Gate of Miletus at the Pergamon Museum

Ishtar Gate to Babylon 

Circa Peepshow

The day started by visiting The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial. It is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman. It consists of a site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field.

There are no markings on the slabs. No explanation of what the stelaes stand for or what their meaning is. Each person experiences it in their own fashion. The earth is not level, and as you walk randomly through the exquisitely laid out grid (it is not a maze) it is up to each individual to interpret the Memorial for themselves. We found it haunting. Sometimes we experienced it as grave stones, sometimes as coffins, sometimes as lines of people being marched. Sometimes as the monoliths from the movie 2001. We liked it very much. Like all museums in Germany, if it concerns World War 2, it is free to public. The Germans recognize their historical responsibility and are also very aware of the rise again of the right wing.

I had promised myself I would visit the Adlon Hotel. This is the hotel where President Erdoğan of Turkey was staying earlier in the week. I wanted to visit the Adlon because I have read the series of detective novels by Philip Kerr, featuring the Berlin Police Detective Bernie Gunther. He retires from the Police in the 1930’s in the series and becomes the house detective at the Adlon. The Adlon of the stories was destroyed in World War 2, and this new Adlon was built to replace it. The hotel appears to appeal to Eurotrash, and I am glad we are not staying there. I did get to visit it however and pay my respects to Bernie. If you want to immerse yourself in German History from the 1930 onward, this series of books is amazing way to do it!

The flea market at the Tiergarten was recommended by Guillermo. It is quite large, located in what used to be West Berlin, the richer part of the city. Lots of knickknacks, silver, etc. for sale. We even found a gift for a friend to take home. The Tiergarten by the way is an urban forest in the middle of Berlin. It used to be the Kaiser’s hunting preserve.

After returning to our hotel, Cathy rested, while I went to the Pergamon Museum located nearby on Museum Island. This museum serves a dual purpose it is dedicated to antiquity, with both original finds and reconstructions from damage has been cause by earthquakes and wars. The upstairs contains the newly installed Islamic collection.

We shared a drink on the rooftop of our hotel. The rooftop deck overlooks the Bebelplatz. The Bebelplatz is known as the site of one of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremonies held in the evening of 10 May 1933. In the center of Bebelplatz is a round porthole like window embedded in ground. Looking through it you see the empty shelves of a library.

We returned to the old Jewish neighborhood to attend a fantastic performance. It was called Peepshow. It is performed at the Chamaleon Theater through next February. If you are in Berlin you MUST go to it. Circa are a group of acrobats that perform in Peepshow. They are from Australia. They take traditional acrobatics, set it too music and sexualize it. They are all amazingly strong and agile. They climb ropes, create human pyramids, dance and do all the things that you and I could never do. The audience ate it up. It was an absolutely great show! We felt like the show in someway took us back to the wild days of Weimar Berlin. The club like setting, the music it was quite an environment.

We returned once again for Austrian food at Aigner Gendarmenmarkt, we liked it on our first night, so we repeated it on our last night. Cathy had Pumpkin Soup again and Mealballs, I had Beef Tartar and Pork Chop. Viennese Kaiserschmarrn. All the food was delicious and hearty!

It took some time for us to start to scratch the surface of Berlin. We want to return. The city offers culture and history, museums, music, food and a vibrancy that palpable . We look forward to our next trip back to Berlin. There is so much we haven't see.. It is a fabulous city.

We will definitely stay at the Hotel de Rome again. Its location can't be better.

Tomorrow we pack and leave for London.