Well not quite, but there was plenty of ginger-free beer available. 

All of us had been to Berlin before, some on multiple occasions, so there was no imperative to go to Checkpoint Charlie, the Stasimuseum, or the Berlin Wall Memorial.  We even forgot to check whether we were wandering through the former East or West Berlin.   It was very liberating (I use the word intentionally) and we were able to celebrate Berlin as a modern, forward looking, European Capital.  So where does the (in our case more mature), 21st century tourist choose to go?

For one of us, it all started in the allotment.  Our uphill neighbour had recently fortified his plot against foxes and introduced a fine troupe of hens, which are, as their owner pointed out, terrible time wasters, just begging you to stand and watch as they burble around, scratching and preening.  So these days, allotment chats tend to be longer and allotment activity abbreviated.  Thus I learnt, on a recent dose of hen relaxation therapy, that our neighbour’s other area of expertise was in Egyptian archaeology and that no visit to Berlin was complete without a visit to see the statue of Nefertiti.

Thankfully, on consultation, all four of us agreed that the Pergamon Museum’s archaeological treasures were a must. But Berlin’s Museum Island no longer appears to house such an establishment. A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999, the geography of Museum Island seems to have been in flux for many decades. Nefertiti, however, is safe, well and very much on view in the Neues Museum.   

Entering the Museum is a modern and minimalist experience and, as the corridors are uncluttered with signage, deciding where to start feels like a sort of pastel potluck.  We were headed, of course, for the Egyptian stuff and once into the appropriate labyrinth, we found it utterly absorbing, clean, fresh and beautifully presented, with no feeling of indigestible overload.  Some items seem fabulously exotic and feed our preconceptions of pyramids and mummies.  My particular ‘take home’ from this section was the wall art (below).

Other items are startling modern or, more accurately, suggest that nothing modern is actually new. 

Below: left - the original flip flop? Centre - a very familiar cane chair and folding chair (minus its fabric/leather seat) Right - such seats in use (probably best not to ask what the sitters are up to)

Quotes taken from the Museum interpretation boards accompanying this section of the exhbition.

I so hope she is genuine.  Mona Lisa?  Nah – give me Nerfertiti every time.

How do you follow that?  You go to Potsdam of course, the residence of Prussian Kings and a German emperor, a place of palaces and lakes, of fine art and architecture and, more recently, a significant role in 20th century history and politics as host to the 1945 Potsdam Conference and the location of the Cold War focal point, the Glienicke Bridge.

We took as our specialist subject the Palace of Sans Souci, the summer residence of Prussian King Frederick II (so maybe April wasn’t the best time to go?).  Admittedly, It was cold and chilly but we did manage a quick tour of the park and gardens.  The park was full of that fresh green which only trees in spring time can produce and reprodue, year after year.  The leaves were bright, cheerful, full of hope and spring promise (even when dodging rain showers) and never overpowering.

Below - migraine inducing spring border with formal lawns, sculpted conifers and the most magnificent, formal, south facing vineyard terraces which were completed in 1746. Despite its slight similarity to a (horticultural) prison, it makes a tremendous visual impact and completely overshadows the palace itself.

And those potatoes?  Frederick II (looking anxious below left) was known as the Potato King.  The story goes that, after successfully introducing potatoes into the diet of his army, Frederik tried to do something similar when famine hit his civilian population.  The peasants were not keen.  The threat of ear and nose amputation for those who refused to grow spuds did little to encourage potato production so he tried more seductive methods.  A royal potato plot was established.  The King advertised his admiration for both potato flowers and tubers, had the field ostentatiously guarded, and sat back.  Of course, the peasants were soon sneaking in by night to steal the crop so that they might grow their own fashionable tubers.  Job done.  To this day, potatoes are regularly left on Old Fritz’s grave, which lies under the terrace of Sans Souci Palace (below right).    

But it seems that Frederick was ahead of his game in hospitality as well as basic nutrition.

The décor of these apartments was, and is, magnificent.  There was a distinctive, ornate floral theme in many of the rooms, with artists and crafts people using a variety of styles and materials to decorate floors, walls and ceilings in pursuit of royal grandeur. This is the garden within, but without the migraine tulip.

Voltaire was a particularly regular visitor who is said to have stayed for extended periods of time. Apparently Old Fritz spoke French better than German. The poet’s regular appartment stands out from the rest with with a particularly bold and fruity theme (images below).

By now we were suffering from traumatic visual overload to which there can be only one solution: lashings of tea.

A change of enviornment was also required and the obvious answer was a visit to the German Museum of Technology (Deutsches Technikmuseum), for a dose of trains, planes and automobiles.  Natch.

The railway exhibition is housed in the original locomotive sheds of what was once Berlin’s main rail-head, Anhalter Station.  Opening in 1841, Anhalter became a mecca for this new transport technology and traffic expanded significantly.  In 1880, a vast new station was opened, replacing the fairly modest original complex, and for a while became the largest station in continental Europe. 

So here comes the exciting part for people like Team Terroir.  The raillway yards have been allowed to return to nature (a sort of railway re-wilding scheme).  The extent and mix of regenerating vegetation – grasses and herbs, shrubs and trees, occasionally ‘enhanced’ by new tree planting - creates an amazing, and exciting young jungle, laced by a network of gentle, unsurfaced paths.   But it gets better: remnants of the railway era can still be found, littered around the site, creating an intriguing and surprising visual adventure playground of transport industrial archaeology.  It’s magic.

So what is the ultimate ‘take home’ image which symbolises 21st century Berlin. Nefertiti? The deorated floral ceilings in Frederick II’s 18th century AirBandBs? The magic of a Narnian style buffer-stop-and-lamppost combo in the old Anhalter stationyards? No, none of those. For Terroir it’s still the East German traffic light ‘Ampelmann’ who marches across the top of this blog. He started ‘walking’ in 1961, survived the fall of the wall and re-unification, and is still loved around the world.