Goods at the farmers market

Weimar.

Lunch

The man in front is displaying our lunch at the farmers market in Weimar, a thuringer sausage.

Behind the Bauhaus

museum. The museum itself was not Bauhaus enough for a picture.

Steps

We've had a few. We've averaged over 20,000 per day. High day, 28,000.


Sent from my iPad

View of Erfurt from Citadel

Another view of the Dom

And an adjacent church.

The Dom

In Erfurt where Martin Luther was ordained.

Dom square, Erfurt

On market day.

Erfurt

Erfurt is a small city in the former GDR that was not leveled in WWII, nor by the Soviets. It was a major market town in the Middle Ages that was bypassed by progress and thus preserved. Martin Luther received a doctorate, was ordained into the priesthood and became an Augustinian monk here.

Witternberg central plats

A few observations. The Germans seem to be very tall. They place the coat hooks in the bathroom stalls really high. And in the German history museum we tried to use an empty locker to store our coats and bags, but it was so high even Jim could not reach it.
Germany is really cheap, compared to Sweden, Denmark and especially Norway. We have spent a lot less money than we expected. really good sandwiches for 2Euros. Outstanding Asian Stirfry for 2 for 3 Euros.

Thank you Sara and TJ

We would not have made it to Leipzig without you and GPS. We had some early struggles. We had no map from the rental agency and the GPS did not work in the airport. It also took us quite a few miles until we got the volume increased so we could actually hear what was being said.
We also still have questions as to whether the device actually knows what it is saying. But the only real problem we had was when we tried it exit the parking garage and the machine rejected our card. We had a whole line of Germans absolutely furious at us.

Coffee break in Leipzig

Flower shop

Thomas Kirche, Leipzig

Where Bach was choir master.

The door

Where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses and caused centuries of trouble. Wittenberg.

Potsdam

Today rain. We are not deterred. Off to Potsdam. We did not visit either of the 2 elaborate palaces, but only the summer home where Truman, Stalin and Churchill (later replaced by Attlee) divided up Europe at the end of the war in Europe. Fascinating.
Then back to Berlin for the Topography of Terror museum, which documents Nazi horrors and the Stasi museum, that documents the terror of the GDR secret police.

Schiller in front of the concert hall in Berlin

After we wondered through this neighborhood and the chocolate shop, we headed to the German History museum. We spent 5 hours and moved at a rapid pace. The Germans did not sugar coat their history. The museum did an outstanding job of combining pictures of the historical events with artifacts. They had some incredible stuff. The most amusing was a series of engravings by Cranach the elder with rather vulgar pictures of the pope. They were pro-Reformation political statements.

Where do your cocoa beans come from?

Like an upscale coffee shop, F&R informs you where the cocoa beans are grown. Jim bought Madagascar.

More chocolate

A better picture of the chocolate.

Fassbender &Rausch

Rebecca wanted more pictures of food. How about a chocolate store. It was jammed shortly after it opened at 10 this morning.

Cranes

Looks like Germany survived the recession quite well thank you. Lots of public building going on.

Mshatta Facade

A facade from a 8th century caliph's palace from what is now Jordan. The Ottomans gave this to Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was totally smashed in WW II and was restored by the Soviets.
Ironically, there are a lot of complaints in the displays in this and the Neue Museum, which holds a lot of Egyptian antiquities, about all of the treasures the Soviets purloined from Berlin at the end of the war, especially the artifacts relating to German prehistory.

Aleppo room

This is a room from a home in Aleppo, Syria, originally occupied by a Christian merchant. This surely would have been destroyed in the recent war in Syria, since Aleppo was destroyed.

But of course

This one I photographed before I read the explanation. The rest of the room was a reconstructed Assyrian temple, except for this, which was a plaster cast of the original, which is in the British Museum.

More Ishtar

With Jim reading the guide as well.

Ishtar Gate

Built by Nebuchadnezzar, 575 BC. From 575 BC. From Iraq. Haven't been there; probably never will.

Miletus Market gate

Roman, dating from 120AD, taken from Jordan.

Greek mosaic

The quality of the items displayed is amazing.

Column

In Pergamon Altar.

Pergamon Museum

The main reason that we sought to visit Berlin was to see the many antiquities in her museums. All over west Asia (f/k/a the Middle East ) one will find references to ancient monuments and artifacts that are not in the locations they were discovered, but are in Berlin (or the British Museum). For example, this altar, after which the Pergamon Museum is named, was found in Bergasa, Turkey. It was taken by the Germans to Berlin to preserve it, and well they did.

Berliner Dom

Or Cathedral. It was quite entertaining to have sculptures of Luther and Calvin peering down on this ornate neo-Baroque church.

Reichstag

Brandenburg Gate

It was a no man's land during the Cold War, with the Berlin Wall stretching on either side.

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.

Chilling. It had a museum below with displays that attached names, pictures and stories to the victims.

Tiergarten

On a 70 degree Sunday in October.

Art

Recognize the Chicago architect who designed this building? Jim wondered where the courtrooms were. This Mies designed building houses the modern art, but most was in storage. It had a Cindy Sherman and a Damian Hirst dot picture. Not much else I recognized. But the

Night bungee jumping

They were still at it when we went for dinner. They jump out of the neon blue platform at the top of this building.

CMC at Outdoor cafe

So far all of our mr
Earls have been al fresco, or whatever it is in German. Bratwurst for lunch and Asian Stirfry for dinner at Alexanderplatz. And tea on the waterfront as shown here.

Street view towards Berliner Dom

(Berlin Cathedral) along the Spree River.

St. George

Slaying the dragon.

JOL

In front of an German Baroque palace in Nikolaiviertal.

Scene in Nikolaiviertal

Nikolaikirche

Rest stop in Nicolaiviertel

Nikolaiviertal

Most of Berlin was destroyed during World War II. The Soviets decided to build an area near St. Nicolas' Church in an attempt to recreate a medieval village. It is made up largely of replicas, kind of like Colonial Williamsburg. It was quite delightful on a pretty Saturday in the fall.

Baroque Neptune fountain

Beneath Marienkirche.

Marienkirche

Even though we had a red eye flight, we had a complete lacoco afternoon of touring. This is St. Mary's church, not far from Alexanderplatz, first established in the 13th century.

Arrived

We arrived to Berlin at about noon today. Weather mostly overcast, but lower 60s.
We caught a bus at Tegel airport that took us past Tiergarten and down Unter den Lindens to Alexanderplatz, near our hotel. This is the TV tower installed by the GDR (the Soviet East German government) which hulks over Alexanderplatz.
There is a many story hotel that was the former Soviet tourist hotel, where today people were bungee jumping off the top. They were howling as they fell down to the Alexanderplatz.