Day 20 Thursday  20 April 2017

On the train from Berlin to Prague, a four and a half hour journey.  The first half I shared a compartment with a young German chap who lived in Dresden and he had just been to Hamburg to visit his sister for her birthday and was on his way home again.  He spoke English very well and was employed in a research centre in Dresden doing research into some sort of macro biology.  He was doing work in conjunction with Monash uni and hoped to be visiting Melbourne later this year.  He got off the train in Dresden and I am now sharing a carriage with 3 older Germans who are friendly enough but don’t speak any English.

I really enjoyed Berlin, especially the cold and the snow.  When I first arrived I noticed all these blue pipes running above the roads and footpaths and understanding Berlin to be a cultural sort of place I assumed that they were some sort of avante garde sculptorial installation.  I found out later that Berlin is built on a swamp so that any time they dig a whole to build something they have to pump the water out and keep pumping it out.  So these blue pipes were just to take water away from the building sites.

Blue Pipes

Berlin is a funny place it doesnt have any dominant physical feature, no castle on a hilltop, no 1,000 year old cathedral, no giant ferris wheel, but it what it does have is history by the wheelbarrow load.  When you think of some of the major events in European history Berlin was a major player in these events.  As a casual observation they are still not very fond of Napoleon.  The Deutsche History Museum has the hat that Napoleon was wearing at Waterloo, I wonder how many of these there are around.

When I did the walking tour, the tour guide asked if anybody in the group spoke German, I said ‘nein’ which as we know now means no in German.  Pretty funny eh?

In the part of Berlin that was East Berlin there is a large communication tower that is supposed to be the highest man made object in Western Europe, now this tower was built by the communists to demonstrate their superiority over the decadent west.  It is also known that the communists were strongly atheist and set about removing anything to do with religion in the area under their control.  Now here is the thing, under certain sunlight a large cross appears on the side of the communication tower. The locals call it the pope’s revenge.

The Pope's Revenge

Since unification of the East & West Germanies the Reichstag building in Berlin has become the site of the German parliament.  They have put this stunning dome on top of the building where a dome that had previously been destroyed sat.  I am not sure how tall it is but there is a ramp that is 230 metres long that goes from rooftop level to the top of the dome.  It is full of mirrors and directs light into the chamber below it also acts as a convection funnel for heating and cooling.

Reichstag photos

For meals, I have had wiener schnitzel, duck and wiener schnitzel as well as a delicious black forest cake with coffee for morning tea at the Deutscher History museum.

John, in the history museum in the WW2 part they had the engine of a shot down Halifax bomber.  The photos below are of the engine and the descriptive label.

I have arrived in Prague, this is going to be interesting I think.  From a quick walk around (and a beer and a sausage) the place appears to be half tourists and half locals trying to rip the tourists off.

Some of you may recall that in the past I have said that every now and again I like to stay in a hotel with character, well the Betlem Club Hotel has character by the bucket load.