This travel blog picks up on the long series that Jill started when we retired in 2005 and continued to 2019. It is different from the earlier ones in that they were aimed not only at friends and family but at a wider world of travellers and indeed attracted anumber of expressions of interest, including requests to use our photographs. Now the world is deluged with images and travel information, so this is more of a personal account of my travels with such anecdotes and musings as I feel inclined to provide, largely for my own benefit.
18 September, Thursday.
In the words of T.S. Eliot: “Just the worst time of the year / For a journey, and such a long journey”, with the alarm set for 05:00, a taxi collecting me at 06:00 in good time for the 06:52 train from St David’s Station. The train was quite empty and I had a spare seat beside me into which I could spread to enjoy a coffee and slice of fruit cake. Warnings were announced of disruption in France with a general strike and demonstrations in Paris, which in the past had badly affected the Gare du Nord. In London tube workers had also been on strike the week before, and I feared they might still be working to rule. I had left little latitude for crossing London from Paddington to St Pancras and had just received a message from Eurostar that I should arrive at St Pancras International well before 09:29, my estimated time of arrival at St Pancras. In addition the train was running ten minutes late. But the transfer on the Circle Line went smoothly, the queues at the check-in had passed through, and the luggage and passport checks were speedy, so I was still not able to avoid the crowded wait for boarding, although I was this time able to find a seat in the waiting area.
The 10:24 Eurostar set off on time and I had an interesting conversation with a Swiss traveller with perfect English who was retuning to visit his family. He had studied for his law doctorate in Cambridge and stayed there as a law lecturer with a special interest in animal rights, soon perhaps to be extended to plant rights as trees had been discovered to be sentient beings. The Eurostar emerged from the tunnel and once in France came to a sudden stop.
This did not bode well but after a few minutes it moved off and arrived soon after 14:00 at Paris Gare du Nord, a few minutes late but here was no sign of strikes or demonstrations, and I carried my rucksack and bag through warm sunshine (27 degrees) for the ten minute walk to the Gare de l’Est where I discovered that the strikes did not greatly affect the TGV and Intercity services and the 15:21 ICE9563 was expected to leave punctually – time for a coffee and pain au chocolat at the station. The train did indeed leave on time and was due at 18:18 in Mannheim station (platform 3) where I was to move across to platform 2 to catch the 18:32 ICE 274 service arriving 23:30 at Berlin Hbf platform 12 where Sieglinde was to meet me. We had been counting the seconds until that arrival time since 7 September when the figure stood at 1,039,142.
It all seemed to be going smoothly but, once over the border with Germany, there was an additional stop at Kehl for passport checks by armed police and the delays grew until it was announced that the Mannheim connection would be missed. It was recommended that passengers for Berlin should get off at Karlsruhe and catch the also delayed ICE376 to Hamburg, changing at Hannover. At the travel office in Karlsruhe I obtained a printout of these details which I have kept as evidence when I attempt to reclaim some or all of the cost of the ticket from Paris to Berlin.
By the time we had reached Frankfurt the ICE 376 was 35 minutes late and so would miss the Hannover connection, even though this too was delayed. It was recommended that passengers should alight at Kassel-Wilhemshöhe where the ICE790 would be waiting for us on platform 3. We had given up counting the secons in Paris when the figure stood at 35,236 but we were in constant contact by WhatsApp on the progress of my journey.
And, despite all the delays, the connection in Kassel worked, as the ICE 790 was the next to arrive after we came to a halt on platform 3. Sieglinde had given me the tip that if you did not have a reserved seat on a train, make for the restaurant car between the first and second class and you could linger as long as you wanted over cups of coffee. I worked out the order of carriages and the zones marked on the platform so was exactly opposite the entrance to the restaurant car and while the others lugged their bags in search of a free seat I was first in the queue for a coffee, currywurst and roll. I had told Sieglinde not to come into the station at midnight as my time of arrival was so uncertain, so I was able to enjoy the final stage of my journey in uncrowded comfort, arriving at Berlin Hbf about 01:30 on Friday morning. I found a taxi at the station and arrived at Sieglinde’s apartment about 02:00 with only a minor panic when I discovered that I had dropped my purse in the road outside after paying for the taxi.
19 September, Friday
A leisurely start after such a late night meant that we skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch at the Aperativo, an Italian restaurant on the Schillerplatz within sight of Sieglinde’s flat where she was often greeted with a warm embrace by the proprietor. It was a warm Autumn day and we walked to the nearby cemetery and visited the grave of Sieglinde’s husband Jürgen and also those of Marlene Dietrich and the photographer Helmut Nelson, both graves listed by the Berlin authorities. We also took the U-Bahn to Strglitz to look for the most favourable transport ticket for me. In a newsagents Sieglinde enquired and almost immediately two women behind said not to buy it here but to go to the BVG centre where we could purchase a monthly travel card valid on buses, trams, U- and S-Bahn and general train services, valid not just in Berlin but throughout Germany. It only ran in calendar months but was worth it even though September was two thirds gone. I purchased a card for September and immediately enjoyed the freedom of getting on and off all public transport without any checks. There are no ticket barriers and most Berliners have travel cards. Heavy mobs of three inspectors make occasional checks and impose heavy fines.
20 September, Saturday
Today we had the full German breakfast with egg, rolls, several types of cheese, ham, salami, olives, marmalade and Marmite, a present from me that fortunately Sieglinde liked, and we talked for hours about our lives and memories before going by bus to Charlottenburg Castle with its extensive park. Bus services were disrupted by the pre-Marathon which had closed streets in the Friedenau quarter where Sieglind lives.
The palace had recently been restored and gleamed in the sun with its gilt decorations and newly cleaned statuary.
In the park we sought the shade and hunted for the Luiseninsel, with no help from Google Maps which directed us to a similarly named place in a completely different part of Berlin. It was an area Hubert and Sieglinde had often visited together and we were in search of statues of Amor and Venus which we eventually found.
The formal gardens had also been restored and the borders were colouful with flowers in bloom. We needed a coffee and tiramisu in a nearby Italian restaurant where Sieglinde was also known to the proprietors where we bumped into Brigitte, a 92-year-old friend Sieglinde had helped round the park a couple of weeks previously. We retuned home for an evening meal prepared by Sieglinde with aubergine pancakes and cheese straws.
21 September, Sunday
It was an early start, but still with an ample breakfast, including one of Jill’s apples from the tree where her ashes were buried in the garden in Exeter. We needed to take the U- and S-Bahn to the independent Baptist church service in a 1950s church. The interior was cold and plain but efficient, the music modern accompanied by a group including a keyboard with German and English texts projected on a screen. I could not join in singing as I did not know the melodies and the music was not to the taste of myself and Sieglinde – no Bach chorales. In the absence of the preacher, who was ill, there was a YouTube address by a Berlin Baptist preacher on Macht und Stärke (power and strength) and how God would give us the strength to fulfil our Berufung (calling), followed by thoughts and prayers from members of the congregation in which Sieglinde joined. As an agnostic, it did set me thinking about my calling, what it was that might have called me, what on earth it might be anyway, and whether I had achieved it. I decided that my calling was to be a bibliofool, that it was I who had called myself to the task and that I had achieved it quite well. There was coffee and cake in the vestibule afterwards, when I was able to meet some of the congregation.
It was another hot day and, once out of the church, Sieglinde decided on a boat trip into the Müggelsee, the largest of Berlin’s many lakes, reached along the Müggelspree, a tributary of the Spree River, past the historic town of Köpenick. It was the day of the Berlin Marathon. Streets were closed off, including those around Sieglinde’s apartment, and the S-Bahn trains were very empty. We had a while to wait, which was happily filled by an enormous fruit ice followed by an aperolspritz, watching the S-Bahn trains crossing the bridge with the occasional steam locomotive on a special Sunday outing and speaking with friendly people at our table until the boat arrived.
Treptow, Köpenick and the Müggelsee were all in an industrial area in the Soviet zone of East Berlin and industrial builings, some listed as being of historical interest, some empty and derelict and some repurposed lined the banks, as did areas that had been reforested. Köpenick had a prominent church, town hall and castle close to the banks. We crossed the lake and called in at the foot of the Müggelberg, Berlin’s tallest hill, which rises to the less than impressive height of 115 metres. The round trip took a little over three hours accompanied by an informative and unobtrusive commentary and we had a welcome coffee on the way back.
The trains back were crowded, there was clearly some event that had finished further down the line, perhaps lined to the Marathon, and we had close encounters with two of Berlin’s citizens, one seated opposite us on the train, the punkiest punk we had ever seen with tattoos showing through her black tights where the ladders were precariously connected by remaining fragmments of textile, adorned with spiky bits of metalware both on her clothes and piercing various parts of her anatomy, her legs sprawled inelegantly and with a grim expression on her heavily made-up face. Someone must love her though.
The other meeting, on the platform where we changed trains, was with a cheerful lady who moved her bags to make room for us to sit down and wanted to know all about us in the five minutes until our train arrived. She estimated that Sieglinde was 54 and I in my early 60s and asked what our profession was. Sieglinde, for some unearthly reason, said that I was a shoemaker and that she worked in a shoe shop. I was relieved when she said that she did not believe us, knowing little about the technicalities of shoemaking, so I said I was really a librarian. She said appreciative words about the importance of libraries in storing knowledge and guessed that Sieglinde was a teacher, saying that we must have met when she borrowed a book from me. She delighted in our laughter, saying that it was very healthy and led to a long life. I expressed my delight at this saying that perhaps we would even live into our 80s. By now the train was coming and she ceremoniously kissed our hands as we left. Berlin has so much to offer!
22 September, Monday
I had travelled light, so today was dedicated to extending my Berlin-based wardrobe. We went shopping in Schlossstrasse (yes three s's), the main shopping street in the Steglitz district of Berlin - somewhat down-market from Kurfürstendamm and not mentioned in my Lonely Planet pocket guide but with branches of most of the major stores. In the street two women from Sieglinde's apartment rushed up to us asking in broad Berlin dialect “Jet det denn jut mit euch beeden?” (Are things going well with you both?) and I was able to answer “Ja janz jut danke” (Yes, quite well, thanks). It was typical of the direct, open, friendly approach of Berliners, similar in many ways to London's traditional cockney costermongers. In a sweet shop a woman serving indicated me and said “Ist das denn der Neue?” (So is that the new one?) to which I was able to respond “Ne, der ist zu zweiter Hand” (No, he's second-hand).
Clothes shopping is not something I relish but I was rewarded with a coffee with plum tart and whipped cream half-way through. We returned with a rich haul of shirts, socks, underpants, pyjamas and pullovers, also a pair of smart shoes which I wore home, leaving my worn-out Hotter pair with a traditional shoe repairer patronised by Sieglinde who would replace the split, leaking soles, giving them several more years of life. On the tube home we were intrigued by a young man who had a large slab-like black case on which he was leaning. I suggested to Sieglinde that he took it with him to lean on if he couldn't find a seat, but then noticed "BC Rich" on the case which I googled to discover it was an American manufacturer of guitars. He saw what we were up to and gave us a smile and thumbs-up - another example of a friendly encounter with the natives.
Once home, I was given a lesson on how washing should be done, even on clothes just purchased. I was particularly told that they should be turned to the left (auf links drehen) before being put in the washing machine. This puzzled me and I spent some time waving my shirts vaguely around in a leftward direction in an attempt to help until she grabbed them from me and turned them inside out. Beside learning a new expression, I was also introduced to washing nets and a variety of blocks and liquids to counteract the effects of the extremely high calcium levels in Berlin water - something we never had to worry about in Exeter.
23 September. Tuesday
The morning was spent writing invitations to friends we wanted to meet up with, preparing a card to accompany a gift to Sieglinde's friend and working on pictures for the travel blog.
In the afternoon we decided our target would be the Café Einstein Unter den Linden and caught the bus to the Tiergarten, a massive area of woodland, lakes and waterways in the middle of Germany's capital city, alighting at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt better known to Berliners as the Schwangere Auster (pregnant oyster) on account of its remarkable architecural form. We ventured inside and little seemed to be happening. In the main hall people were preparing for the opening of an art installation, the central feature of which seemed to be a large soft toy of undiscernable identity dangling from an overhead trackway which wound its way around the entire ceiling of the exhibition space.
Uninspired, we turned our back on the cultures of the world to wander along the banks of the Spree towards the government quarter, passing the modern Bundestag building, constructed after the capital of reunited German moved from Bonn to Berlin, as we approached the Reichstag, once derelict in a no-man's land near the Berlin Wall by the Brandenburg Gate. The gleaming building with its glass dome looked magnificent against a spectacular evening sky.
Passing in front of the Reichstag we looked at the recent memorial the the Roma and Sinti who had suffered so terribly under the Nazi regime. We enetered what had once been the Soviet Sector and passed along Unter den Linden until the sign for the Café Einstein appeared.
Our previous visit to this noted Kaffeehaus in June had inspired the idea of a cream tea in the garden to celebrate my 80th birthday in July and it was good to return there to be served another cream tea by a friendly waitress. It is also an appropriate place to end this first blog of my stay in Berlin.
