Berlin, 1-13 October 2025

 1 October, Wednesday

October started on a more positive note than September had ended on. I learned that I had won the grand sum of £25.00 on the Premium Bonds and Kate had found a letter from the British Library, presumably an acknowledgment of the receipt on legal deposit of my edition of Hubert's essays. 

In the morning Sieglinde had an appointment with the hairdresser and I waited in a nearby bookshop, the Bookinista on the Fasanenplatz which had a café bar and tables to browse books. Her appointment lasted long enough to tempt me into purchasing a volume to add to my collection of Insel-Bücherei volumes with their distinctive covers (and interesting cntents): 

Kunstgeschichten by Kia Vahland, number 1551 in the series.

Bookinista, Buchkultur am Fasanenplatz, Berlin

And today we actually got into the Humboldt Forum with free admission to their wonderful Asiatic collections, strong on India, China and Japan. I hoped to find some exhibits to reflect my interest in early printing in the Far East and am writing my discoveries up in this blog whether you are interested or not. Paper had been invented in China, probably in the first century and in the first millennium rich written cultures had developed, especially along the silk road in Xingjian. Written documents in more than twenty languages had been found by archaeologists. These included not only writings in the Sino-Tibetan  language family (Chinese Tibetan, Tangut), but also in Indo-European (Sanskrit,  Tocharian A and B), Afro-Asiatic (Arabic, Aramaic), Mongolian and Turkic. Printing with woodblocks appeared in the ninth century, five hundred years before printing with woodblocks and moveable types in Europe in the fifteenth century. Here are some of the items I found:

 

China, Xinjiang, Shorchuk, ca.900.

Udanavarga, a bilingual manuscript in Sanskrit and Tocharian A, both Indo-European languages written in a form of the Brahmi script used in India. It is a poetic guide to a contemplative life with Buddhist interpretations. 

China, Xinjiang, Kocho, 900/1000.

This double page and fragment are from a codex book rather than a scroll and are written on paper with ink, colours and gold. The illumination shows hearers sitting on lotus flowers which grow out of a basin of water. The more important priests are shown above. It was discovered by a German expedition in 1902-3.

Xinjiang, Toyuk, 1200/1400

Mūkapaṅgu-avadāna

Also tables of language families in the Tarim Basin during the first millennium.

This fragment of a block print in Old Uighur language belongs to a collection of block prints of Jākata and Avadāna Buddhist tales. The tale known as Mūkapaṅgu-avadāna is suggested by the scene of the prince in his coffin, the axes raised by the executioners and the nailing of the coffin. In this ghoulish tale the prince, who claims to be "dumb and numb" asks his father for permission to renounce worldly life when the king wants to bury him alive. 

 

Xinjiang, Kocho,1200/1400. Mahaprajnparamita Sutra 

This illuminated block print is written in the Tangut language, an extinct member of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It was the official language of the Western Xia dynasty (1038-1227), founded by the Tangut people in north-western China. They developed their own writing system based on Chinese script. 

Chinese book formats

The Far East developed a number of book formats for presenting texts and images including scrolls, codices and palm leaves threaded together at each end. 

Japanese privately published coloured woodblock, Edo period 1810/1825

There were relatively few Japanese prints on display but these two images represent formats that I had not encountered previously.

Ikeda Eisen (1790-1848) coloured print showing examples of calligraphy, c.1820

2 October, Thursday

Sieglinde clearly wants to keep me in good shape and had arranged for me an examination of arteries in my neck, which is widely offered in Germany. The procedure at the Medizinisches Versorgungszentrum Sankt Gertrauden was painless, brief and unintrusive, using an external probe which fed back the sound of the blood coursing through my arteries rather like a flushing toilet. I received a statement which showed low levels of plaque deposits and the recommendation to take statins, which Sieglinde says is always given. She had many contacts in the medical world in which, like Jill, she used to work. She says that the advice she was given was to avoid statins; a high proportion of patients who took them ended up using walking frames or in wheelchairs, but then most of them were probably elderly anyway.

We went on to the Schloßstrasse in Steglitz to collect my shoes, which had been expertly provided with new soles at a much lower cost than a new pair of Hotter shoes. The cobbler was a craftsman who was proud of his work and offered much helpful advice on shoe care and that I should trim my big toes more often as the leather above was wearing thin, so now you all know. After that we were in need of a coffee and we visited an apparently genteel traditional upstairs establishment complete with newspapers hanging on long sticks. But the service was slow, the coffee uninspiring, and other customers kept looking in our direction. Only when we left did we realise that we had been sitting beneath a more than somewhat revealing artwork. 

The coffee was intended to build me up for a massive shopping expedition. Sieglinde is very particular about what she buys. For example her butter is scraped off massive slabs and then beaten into shape. 

Preparing Sieglinde's butter in the delicatessen

Items for the breakfast table were purchased at a Turkish stand in the street market where another stall supplied her brown eggs. Capacious bags were filled and I was assured that she would normally take that amount home on her own. Fortunately the 186 bus went virtually from door to door.

3 October, Friday.

Today was German Unity Day and we were afraid there would be travel problems but we set off by U-Bahn and bus to see inside Charlottenburg. However, there were no problems and we arrived in good time. There is plenty of information online, so just a few pictures to reflect today's visit:

Hero and Leander, Charlottenburg    

Tiled fireplace, Charlottenburg  

Chinoiserie style fire back, Charlottenburg

Rococo room in Chinoiserie style

Eduard Gärtner, Panorama of Berlin, 1834, Charlottenburg

The education of Cupid, Francois Boucher, 1742, Charlottenburg

Main staircase, Charlottenburg

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls (Michel William Balfe The Bohemian girl 1843)

An obliging visitor took a photo of us both, Chartottenburg

In an 18th century art dealer's gallery, Charlottenburg

We wandered long into the evening through the grounds of Charlottenburg

4 October, Saturday

Today we found our way to Potsdam for a delicious meal with Kersten and Ingolf and their dog Bo, a mischievous mophead of a creature whose chief delight was pulling our serviettes off our laps. 

The table separates us

We so enjoyed the meal, the home-made noodles, the streusel cakes afterwards, the wine and conversation that we called on Copilot to compose a sonnet, which it immediately produced in the spirit of the "großen Barden, William Shakespeare":

Sonett auf das gastliche Mahl und den listigen Hund

O süßer Tisch, mit Gaben reich gedeckt,
Wo Nudel sich in goldnem Glanz verneigt,
Und Kuchen, Streuselkrön’ auf ihm versteckt,
Dem Gaumen hold, dem Magen tief geneigt.

Mit Liebe ward dies Mahl von Hand erschafft,
Ein Werk, das selbst die Götter wohl erfreut.
Die Zeit verflog in warmer Freundschaftskraft,
Ein Abend, der in Herz und Sinn verweilt.

Doch ach! Was Schatten huscht durch Flur und Gang?
Ein Dieb mit Pfoten, frech und voller List!
Bo, edler Hund, voll schelmischem Verlangen,

Entführt die Tücher, die man fast vermisst.
Doch sei ihm’s gnädig, unser treuer Knecht –
Denn wer kann fluchen, wenn das Herz ihm lacht?

The thanks were well received and there was a reply allegedly from an artificial intelligence bot, wishing that it could really feel the soaring sentiments that it was putting together in the twinkling of an eye. 

5 October, Sunday

Today we were invited to Sieglinde's choir friend Angelika and Mitzi the cat, which had not been very well, for drinks and cakes. Judith, another choir friend, also joined us for a most enjoyable afternoon. Following yesterday's success of Copilot to write German sonnets to thank the increasing number of people who had invited us to meet up, and Angelika was the recipient of such an AI masterpiece:

                        Sonett für Angelika

Im warmen Licht, wo Kaffeedüfte schweben,
Da sitzt du still, mit Lächeln, das beseelt.
Ein Tisch gedeckt – ein süßer Traum zum Leben,
Wo Schokolade sanft das Herz verhehlt.

Cheesecake glänzt wie Mondlicht auf Kristallen,
Honigkuchen duftet wie ein Lied.
Die Stunden fließen, Sorgen leis verhallen,
Ein Augenblick, der nie aus Zeit entflieht.

Und Judith kam, ein Gruß aus heitren Tagen,
Ein Wiedersehen, das die Seele nährt.
Und Mitzi, Katzentraum mit sanftem Klagen –
Möge ihr Herz wieder froh und unbeschwert.

Für dich, Angelika, dies Gedicht erklingt,
Wo Freundschaft süß wie Kuchenduft durchdringt.

6 October, Monday

Having learned that the Humboldt Forum was open on Mondays we arrived to view the American gallery and discovered that over the weekend we had to pay. The staff seemed confused about the whole situation - apparently the decision had been hurriedly brought forward and we asked whether the annual Berlin card for all the state museums would be valid. They thought it would but it took some time to find and direct us to the helpful staff member responsible for this. He took the photograph rom my passport and the card was printed, but when we asked for the entrance fee to be refunded or deducted from the price he said that was not possible.

I wanted to see the Maya exhibits as that culture was largely responsible for one of the three main independent origins of writing. The first was around 3500 BCE, probably in the area of the Fertile Crescent, and influenced the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs and the undeciphered Harappan script around 3100 BCE, and later from about 1800 BCE syllabic and alphabetic scripts. The second group of scripts developed in China during the Shang dynasty around 1500 BCE and the third developed in Mesoamerica with the Olmec civilisation around 900 BCE. China and America both went through similar stages of development, with syllabaries developing in Japan and with the Maya.  

The following section can be skipped as it is really notes to myself to be added to other pages on the Exeter Working Papers website. The table gives the twenty day day names common to all cultures in Mesoamerica.

Mesoamerica, day names

The day names were combined with a repeating cycle of thirteen to produce a ritual calendar of 260 days. This, combined with the 360 day year resulted in a "binding of the years" every 52 years when a  New Fire Ceremony was held by the Aztecs. All fires were extinguished, a new fire was kindled in the heart of a male sacrificial victim and distributed to communities throughout the empire. 

  

Mexico, Aztec, 1325/1521

Nahaul ollin (4-earthquake) calendar stone

Humboldt Forum IV Ca 3768

The Aztecs believed that on this day the current fifth world creation (the Fifth Sun) would be destroyed by an earthquake. The previous four creations were also destroyed by natural disasters. 

Mesoamerican calendar system

This cyclical view of time was developed further by the Mayas in their long count which recorded the number of days that had elapsed since the mythical day zero of 13 August 3114 BCE in baktuns of 144,000 days (394 years), katuns of 7,200 days (20 years)

Maya-Yaxchilan-754

This lintel from La Pasadita shows a bound prisoner Tul Ch'ik covering between the king of Yaxchilan, Yaxun Balam (Bird Jaguar, who also bears the title He of the Thousand Prisoners) and his vassal and important ally Tilo'om. The capture took place on the day 9 Chuwen 6 Yaxk'in (9 June 759).

Maya-Calakmul-Kaan-736

Dynastic vase with a list of ten kings of  the Kaan dynasty of Calakmul. The sentences contain a date, the verb of a ritual for accession to the throne, the name of the king and the hieroglyph that designates him as divine ruler over Kaan. The dedication formula follows the list: "this is the drinking vessel for cocoa from the tree of abundance".

Maya-Peten-Yomootz-700/800

Plate with dedication formula from Yomootz, Peten, Guatemala. The dedication reads: This is the inscribed plate of Taxinchan, first youth, the lakam (high official) of K'ahk' Yohl K'inich, ruler of Yomootz. (Humboldt Forum IV Ca 50512). 

Maya, Guatemala, 600/900 Humboldt Forum IV Ca 46100

This painted clay cylindrical vessel from the Guatemala highlands bears made-up hieroglyphs which do not explain the scene depicted. The painters seem not to have been literate and created pottery for the common people. Literacy was well-regarded and scribes were of high status, often including kings who drew the texts to be sculpted on the stone stelae or lintels.   

Further north in Mexico among the Mixtecs, Aztecs and other Nahuatl speaking peoples inscriptions remained at a pictographic level, meaning that textual information was limited to names of people or places or day or year names. Nevertheless considerable amounts of information were able to be communicated, as these two examples from the colonial period, but drawing on native iconography, clearly show. 

Mexico. Aztec. Chiquatzin Tecuitli.1530/1570

Humboldt Forum IV Ca 3010

This Colonial-Aztec document is a cadastral map of an unidentified Nahuatl community, probably prepared as part of a legal process following the sanguinary death of a woman named Chalchiuhnene. It is painted on a sheet of bark paper ('Amate') approximately 20 by 60 cm in size. For the large sheet of paper, two fragments from single-sided inscribed Christian hymnals "Ave maris stella" and "Kyrie eleison" were assembled. The question of how the first owner, Chiquatzin Tecuitli, head of an Aztec-speaking community, came into possession of the presumably monastic manuscript is unclear. Most of the names are given in Latin script with only one pictographic name. The style is typical of Aztec mapping with roadways shown with footprints and property boundaries marked.

Mexico, Tlatzcantzin, 1600.

Humboldt Forum IV Ca 3014

This genealogical tree of the descendants of Tlatzcantzin, originating from the central highlands of Mexico shows the use of pictographic names for the first generation. By the third generation only one has a pictographic name, a heart (yolotl). In the Latin gloss it is rendered Yoloteotl roughly translated as Divine Heart. This shows that the traditional method of record keeping remained alive for almost a century after the Spanish conquest. 

07 October, Tuesday

Today we made the most of my annual Berlin Museums ticket covering all the State Museums in Berlin to visit the James Simon Gallery for a special exhibition of the bronzes of San Casciano which had been recovered in a remarkable state of preservation from the mud of the sacred thermal springs of  the Etruscan town of Clusium from 2022 to 2024. Shown together with other relics found there and in other Etruscan sites they shed new light on devotional practices with inscriptions not only in Etruscan but also in Latin. 

Etruria, Location 82. Gateway plaque 4

This terra-cotta plaque from the gateway to a shrine bears the Etruscan inscription "Thema veinei crepesa numsis". Although using an alphabet derived from the Greek and similar to Latin the language is largely undeciphered and no affinity with Indo-European language families has been estbbalised. Tyrsenian 

Etruria, Balnea Clsina, 100 BCE

This male portrait head in bronze with a dedication in Etruscan on the neck to Flere Havens (Goddess of the Spring) is typical of others found in the mud of the sacred spring. 

08 October, Wednesday

The Kulturzentrum near the Philharmonie is a complicated and outwardly uninspiring place and once inside extremely difficult to find one's way around. We had found our way into the Kunstgewerbemuseum on 27 September shortly before closing time. It is a massive museum of European arts and crafts from the Middle Ages to the present day and we thought that the Kupferstichkabinett might form part of it. On our second attempt we did manage to locate the Kupferstichkabinett, having deposited our bags, and wandered through endless empty spaces with unhelpful signage, up and down stairways in an attempt to reach the right level and finally found it through an unprepossessing door by the café where we had to make our own weakish coffee and were still offered the opportunity to pay a service charge at the till. There was an interesting small display on the tools and materials used to produce engravings, woodcuts and lithographs and a side gallery, much promoted, with the title "Yes to all" an exhibition of about 200 prints from the 900 in the donation of Paul Maenz and Gerd de Vries beginning in the 1960s until the present, mainly of conceptual art and similar post-modernist nihilism. The example below with the title "Untitled" is part of a diptych in acrylic on banknotes by Hans-Peter Feldmann (1941-2003) which also includes a similarly decorated dollar bill. It must have cost the purchasers rather more than £10+$1.

                                

Of the 110,000 drawings, watercolours and oil sketches, of the wealth of illustrated books, miniatures, printing plates, topographical views and 550.000 prints by masters such as Sandro Botticelli, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and Germans such as Chodowiecki nothing was to be seen, not even a display of facsimiles. It seemed shocking for one of the world's four largest collections of prints and drawings. We were shown into the research room where a very helpful custodian explained that all material had to be looked out in advance, so I asked for a selection of material of all kinds relating to Weimar between 1750 and 1830 and arranged a visit in two days time. 

I realised that there would probably be more material in the Kunstbibliothek in the same complex, a library on the history of art, architecture, book arts, graphic art and crafts with a stock of 500,000 volumes, 20,000 electronic publications, 70,000 auction catalogues, 50,000 microforms and 1,500 current periodicals. There is also a historic collection of some 24,000 volumes. Another visit. 

So we devoted what was left of the day to wandering through the magnificent Gemäldegalerie which is especially strong on the Italian masters such as Giotto, Titian and Canaletto, Dutch painters including Rembrandt und Pieter Breugel and German artists such as Albrecht Dürer. Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds were also well-represented but there were more staff than visitors when we were there.

The Kunstforum was established from the 1960s by West Berlin to rival the Museum Island in East Berlin, which had the prize collections, so there is a National Library here as well as Unter den Linden,  the Philharmonie concert hall a Gallery of modern art. But it is no longer a centre of the transport network, with vast empty open spaces, one corner holding a tree nursery, and much less frequented than the museums and galleries in what was previously Berlin Hauptstadt der DDR.  

09 October, Thursday

Today was devoted to a massive shop in Steglitz in preparation for a visit by Sieglinde's neighbours, invited for Sekt and nibbles. Sylvie and Ingie arrived with hugs, laughter and a bottle of Sekt. They are two widowed sisters who have lived together in an apartment above Sieglinde since the deaths of their husbands. They had taken Sieglinde under their wings after the death of her younger sister, who had rung her every evening to check that she was okay. They had taken over that task and had become concerned about the arrival of a new man on the scene. They had keys to her flat and assured her they would be down at the first hint of any trouble, explaining how the male of the species could be disabled by the skilful use of a bunch of keys as a weapon, assisted by a carefully aimed kick. They had ascertained that I posed no threat, and during the course of the evening the four of us downed two bottles of Sekt and a quantity of beer as well as plenty of nibbles. They are typical Berliners, full of humour, direct and open. There was much laughter. Sieglinde is lucky to have such neighbours. 

10 October, Friday

We visited the Kupferstichkabinett today as I had expressed a wish to see a selection of material relating to Weimar. The staff were very helpful and attentive, dashing across in case I damaged the items. Gloves were not required but I was required to sign to say that I would not publish any of the images. As the Weimar-Album is out of copyright I have used images from the Haithi Trust digitised version which has the full text, as does Google Books. There were only three researchers during the afternoon Sieglinde and I were there and that in one of the world's four largest collections of its kind. It makes the Devon Heritage Centre seem a veritable honeypot! Some more notes to myself:

Items relating to Weimar produced by the Kupferstichkabinett

- included, like the stuff on the Maya and Chinese printing, as notes to myself.

1. Das Theater. - [1840?]. - Lithograph ; 92x131 mm. - 

2. Schiller's Haus. - [1840?]. - Lithograph  ; 93x140 mm. - 

3. Das Schillerhaus / nach Photographie von C. Schaufuss ; gestochen von G. Brinckmann Leipzig ; Druck von Landes Industrie Comptoir. - Verlag von Voigt und Guenther , [1860?]. - Inv. Nr. 12274. 

4. Pentazonium Vimariense. Monument auf die Regierungs- und Vermählung-Jubel-Feyer Sr Königl. Hoheit des Grossherzogs Carl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach und desses erlauchter Gemahlin Luis, geborene Landgräfin zu Hessen-Darmstadt im September und October 1825. - [Weimar] : [s.n.], [1825]. - Line engraving : text, arms, 2 elevations, 6 plans ; 570x426 mm. - Scale bar 100' : 71 mm. -  Inv. nr: P 41 12. 

5. Goethe, Johannn Wolfgang von. [Two folders of about 25 sketches in ink, pencil and wash]. Mainly 1809. Includes ZDA KD2:3988. Pencil sketch of crowd of spectators facing right, possibly for book illustration. Undated.

Weimar-Album, 1860. Title page

6a. Weimar-Album. Blätter der Erinnerung an Carl August und seinen Musenhof. Eine geschichtliche Schilderung von August Diezmann. Mit zweiundzwanzig in Stahl gestochenen Bildern.  - Leipzig : Voigt & Günther, 1860. - Inv. Nr. KK Top 1875.   

6b-c. Vorwort

6d. Verzeichniß der Abbildungen. 

6e. Erstes Buch. 

6f. Carl Alexander ; Sophie ;  Anna Amalia ; Carl August ; Carl Friedrich ; Maria Paulowna  / Druck und Verlag von Voigt & Guenther ; gestochen von Gustav Brinckmann Leipzig   

6g. Das Schloss zu Weimar. / Photographirt von C. Schaufuss ; gestochen von Gustav Brinckmann Leipzig  ; Druck und Verlag von Voigt & Guenther.

6h. Goethe's Gartenhau / R. Bauer gez. ; gestochen von G. Brinckmann Leipzig  ; Druck und Verlag von Voigt & Guenther.

6i. Genio huius loci. / nach Photographie von C. Schaufuss ; gestochen von G. Brinckmann Leipzig  ; Druck und Verlag von Voigt & Guenther. 

Die Schillerbank. / nach Photographie von C. Schaufuss ; gestochen von G. Brinckmann Leipzig  ; Druck und Verlag von Voigt & Guenther.

6j. Die Wieland Statue von Gaster / nach Photographie von Schaufuss gezeichnet von Toller ; gestochen von G. Brinckmann Leipzig  ; Druck und Verlag von Voigt & Guenther. 

Weimar-Album. Blätter der Erinnerung an Carl August und seinen Musenhof. Eine geschichtliche Schilderung von August Diezmann. Sr Königlichen Hoheit Carl August  Großherzog von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach mit allergnädigster Erlaubniß gewidmet. Lieferung 1. - Leipzig : Voigt & Günther, 1860. - Bookseller's label: Richter'sche Buchhandlung in Zwickau. 

The following note to the bookbinder gives interesting background on the circumstances of this book's publication:

Notiz für den Buchbinder!

Für das Einfügen der Stahlstiche ist von uns nachstehende Reihenfolge bestimmt worden. Das Blatt mit den Portraits des Weimarischen Fürstenhauses kommt als Titelbild zwischen Schmutz- und Haupttitel links, also dem letzterm gegenüber, zu stehen. Dann folgen: Das Schloss zu Weimar. - Goethe's Büste. -  Goethe's Gartenhaus. - Das Herder-Haus und Das Wieland-Haus. - Das Borkenhäuschen. - Die Sternbrücke. - 

☛ Wir liefern Einbanddecken für beide Ausgaben in Callico mit reicher Vergoldung und besonders dazu angefertigten Stempeln

für die Gewöhnliche Ausgabe zu dem Preise von  - Thlr. 20 Ngr.

für die Feine Ausgabe zu dem Preise von  1 Thlr.  - Ngr.

Leipzig. Voigt & Günther

In the evening we invited Sieglinde's niece Michaela, who is suffering from long covid, for a meal. Yet another pleasant evening with much chat.

11 October, Saturday

Etruria, Balnea Clsina, 100 BCE

This male portrait head in bronze with a dedication in Etruscan on the neck to Flere Havens (Goddess of the Spring) is typical of others found in the mud of the sacred spring. 

In the evening we returned to the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Dahlem for a performance of Beethoven's C Major Mass together with his fifth piano concerto "The Emperor". Typically, we went into the church through the first door we came to and found ourselves among a crowd of people all smartly dressed who turned out to be the choir, orchestra and soloists. A distinguished-looking man with a bow tie checked that we had tickets and took us through to the auditorium and made sure he got us to the right seats in the fifth row. The church pews were hard but the concert was excellent with the Dahlem Bach Choir, and the Berlin Beethoven Orchestra, both directed by Jan Sören Fölster. The pianist for the concerto was Johannes Sebastian Bernard and the four soloists included a Korean soprano and tenor. All four voices were well matched with none dominating and we were able to appreciate them as they stood in front of the choir and orchestra five rows in front of us. The pianist got a standing ovation and provided a Chopin nocturne as an encore. 

12 October, Sunday

We finally met up with Sophie, the daughter of Christiana and granddaughter of Ethe whom my mother cared for as an au pair in Schleswig-Holstein in 1929. We met in the children's playground in the beautiful Lietzensee Park where we arrived early and other visitors lent us their rackets for a short and hilarious attempt to revive our table tennis skills. She was accompanied by her husband Anselm and three lively children Julis (9), Marlene (5) and Raphael (4). They were off in a few days to visit Spohie's parents in Mallorca where they owned a property and we strolled the park catching up on each other's lives. Sieglinde discovered a common bond through music as both Sophie and Anselm play in orchestras and they exchanged contact details.

Sieglinde was due for a rehearsal of a Sukkot concert with her Chor Lekulam at 14:00 with the concert taking place at 16:00. The concert was to be in the Jewish retirement home where I had attended an earlier rehearsal and there was little space for outsiders. Sophie recommended the nearby Pianocafé am Lietzensee and it was a good choice, providing a croissant and two of the best cappuccini I had drunk since my arrival in Berlin - not necessarily a five-star recommendation as most of them had been like dishwater or, as the French say, jus de chausettes. It also provided me with a table to write up the neglected blogs. I felt a little like a café intellectual awaiting the arrival of fellow intellectuals but after two hours I felt my presence might be wearing thin, so I set off to explore the neighbourhood and found another way into the park near the cascades. On the way back to the Jewish retirement home I found the Lietzensee Evangelical church which, like so many churches in Berlin, had an active musical programme. At 17:00 a recital entitled "Narrenschiff" (Ship of Fools) was about to start, but that was just time time I was due to meet Sieglinde. At the Home I was greeted in Hebrew at the reception but he turned to English when he realised I was not from Berlin. Sieglinde emerged with other choir members and, as she did not have time to prepare a meal I invited her to another delicious Italian meal at the Aperitivo.

13 October, Monday

The day dawned sunny and warm, not a day to be in museums, most of which were closed on Mondays anyway, so we caught to U-Bahn to Steglitz and then the S-Bahn to Wannsee. We intended to take the ferry across the lake to the village of Alt-Kladow and were delighted to see that it was included in the Berlin travel network and so was covered by my Deutschlandkarte so we followed the other passengers onto the ship without any checks for the twenty-minute trip which runs every hour throughout the day.

Landing stage, Altkladow

Our first stop was at Emma und Paul's Biergarten for coffee and cakes in the open air within sight of the landing-stage. Then we explored the village, heading up a tree-lined path to the little village church, built early in the 19th century after the original gothic building was destroyed by fire. It was simple inside with the hymn books neatly arranged on the grey-painted wooden pews. We learned that there were regular weekly organ recitals and in the church hall every Thursday afternoon an opportunity for residents and visitors to meet and chat over coffee and cakes. 

Keep exit clear day and night, Alt-Kladow

Not all properties were occupied however and a nearby oak tree, planted in 1631, had a little poem dedicated to it saying that, having survived two invasions, in 1806 by Napoleon and in 1945 by the Soviets, it hoped to end its years in peace. 

Old oak tree, Alt-Kladow

Sieglinde was so moved by the tranquillity of the place that she literally took wings.

Sieglinde takes wings, Alt-Kladow

We had noticed a colourful Berlin bear by the lakeside so went for a photo opportunity before sitting in the gardens with dancing butterflies and twittering birds until we saw our return ferry arrive. 

Berlin bear statue, Alt-Kladow

So the week started with a peaceful day of dolce far niente in the Indian summer that had been granted to Berlin.