Potsdam and Berlin

The goal for this caravan trip was to visit Berlin. We had a site booked near Potsdam and opted on our first day to walk to the Sanssouci Park and Summer Palace. This was built by King Frederick II (The Great) of Prussia in the 1700s. There are a number of palaces. If you visit and are in need of refreshment we discovered the student refectory behind the New Palace. It was the most inexpensive meal we have ever seen in Europe. Mind you we were the oldest diners but would like to think some students thought of us guest lecturers.

The gardens are over a kilometre long and have several palaces. The most photographed would be the Summer Palace and its terraced gardens. 

It is hard to appreciate the scale of these but each horizontal “tread” could easily fit a two way road.

Sanssouci is French meaning “without worries” and was geared to fun and wine. I did spend some time reflecting on whether it was vineyards that precipitated the idea of the terraces.

Some of the architectural details warranted a closer look. This is the most ornate street light I have seen. 

And then there were some wrought iron gates which were “to proclaim royalty”. This one was in the middle of the park. 

Most in King Frederick’s era spoke French rather than German (hence the name of the park). He suffered from gout and towards the end had difficulty breathing while lying down. He had this chair built, which reclined and was where he died in 1786 at the aged 74 – not a bad innings for those days.

The palace has two ends – the Eastern royal rooms and the visitor rooms. The royal rooms were very elaborate. The music room was spectacularly ornate and had one of the first “pianos” made. This may even have been played by Mozart who was thought to have visited the palace.

The adjoiining “Marble Hall” has its dome crowned by a cupola which, although oval, took the idea from the Pantheon in Rome visited earlier in this trip (September Rome blog).

At the far end of the grounds is the Church of Peace (completed in 1854). It was based upon Italian models and as with the palace suggest having time for reflection. (OK it was just a calm day…)

Helen spotted on the map that just behind the church was the Brandenburger Tor (or gate). We were rather pleased with this find given it was one item to be ticked off on this visit. Frederick built this based on a triumphal Roman arch. Each side is different as they had different architects.

What we did not realise until the following day was that this was not the gate we were looking for. The more famous Brandenburg gate is in Berlin (although in my defence I did say when I saw the Potsdam gate that it was smaller than I had imagined).

Berlin has a wonderful mixture of new and old buildings. A bridge over the river Spree gives a great foreground to the Jewish Synagogue completed in 1866.

We did a hop on hop off tour and boat trip to get a feel for the city and on the second day opted to walk starting at the famous Check Point Charlie. Here is Helen at the American Gate.

Nearby the line of the wall that divided East and West has been marked out in a line of double cobbles. There is the occasional plaque that gets photographed and in the background is a hoarding with a potted history of the wall and checkpoint.

Five minutes away a section of the wall has been left standing and the “Topographie of Terrors” open museum has been constructed at its base on the site. This was the site occupied by the Gestapo and SS during the Nazi regime until it was flattened by bombing at the end of the war. It was the principal instrument of repression and took us an hour to read only ¼ of the length of the display. Some of the history described here is very harrowing. It is nonetheless popular with over 1M visitors in 2014. At least it underpins why democracy (although far from perfect) is key to freedom and human rights including free speech.

The wall’s subsequent erection (dividing the Western part of Berlin occupied by the Allies from that occupied by Russia) also demonstrates that autocracies and communism both require violence and repression to survive. It is a lesson that some in Russia still do not appear to understand.

We then walked to the Brandenburg gate and on the way encountered and weaved our way through the Holocaust memorial. This was quite moving and its size helped with remembering how many were murdered. The paths between the blocks rolled up and down so you could quickly be lost from site. Indeed we became aware that there were many wondering the display but that most could not be seen. An interesting metaphor.

 

These constant reminders of an evil past should help in ensuring Europe does not repeat these mistakes. A friendly German couple we subsequently met said Germany had "lost a lot" and now generations were faced with rebuilding what was a wealthy country pre WWII.

Berlin has reconstructed many of its buildings following the war. Hence it is a mixture of originals (not many) rebuilds and new. One striking example of new was the Carillon built in 1987. It was silent when we visited but has 68 bells and the Carilloner sits in the middle of them with key board and foot pedals. Must be awesome to hear. It sits in the Tiergarten amongst pools and sculptures.

Also (relatively) modern was the first European traffic lights built just after WWII in Potsdamer Platz to overcome the horrendous traffic. (Although the one on display is a replica.)

And here is some real diversity; the 64 metre high Berlin Victory column opened n 1873 to celebrate victory in the Prussian/Danish war. This was followed by gas lights and in front is a very large Webber BBQ which apparently were developed here. A striking advertisement that you cannot fail to notice when driving round.

For our final day at Potsdam we went for a walk along the river to a pretty little village called Caputh which we accessed by this roped ferry. It was doing a roaring trade and was in a very picturesque setting.

Lubeck and Legoland

After a brief stopover in the Netherlands (great site at Zevenhuizen) we headed East and stayed at a large camp site near Bad Segeberg which is by a lake. We decided on a rest day and opted for a stroll around the lake which was quite beautiful with its mixture of woodland. 

Calm waters

And colourful yacht club

As we noticed when we were in Denmark in 2009 some of the graveyards are more like botanical gardens.

We selected the site as it is close to Lubeck which we visited on the cruise to Norway (see July 2012 blog). The SW Holstentor gate is still standing despite the laws of gravity.

Clearly the towers were moving during construction. The conical top appears to have been set out separately during construction and a new “vertical” used to the main tower.

We wondered around and refreshed our memory of many of the sites. Old Lubeck is a large island in the  middle of a river. Residents were clearly religious with a choice of six large churches. We visited St Mary’s which adjoins the main square. It is painted throughout but the main attraction for me was a large clock which told the time, moon status and relationship to the various signs of the zodiac. It has similarities to the clock in Rostock (see August 201 blog) but somewhat bizarrely was designed for 169 years (1911 to 2080). Nonetheless it is very attractive.

Lubeck is largely constructed of brick and many of the buildings have been rebuilt following various wars and possibly a lack of maintenance as this was part of the communist block for many years.

The place buzzes and as we walked along the river we came across a barge that was the centre for all sorts of attractions including this walking the tightrope competition.

However, the main point of the visit was for marzipan cake. Although there were many other choices it is marzipan that is famously made here by the tonne.

We had a great lunch and then of course had to take a slice or two back to site where just serving the cake had its rewards.

The largest driver for this this part of the world was to visit Legoland. Helen had bemoaned her lot when we did not visit in 2009 (“Jo and I would not let her go”). So after six years of carrying on it was time to get this off the bucket list. A 2.5 hour drive was immediately rewarded with some wonderful entertainment by these five youngsters.

The more mature were also greeted. This guy just snored and snored.

Millions of Lego bricks have been used with years of work. Various scales apply. Here the animals were about half size.

Whereas many of the towns modelled were a slightly smaller scale. They need to do a bit more work on scaling the duck.

Apart from the various models of famous buildings/streetscapes world wide there is an enormous amount of work undertaken by Bonsai specialists. Although the people are the standard Lego size and may not fit into the cars the trees have been carefully manicured so that they are scaled to marry with the buildings.

There were many moving vehicles (trains, boats and planes as well as trucks). Here a boat is going through a lock where the water does rise and fall.

Next is the well known canal frontage to Copenhagen.

This model of Reichsburg castle in Cochem on the Moselle caught our eye as it is where we ate a hearty medieval feast with Sue and Martin back in August 2014.

Not that all models are of real places. There were a series of Star War scenes. No description needed here although some avid watchers may want to argue that this is real.

There were also many other rises and attractions. We did go on one of the roller coasters.

The haunted house was also fun. Turning on a torch and pointing it at small blue ghosts enabled a variety of models to move and ghoulish sounds to resonate. One of the most challenging attractions was the maze. With the low light and our slightly less than peak eye sight we found differentiating between mirror and open space quite a challenge. If it was not for youngsters bounding past us we may have been stuck forever and become a new ghoulish scene.



Ely and Cambridge

Neither of us had visited Cambridge previously so we decided to spend a few days here en-route to the continent. We had read about Ely cathedral so this was our first point of call viewed from the adjoining gardens.

The octagonal tower is quite unusual so a closer inspection was required.

Upon entering the cathedral the floor starts with a maze. If you were to follow the maze (which I couldn’t as all these visitors kept blocking my path and giving me strange looks) its length is same as the roof.

You are allowed to climb the tower with the help of a guide. Part way up requires crossing an open roof with spectacular views of the surrounding country side as well as a pretty good view of the tower.

The tower is made from oak and the main uprights are huge weighing at almost 17 Tons each. They would have taken some 250 years to grow and as the tower is 700 years old they are coming up to their millennium. Given the tower in total weighs some 400T - I decided to take this photo slightly from the side. From the floor you can just make out that the inside of the tower is decorated with painted angels.

However, when you are in the tower and level with the angels you can see that not all are painted.

Our next day trip was to Cambridge. As we started meandering the streets we caught site of an arch into the first court of Christ’s College. There are over 30 colleges in Cambridge. They offer accommodation, libraries and many have chapels to look after the students pastoral welfare. All are immaculate.

The decoration over the passage to the second court was pristine.

While the gardener must have cut grass most summer days to maintain these lawns at their prescribed height. (No ride ons here!).

Of course going to Cambridge meant having a punt. Helen opted not to gamble on me handling the pole so we went with a professional. Here one sees the “back side of the colleges”. There are numerous bridges including one based on the Venetian Bridge of Sighs (the first of the two bridges in this shot).

Other bridges are less substantial but still attractive.

The largest chapel belongs to Kings. It is as large as the average church. Alongside is one of the accommodation blocks.

Even from across the river it is an imposing site, although the cows weren't impressed.

There is so much to photograph and see that one day and half a blog can never do the city justice. This laneway with its wonderfully regimented chimneys

Was quite a contrast to the grasshopper clock which was recently opened by John Hawkins and is opposite the above laneway.

And I confess that I do not begrudge the banks making a profit if they spend it on building and maintaining a piece of architecture as magnificent as the Lloyds Cambridge branch. Queuing is a pleasure as it give time to take in the gloriously tiled walls and glass roof.

With our continental adventure beckoning we headed off for an overnight stop at Harwich (a very basic site) prior to boarding the Harwich/Hook of Holland ferry.