These are some of the places and experiences that come to mind:
-- Gendarmenmarkt Platz, considered the most beautiful public square in Berlin. I shot the photo from a window in my cousin's apartment, which overlooks the Square.
Two identical churches -- the French Church and the German Church -- flank the square. The Prussian king built the French Church for the French Protestant refugees of France. And he housed an elite corps of soldiers in the middle building above. There were free summer street performances by good musicans, mostly classical, the whole summer. Lovely to open the windows and hear it pour in.-- Walking past the massive buildings of Humbolt University, especially the large plaza where the Nazi-inspired students infamously burned books in 1933.
There's a memorial here to the event that is simple but striking: an unmarked rectangle of plexiglass placed in the middle of the square. When you look down through it, you see an empty chamber lined with book shelves, all in white. The shelves look vaguely like bunk beds. Nearby, a bronze plaque, also laid into the stone plaza, quotes the famous German Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine: Those who first burn books will end up burning people.
-- the Tiergarten, a massive green lung in the middle of the city,filled with waterways, trees, walking paths and a couple of lovely restaurants.
We went there with my cousin's family and his wife's cousin's family, four small kids. That's young Tamar -- Israeli/German --on the left; and the Swiss Sammy in the middle and Nora on the right. Little Raz, Tamar's younger brother, is just outside the shot.
-- The small monument, in a dusty park near the Holocaust Memorial, to the gay victims of Nazi terror. A granite block, unadorned, with a hole in one side in which you can view a video of two men kissing.
-- The small Monbijou Bridge over the River Spree that Beth and I crossed twice a day when we went to visit my cousin. The light, obviously, caught my eye.
And here's the view looking the other way while crossing the bridge a few hours later. The space needle in the distant is one of the tallest buildings in Europe, a TV tower built by the East Germans years ago as their way of trying to keep up with the West.
-- The Topography of Terror. A stark, minimalist museum build on the city blocks where once stood the offices of the SS and Gestapo.
They were bombed to smithereens during the War and never rebuilt. The longest extant section of the Berlin Wall -- more than 100 yards long -- runs along one side, complete with neighboring trench, kill zone and razor wire. The square museum with glass walls sits nearby, the area around filled only with gravel, no living thing. Inside, you move chronologically through the 13 years of Nazi domination, the stories told with big blown up photos, sample documents and clear, bloody detail. It's immensely sobering.
-- Wannsee. The site of the secret Nazi conference to plan the extermination of Europe's Jews is also the city's most popular summer swimming area. It's a lovely lake on the western edge of Berlin. Beth and I went via tram, a 40 minute ride.
Then a 15 minute walk along an asphalt trail through pine and maple forest. The one wrinkle in the whole experience was a scary encounter with a couple of amulatory German biker along the entrance path. They were hanging out at a small café along the path. Take a peak at the two guys in biker outfits at the closer table with the yellow umbrella. After I took the shot -- I tried to pretend that I was just checking email when I took the photo -- the guy on the left strides up to me and says, in German, are you taking photos? I said no, in German. He said nothing for a second, then something like, are there photos on that thing? I blustered, "Excuse me??" And he went off. But it was creepy, and I got Beth and me moving as soon as she came with our coffees.
We emerged onto a wonderful, orderly beach front. No litter! No yelling and screaming, even though lots of folks were drinking beers and more.
And at one end of the beach, the nudist section.
(Yes, I did indeed. Nothing beats skinny dipping in the company of scores of middle aged men and women, right next to the clothed folks.)
-- A lovely restaurant near my cousin Gilad's office. It's located in an inner courtyard, typical for Berlin because the street-facing sides of building are allowed to have gaps between.
Gilad took Beth and me there for lunch yesterday. The food was good; the conversation better.
-- Ending on a high note: Beth and I otherwise have felt completely safe in the city in a way which I didn't elsewhere. The city is very large, but the super-efficient and widespread transit system knits it all together. There's much less graffiti; the city feels full of life and art. We look forward muchly to coming back.
