Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden
Our hotel is located in what
used to be East Berlin, in a section of town called Mitte (Middle). Before communism, this part of town was the
booming commercial centre of all of Berlin.
Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disparities between
East and West Berlin have pretty much disappeared.
The Brandenburg Gate stands in what was East Berlin, directly
behind the Wall. Walking through the
gate was something of an experience.
The wide tree-lined street of Unter den Linden (Under the Linden trees)
was awe-inspiring. Who could have
guessed that the talk of the town would be the nearby hotel, where Michael
Jackson had dangled his baby from the balcony?
The city is currently undergoing a lot of renovation and
reconstruction. The cathedrals and
other historical monuments of East Berlin had sadly fallen into disrepair. The German Cathedral (above) is one of the
buildings recently cleaned and renovated to its original glory. The French Cathedral, an identical structure
directly across from the German one, is still under scaffolding.
Construction cranes are a common sight all around the city. Here, directly across from the university, a
memorial is being built to commemorate all the books that were burned during
the communist regime. The completed
monument will incorporate massive bookshelves standing empty to symbolize the
irrecoverable loss.
There are rare sections of the original Berlin Wall left in some
parts of town. In a few years, even
these parts might be gone as more and more people claim back the land that was
once theirs. Above is a section that
used to face East Berlin. The murals
are a lot more colourful than the West because they have only recently been
permitted to “decorate” the wall. All
over the rest of Berlin, the only reminder of the wall that once surrounded
West Berlin is two rows of bricks in the ground where the wall once stood.
A visit to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum was very touching. This was the checkpoint between the American
and Soviet sectors of the city, hence the American soldier signifying the
entrance into the American sector.
(There is a Soviet soldier on the flipside of the billboard.) Inside the museum, photos, articles, and
other relics chronicle the daring escape of some East Berliners. Hot-air balloons, self-fashioned flight
machines, and underground tunnels were just some of the methods people employed
to reunite with their families or to seek a better life.
Schloss Cecilienhof, in Potsdam, is the famous site where the
heads of the Allied forces signed their treaty splitting up the city. Stalin got the better deal, as both Atlee
and Truman were not as strong negotiators and had not the suave yet aggressive
personalities of their predecessors Churchill and Roosevelt. The castle has the feel of a house in the
English countryside. Inside, some of
the original furniture from the Potsdam conference remains.
A few hours outside Berlin is Dresden, nicknamed the “Florence on the Elbe.” Much of the architectural style indeed conjures the Italian Renaissance, with long, expansive murals lining the lanes. Here, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch of bratwurst and pommes frites by the river before heading toward Prague.
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