Got this magazine on SQ, I couldn't understand the greenman on top of some gate, not until the last day of my trip.
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Seen from plane window, before landing in Munich, in misty condition.
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9. Wanted to send this picture to National Geographic, and titled the picture: Thd devil that fed our greed!
10.I still dont understand why the meal napkin provided by Lufthansa has this home security message printed on this packet??
11. One word for Germany: neat.
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16. The hotel that I stayed in. It was facing the city gate.
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18. The City gate opposite the hotel.
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20a. Trams running through Nauener Tor. Potsdam used to be a city in the East Berlin. Only East Berlin has trams, as people could not afford cars.
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22. Bridge of Spiez, the movie starring Tom Hanks, featured this bridge.
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24. Beautiful cherry blossom in Potsdam! Its April and the flowers were in full bloom.
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30. Pedestrian street in Potsdam.
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34. It was a race against time to walk to Museum Barberini before sunset.
35. It is purple time!
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40. Tulips come on all colours to welcome spring!
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49. Sun still have not set at around 730pm.
50. Morning view from the hotel window.
51. This lake (Heiliger See) was frozen in the winter. The palace opposite is Marmopalace. It was near this lake that Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin issued Potsdam Declaration in 1945 on how terms for Japanese surrender.
52. The Italian restaurant that we had lunch. Look at their knives! From the way the boss served us, you will know that the service DNA was removed in Eastern Germany during the communist time.
53. The long walk to Neues Palace in Park Sanssouci. Can you see the palace at the end?
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55. Sanssouci Palace. Sanssouci is the summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often regarded as a replica to the Versailles.
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57. They love gold.
58. Neues Palais. The New Palace (Neues Palais) is situated on the western side of the Sanssouci park. The building was begun in 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War, under King Friedrich II (Frederick the Great) and was completed in 1769. It is considered to be the last great Prussian Baroque palace.
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60. The university is now elsewhere.
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64. While everyone was still asleep at 6am, I sneaked out and walked to the lakes.
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66. The energy of the morning.
67. Flatow Tower in Babelsberg.
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69. Bridge of Spiez from the castle side.
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72.Babelsberg Castle. Babelsberg Palace (Schloss Babelsberg) was the summer residence of Prince William, later Emperor William I and his wife for 50 years. Now a UNESCO heritage site.
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V1: The morning near bridge of Spiez, where the birds were singing.
77. They REALLY love gold.
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82. The sign on the boat said: Its for sale.
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85. We saw this building next to Heiliger See in picture no.51. Its Marmopalace. I saw people swimming in this lake. #cold
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89. We saw Museum Barberini again.
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Guided trip to Berlin by Norbert
We engaged Norbert as our driver cum tour guide from Potsdam to Berlin. He is very knowlegeable and humorous. He used to drive Tony Blair from the airport to his hotel in midnight once when Tony Blair came to Berlin.
He told us the story of Alexandrowka, the Russian Colony. Frederick William III and the Russian Czar Alexander were close friends. To give expression to this friendship, Frederick had the Russian colony Alexandrowka built. The green spaces were designed by Peter Joseph Lenné and were meant to offer Russian singers a special atmosphere for music and leisure. Today, the entire area is part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage.
He told us Potsdam has many waterways and lakes left behind during the great ice age.
91. The Traffic light in Eastern Berlin city has different design from those in the western Berlin. The red and the green man were designed differently.
92. Berlin Olympics was held in this stadium in 1936. A train station with 10 platforms were built next to it to bring people from all nation to the stadium. Hitler wanted to use this opportunity to showcase the superiority of Aryan race. Imagine his anger when the black runners from USA (Jesse Owens) won 4 gold medals.
93. The street name was trying to remind us that this main boulevard was once the marathon route in the 1936's Olympics. In this olympics, a Korean won the gold in Marathon, representing Japan as Korea was Japan's colony that time. The marathoner, Sohn Kee-chung, used an oak tree to cover up the Japanese flag that was emblazoned across his shirt.
94. The road that brought people from Berlin to the stadium. The street lamps along this boulevard were the one installed in 1936. They escaped destruction of the war.
95. Charlottenburg Palace. The original palace was commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg in what was then the village of Lietzow. Friedrich crowned himself as King Friedrich I in Prussia in 1701 (Friedrich II, known as Frederick the Great, would later achieve the title King of Prussia). Two years previously, he had appointed Johann Friedrich von Eosander (also known as Eosander von Göthe) as the royal architect and sent him to study architectural developments in Italy and France, particularly the Palace of Versailles. On his return in 1702, Eosander began to extend the palace, starting with two side wings to enclose a large courtyard, and the main palace was extended on both sides. Sophie Charlotte died in 1705 and Friedrich named the palace and its estate Charlottenburg in her memory.
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97. There is an Orangerie next to this building, that were used to grow oranges and lemons for the palace.
98. These water pumps were life savers! Berlin has 2,107 officially registered street water fountains (mostly hand pumps) which are regularly serviced and in running order. Berlin´s Strassenbrunnen or Trinkwassernotbrunnen, even the charming well over 100-year-old “Luchhammerpumpen”, including those seemingly dozing under the slowly creeping layer of rust, play a crucial role in the life of the metropolis: they are independent emergency wells in case the regular water-supply system collapsed. When the war ended in 1945 those street pumps were a life vein for 2.8 million people.
99. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is a church built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943. The present building, which consists of a church with an attached foyer and a separate belfry with an attached chapel, was built between 1959 and 1963. The damaged spire of the old church has been retained and its ground floor has been made into a memorial hall.
The Memorial Church today is nicknamed by Berliners "der hohle Zahn", meaning "the hollow tooth".
100. Picture taken from the 6th floor of Karstadt Berlin Kurfürstendamm. This shopping centre was like the Lafayette in Paris, albeit smaller. We had lunch here.
101. The site of the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, now a carpark.
102. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
103. Soviet War Memorial Tiergarten.
103a. Victory Column, 67m-high gilded column commemorating victory in the Prussian-Danish war.
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105. The roof terrace and dome of the Reichstag Building can be visited by members of the public, and offer spectacular views of the parliamentary and government district and Berlin’s sights, but one need to register online months ahead and pray that no parliament session on going. The Reichstag dome is a glass dome, constructed on top of the rebuilt Reichstag building in Berlin. It was built to symbolize the reunification of Germany.
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107. Merkel's office. Macron was visiting at that time, to discuss on Iran Nuke's deal before he flew to USA to meet Trump. Trump subsequently withdrew from the pact.
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109. Checkpoint Charlie in the movie The Bridge of Spiez.
110. The designer of this broadcast station in Eastern Berlin was sent to Siberia - The afternoon sun cast a cross on the globe, which was deemed inappropriate. The Television Tower was constructed between 1965-69 by the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was intended to be both a symbol of Communist power and of Berlin.
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112. The double wall in Berlin.
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114. Berlin Cathedral Church.
115. Merkel's private residence.
116. Designed by IM Pei, the architech behind The Lourve in Paris.
117. Einsten saw Hitler burn books dragged out of the library here and realised that he must leave Germany.
118. The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after the (temporarily) successful restoration of order during the early Batavian Revolution. We saw this in picture no.1.
"Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" — Ronald Reagan, address at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987.
V2: Branderburg Gate.
119. The USA embassy. Flag was lowered, cos Barbara Bush passed away.
120. This was the hotel where Micheal Jackson greeted the reporters and fans by dangling his baby out of the hotel window.
121. Amplemann, the green man that I saw in picture no.1. I finally understood. The political parties in Germany are liken to the colours of traffic light: the red colour, the amber colour and the green colour all colours of parties that form the political landscape.
124. The issue of immigration continue to plague Germany. Sprayed on the wall: We are ungovernable!
Home finally, greeted by rain.
The day after we left, Berlin was a mess trying to defuse a WWII bomb (500kg) uncovered from a construction site. Streets, hospital, main train station near the bomb site were all closed to traffic. We were glad we left earlier.
Other things that Norbert told us:
1. Tegel is a very small airport, with luggage conveyor belt directly inside the gate. It is very near to the city though. It was a French airport.
2. Berlin was administered by 4 armies after WW2, the British, the French, the USA and the Russians.
3. Norbert, our guide, encouraged us to watch the Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin that make fun of Hitler.
4. On the way to Tegel airport, you will see garden huts that were rented out in the summer. These summer huts are very popular in Berlin and have to be booked way in advance. They were the jews safe hideout during WW2. The jews could not create fire in the winter when staying inside, as the smoke will attract attention.
5. There was once a Jew came to engage Norbert's service to show him around, and he has a number on his wrist. The jews were marked with number on their wrists during WW2. 6. There was another time, another Jew came to engage Norbert, and showed his addresses written on some very old postcards delivered in WW2. Norbert tried his best to locate these old buildings but the streets were all realigned and rebuilt after WW2, very little old buildings were left.
Article on Berlin and Postdam was published by Zaobao on 20 Jun 2019.
Things that I noted:
1. People there has no service DNA, especially in east Germany. They consider that it is your privilege to be served in their shops. They do the same to their own kind too.
2. Public transport in Germany is very convenient.
3. It is good to have a guide, everything comes alive with good explanation from a guide.
4. Late April is a good time to visit. Flower booms, weather was good.
5. Germany is still a cash society. Our guide cum driver only accept cash, not credit card.
6. The gate information keep changing in Tegel Airport, do check a few times before queuing. Also the terminal where you got your boarding pass, may not be the terminal where you board the flight, the two can be quite a walk. Do check terminal where the check in counters of that airline are located. Then make enquiry on the gate the flight was.
7. It is quite a scene to see the gate agent taking their own sweet time to scan the boarding pass for passengers even though the flight was already running late, and the plane taxied off when the passengers were still shuffling their luggage in the overhead compartment.
8. Sunrise very early. Do make full use of the sunrise and sunset times for better photos. Morning walk around their parks and lakes are very good exercise.
9. If there are bombs being discovered, Berlin will not hesitate to lock down the city again, do avoid flying off that day else go to airport super early.
10. Be careful when you walk on pedestrian paths, make sure you do not accidentally walk on bicycle paths, else they will tell you off.
11. The transfer between terminals in Frankfurt Airport was a stressful business, do leave ample time between transfer. You have to go through passport clearance before you can collect your ticket at the gate. If your flight is not on code share, you might miss the connecting flight. The queue at the immigration counters for foreigners were very long as there were only 2 counters were opened.
12. Wear a hat, if you don’t like the glaring sun.
13. Wear comfortable walking shoes, most of the time you are on foot.
14. Castles/palaces in Potsdam are well kept, do visit.
15. You need to book visit to the Dome well in advance.
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