My 3 weeks trip to Europe in May 2006

We left Berlin in the early morning by train to travel to Dresden. We heard that it's also known as Florence Of The Elbe river because of its Baroque architecture, a statement first used by poet Herder. After spending time in two large metropolises, Dresden seemed like a small picturesque town. Like Berlin, Dresden was going through a lot of construction. But, since it was part of Eastern Germany, the renovations have only begun during the last 15 years, the Old Town area had been left in ruins. So they still have a lot of catching up to do if they wish to restore Dresden to her former glory. Most of its beautiful historic buildings had been damaged or demolished during the Second World War.

Dresden's pride and joy, the Frauenkirche church (Church of Our Lady) was finished only last year in October. The dark bricks scattered throughout her pretty Baroque facade, which make up about a third, are original bricks that were salvaged from her ruins. It's distinctive bell shaped dome is now part of Dresden's skyline again. The doors were open to the church so we went inside to take a look around. It is truly beautiful inside, especially the gilded altar and ceiling frescoes.

In front of the Frauenkirche, in the plaza, is Martin Luther's statue. Martin Luther, a German religious reformer, who lived from 1483 - 1546, founded the Lutheran Church. He began the Reformation when he nailed 95 theses to the Catholic Wittenberg church door. They contained info on papal abuses, the sales of indulgences, etc.

Dresden also has an amazingly beautiful palace called the Zwinger. It is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture which was first built in 1710. The palace complex consists of pavilions, courtyards, galleries, staircases, fountains, etc. all surrounding a large open esplanade.

The main function of the buildings at the Zwinger has been to house museums. Today there is the Porcelain Collection, Old Masters Gallery, the Armoury, Historical Museum, and the Zoology Museum.

I visited most of the museums and you can easily spend the entire day here. The Baroque architecture was so beautiful and ornate. I took lots of close up photos of statues, stone carvings, pillars, etc.

You can freely wander the grounds but you must pay to view the many museums to see their vast collections. You can also walk on some of the gallery roofs which allows a better view of the fine detailing in the architecture. You can walk through the arches of a tower called the Crown Gate, which was the palace's official main entrance. It's topped by a golden crown being supported by golden eagles.

There are also many waterfountains and pools on the grounds os the palace. The most elaborate is the Bath Of The Nympths. The imaginative decor includes dolphins, nymphs, tritons. The water flows through a series of cascades, spouts, pools, and statues.

Just across the road from the Zwinger Palace is another beautiful building, the Semper Opera House, built in the early Italian Renaissance style. This opera house has been destroyed twice, and was finally reconstructed in 1985. The inside decor is absolutely breathtaking with its marble pillars, gilded chandeliers, ceiling frescoes, and numerous works of art along the edges of the ceiling.

Back on the streets, there is an interesting courtyard called the Stable Courtyard or Stallhof. This courtyard was formerly used for staging jousting competitions. There are still bronze pillars containing rings that the knights would have tried to hit with their lances, and a watering trough for the horses.
The open arcades are decorated with coats of arms, statues of hunting trophies like deer and ibex, and murals on the walls.

The Residenzschloss castle is the former royal residence of the royal Wettin dynasty. The castle is really a large complex of impressive Renaissance buildings grouped around three main courtyards. It's construction spanned many centuries, from 12th to the late 19th century. Reconstruction began in 1986, and today there are still a few buildings behind tarps and scaffolding. Today these buildings contain museums housing some very impressive jewellry collections, like he Green Vault.

We travelled from Hamburg to Berlin on May 16th, 2006. Berlin was a large sprawling city with a much more diverse population than Hamburg. It also had a higher unemployment rate, and more 'run down' neighborhoods. The main attractions were scattered all across the city rather than primarily contained downtown. One of the first famous landmarks we encountered when we got off the train was Kaiser Wilhelm's Memorial Church. It was never rebuilt to its former glory but left as a reminder of the Second World War.

Berlin also contained colourful figreglass figures in the streets and courtyards. Since Berlin's symbol has always been the European bear, the figures were of bears in a perpetual handstand. They were designed to raise money for Unicef and were known as Buddy Bears. This photo was taken of a pair in front of the Unicef's store in downtown Berlin.

One of the most popular tourist attractions and possibly one of the world's most famous landmarks is Brandenburg Gate, a triumphal arch, located in the Pariser Platz by Hotel Adlon. It is quite impressive, with its towering columns and Quadriga statue, goddess of peace on a chariot with four horses, on top. Inside the columns of the outer gates you will find greek statues and plaques.

About a block away is the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament, called the Bundestag. They have daily tours at the Reichstag, expect a long lineup.

If you love visiting museums, the Museum Insel or Island is the place for you. It is located between the River Spree and Kupfergraben, and was declared a World Heritage site in 2000. This island contains 5 major museums - Bode, Pergamon, Old National Gallery (Alte Nationalgalerie), New Museum (Neues Museum), and Old Museum (Altes Museum).

Currently the Bode and Neues Museum are closed for renovations. In 1999, a master plan was decided in renovating all the buildings and reuniting and reorganizing collections that had been divided after the Second World War. They hope to have everything completed by 2010.

You can easily spend several days exploring all the museums. Luckily, you can buy a pass that allows you to visit all the museums. The highlight of my visit there was seeing Queen Nefertiti's bust at the Egyptian exhibit. She's so famous she gets a whole viewing room to herself.

Another great attraction is the famous street Unter den Linden (Under the Lindens) located in the heart of Berlin, right by the Brandenburg Gate which marks the western end of the street. The eastern end is at the Schlossbrucke by the Museum Island. Unter den Linden contains many beautiful historic buildings and attractions. Here is where you will find Berlin State Opera house, the Arsenal which is now the German Historical Museum, the Humbolt university campus, the Neue Wache (New Watchhouse), St Hedwig's Catholic Cathedral, and the statue of Frederick the Great.

If you love shopping, then you need to visit this enormous department store, Kaufhaus des Westens or KaDeWe for short. It is the largest in continental Europe, over 60,000 square metres of retail space, 6 floors high, and thousands of shoppers visiting it every day. It reminds me of Harrod's department store in London. It sells everything from fragrance to jewellry to clothing to food, and most of it top quality and a wide selection to choose from.

A two nights stay in Berlin only gives you a taste of what the city has to offer. I definitely would like to come back again in the near future and spend at least a week exploring Berlin.

After a ten hour flight from Vancouver, BC, Canada on May 11, 2006, I was so happy to land in Frankfurt, Germany. Instead of transfering to another plane to continue on to Hamburg, I chose to complete my journey via rail. I was going to take an ICE train, a journey that would take about three and a half hours. Not only did I want to see the countryside and but I wanted room to stretch my legs. Since it was a sunny day, I was not disappointed. I had purchased a first class EuroRail pass which was good for 7 days of travel. It was such a nice change to sit in a roomy compartment after being in economy class. I was able to see the subtle changes of the countryside as we travelled north-east across the country. I was also able to find out what these strange tall white structures that were scattered across the countryside that I saw from the window of my plane. Wind turbines, and some were absolutely huge. We don't have these in Vancouver.
I saw a lot of charming small villages, farms, fields, pockets of forests, etc. The train only made about seven stops on the way to Hamburg and since it was in the early afternoon and middle of the week, the train was less than half full. I finally arrived in Hamburg by about 5 p.m. Even after drinking two strong cups of coffee on the train (served by very attentive train personnel to my seat) I was still feeling very tired. My father was born in Hamburg and had immigrated to Canada in his twenties so his family is still here. I would be staying at my cousin's house in the suburbs. My mother, brother and his girlfriend had all arrived here earlier, mainly because they were not limited to only 3 weeks of holidays. I had only been with my present employer, Global BC, a local television station, for about 2 years.

The following day, we began our first exploration of Hamburg. Most of the local attractions are downtown. World Cup fever is everywhere. Billboards, posters, shop windows, etc. all advertising this major event. Hamburg built a brand new stadium just for that. This city has some major shopping districts, especially Monkebergstrasse near the city hall and main trainstation. We noticed these colourful fibreglass figures on street corners or armies of them in the middle of streets and plazas. They were created to raise money for charity. They were based on a local legend, Hans Hummel, a watercarrier who had lived here about a hundred years ago.

I love the pedestrian streets where you have cafes and restaurants with seating outdoors. They serve some wonderful cakes and coffee, and what I noticed was the icecream sundaes seem to be very popular here. We had lunch one day at the Alsterpavillion which is in the downtown area, right by the Inner Alster lake. We had some great tasting fish and chips, with some local beer. I was starting to get used to have beer with both my lunch and dinner everyday.

Hamburg is a large port city. The main harbour is linked to lots of cannals and side channels. We decided to take a one hour boat tour of the harbour one day. It was a lot of fun, the captain had a great sense of humour, and laughed about his own jokes. He took the boat right up close to some of the cargoships, and went down some cannals in the Warehouse district.

The Warehouse district or Speicherstadt (Warehouse City) is one of the major tourist attractions in Hamburg. It is characterized by its red brick, copper roofs which have turned green over time, and small towers.

This district opened up in 1888 afer replacing residental working class buildings, and at that time was one of the world's largest warehouse complex. All warehouses were accessible via the canals and streets, and contained cargo items such as coffee, spices, tea, cocoa, rubber, silk, etc. Today a lot of these spaces are used for museums like the German Customs Museum, Minature Wonderland, and the Hamburg Dungeon.

One great place to visit is Hamburg's Rathaus or City Hall. They have guided english tours there and we were lucky to arrive just in time one Monday morning. The outside North German neo-Renaissance facade is quite elaborate and resembles a Venetian building. It was originally blown up in 1842 to contain the Great Fire, and rebuilt in 1897. Two main governing bodies work from here, the City Parliament and the Senate. We were able to view the assembly room, banquet halls, etc. It was incredibly elaborate inside, with marble columns and stairways, ceiling murals, rich wood decor, etc. The City Hall contains about 647 rooms but we were only allowed to view about 10 of them.

Behind Hamburg's City Hall is an enclosed courtyard where you can find the impressive waterfountain, Well of Hygieia. And, in front of the City Hall is a spacious plaza called Rathausmarkt which was re-created to look like the famous St Mark's Square in Venice.