Looking south along a connecting canal for the Wester river, towards the ridge of hills the river goes through at Porta Westfallica…a thing one learns traveling by train while looking at a map…
July 5, 2025 in Minden, Germany. A train re-routing due to track problems allowed me half an hour to walk around this mid-sized city en route between Berlin and Amsterdam, thus having the chance to appreciate how many more cultural and free-time activities might be available in such a city than when, say, I myself first spent time in Germany back in 1980. A further joy that day: my arrival in Amsterdam was still on time; nay, one minute early.
A foot bridge along the Panke River in northern Berlin, as seen after a bit of a rainstorm (note the stranded scooter washed downstream) in July. More pedestrian infrastructure! 🙂
Last photos from my Steve-guided Berlin visit in late May, because I love what this particular building represents, as he tells the story. Basically, when the wall came down and as the divided Germany became reunited, one major trend was the ready and easy dismissal of all things that had happened – and all buildings that had been built – during the 41 years (minus four days) of the official existence of the German Democratic Republic as not worthy of continued existence. On this spot had once been, pre-WWII, an actual royal palace in which humans who self-identified as royal had lived. Cutting through a few phases, let’s just say by the 1970s there was a new building here called the Palace of the Republic, which in a turnabout-is-fair-play move the reunited Berlin state & city government in the newly-enlarged-through-reunification Federal Republic of Germany decided had to go because, well, history moving on and all.
So after much debate – this piece of ground has seen much debate in the past century! – the city’s planners and tourist magnates decided that a rebuilt royal palace which looks from the outside like the old one, but which inside is a cultural forum calling itself the Humboldt Forum would be just the thing. It opened in 2020, so don’t let its grand looks fool you into thinking your looking at an actual old building – for that, check out A’dam’s “relatively new” Westerkerk a few posts ago! 🙂
I suspect there’s some tourist-sector envy of Buckingham and the throngs there to watch the changing of the guard, myself. But draw your own conclusions. Tip if you visit: excellent bathrooms in the basement that one didn’t have to pay for, when I myself was doing this walk with Steve at least :-).
For his birthday, a dream catcher we discovered during Steve’s and my explorations in Berlin a few months ago. May all his (and your) dreams come true in the year ahead 🙂
Last of the ‘City Lights’ images left from that first 2024 Berlin visit with Steve, already three months ago. Someone please explain where the time goes…
Certainly from a Dutch perspective, we can call that a mountain. All seen from the train between A’dam and Berlin when I returned in early July for a week of work. What I didn’t manage to photograph b/c it went by too fast and I wasn’t paying attention was a remarkable mountaintop memorial to Emperor Wilhlem in the interestingly-named Lower Saxony town of Porta Westfalica. I simply must get off the train there, some day…
(so much world, so little time....) 