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…
Royal cherubs and their castle and garden, Charlottenburg in Berlin. Who said royalty necessarily meant good taste? Ah, but cuteness is sometimes in style, sometimes not…
The Spree, Berlin’s primary central river and, like the Havel from our last post, also often the border between east and west. The image below is looking pretty much east with the TV tower at Alexanderplatz (very much East Berlin, in the day), and above looking more or less west to where the post-reunification Central Train Station was built. Also in the photo above you’ll notice eight human figures on a sign along the riverfront. These are commemorating eight individual humans killed while trying to cross from east to west in the decades when this border was so deadly. One of them was more or less exactly my age and was killed crossing with her boyfriend, who made to the west alive, during the year I myself was spending an exchange year not far from Hamburg in “the west.” Note to self, be glad of each day you wake up with a chance to help foster more joy in the world.
It’s been back in the news lately with the complicated prisoner swap several nations arranged with Russia: the bridge formerly known as Bridge of Spies. We showed it to you in an earlier post, little knowing it would soon be back in the news. Above & in the gallery below, all remaining shots of it from that lovely visit with Steve end May / early June. Also, all the remaining shots of the lake – river – canal system that we explored on our round trip from Wannsee with views to Potsdam (bottom photo in this post), under this bridge, around past Pfaueninsel and thus back to Wannsee itself on the Havel River and accompanying lakes. Back when the wall was deadly and this a heavily-fortified border, the boat trips of course were not being done, and we’d not have had this opportunity to drink our Berliner Weisse beers in loving tribute to our mother, for whom Berliner Weisse was the only beer she ever even considered drinking.Â
It’s been back in the news lately with the complicated prisoner swap several nations arranged with Russia: the bridge formerly known as Bridge of Spies. We showed it to you in an earlier post, little knowing it would soon be back in the news. Above & in the gallery below, all remaining shots of it from that lovely visit with Steve end May / early June. Also, all the remaining shots of the lake – river – canal system that we explored on our round trip from Wannsee with views to Potsdam (bottom photo in this post), under this bridge, around past Pfaueninsel and thus back to Wannsee itself on the Havel River and accompanying lakes. Back when the wall was deadly and this a heavily-fortified border, the boat trips of course were not being done, and we’d not have had this opportunity to drink our Berliner Weisse beers in loving tribute to our mother, for whom Berliner Weisse was the only beer she ever even considered drinking.Â
(so much world, so little time....) 