Germany higlights
I won't say much about the food other than I concentrated on regional German cuisine and drank lots of bier and ate lots of wurst.
After getting out of FRA customs, I took the shuttle bus to the main rail station. Just in time to buy a ticket and take the 8 am train to Köln arriving at 10am with stops in Mainz, Koblenz and Bonn. Quite a nice trip along the banks of the Rhein.
Went to the tourist office at Köln and they booked me a room at the Mercure for DM 99/nt. The room is quite big a good for the rate but no in-room beverage facilites other than a mini bar. Rate included a breakfast buffet which included hot food.
Went to see the cathedral, and spent too much time at the P. Josef Früh brauhaus in the shadows of the cathedral which has a very nice beer (Kolsch being a Köln beer).
On the second day, went to Aachen for the day to look at the Rathaus and it's Holy Roman Empire exhibit (Charlemagne/Karl der Grösse crowned himself here as did 31 other Holy Roman Emperors), the Cathedral with his throne and the cathedral treasury with even more relics (including his bones).
Third day, I checked out and took a train to Trier to look at the Roman ruins there. The train went down an old and obscure rail line which has some back country stations and switch houses that had gothic scripted-signs unlike sans serif scripts used elsewhere. First chilling reminder of the Third Reich.. Stashed my bags in a locker and walked into the town to see the Porta Negra which is an old gate that was converted into a church (it's that big) before Napoleon restored it. Also saw the remains of 2 huge baths and a 3rd one under the marketplace, as well as an impressive amphitheatre which is probably close to the size of the Coliseum in Rome but built from natural earth. Seems that there are weekend gladiatorial combat demonstrations put on there on summer weekends. There is also the banqueting hall of a Roman palace which is the sole surivor (the rest had been demolished). It's now used as the city cathedral and is huge which gives you an indication of the palace's size. Trier itself is also known for the birthplace of Karl Marx and I passed by his place of birth.
German trains are not always ontime
Went back to the train station and waited for my train. One pulled into the platform just before the scheduled departure of my train back to Köln so I got on. When I saw that everyone else was waiting, I looked at the ontime timetable and realised it was the wrong train, but too late. It started moving. This train was an hour late getting into Trier from Saarbrück but the upside was that it'd end up in Köln. Trip was uneventful and it was nice going down the Moselle valley. Train stopped at Koblenz and after much delay, an announcement was made in German only. Went to another compartment and found someone who spoke english who told me the train was delayed and we had been advised to take another train from another platform. This train was running late too but got me into Köln only a few minutes after my original train. Had enough time to go get yet another beer at Früh brauhaus.
Get to Köln platform 1 after a final Früh Kolsch to take the night train to Berlin. Train arrives at around 2200 and I board. My carriage is a double decker sleeper with double bunks on both the lower and upper levels (accessed from a single side corridor). Room is small and cosy. No room for anything bigger than a carryon. Comes equipped with a hideable sink and 2 lockers. Attendant puts my backpack in a locker and gives me a ticket for breakfast in the breakfast car. Check out the car and see that it has a rather big shower room with hair/body shampoo and soap supplied. Toilets are also aircraft-style and uses a vacuum (instead of dumping it on the track). When I got into my cabin, the attendant told me that I would have a roomie for that night. So I tried not to sleep so I didn't get woken up. He lied. No one else showed up as the train stopped at other northen Rhein cities and made its way across Germany via Hanover and Madgeburg.
Wake up shortly before 0600 and go to the breakfast car which is arranged for 5 4-seat booths and 5 2-seat tables. Breakfast is coffee, butter, jam and a croissant. Light but it will do. Passed by a sleeping seat car where a normal 6 pax compartment has 4 bunk beds. Seems this night train's sleeper wagon is mainly there for the German federal civil service as there were few users.
Berlin and the Hilton
Travelweb had a weekend special but I think I booked online for a rate of DM 173 a night. Was thinking of the Westin Grand but decided to save DM 96 a night as I would be here for 3 nights. Get to the hotel on Mohrenstraß (Moor Street) just after 8 and leave my bags. The hotel was built after the wall came down and was one of the first new hotels in the former East (or it's location, centre city) location. Walked over to the Brandenburg Gate, saw the Reichstag from the outside before walking outside the space that used to be occupied by Hitler's Chancellery (soon to be the home of a a memorial/museum to Jewish victims), the Potsdamer Platz and visited the fancy construction cabin that shows what is being built (lots of construction). Walked by the lot that has the remains of the Gestapo's building basement and the new home of the Ministry of Finance which was built as Hermann Göring's Air Ministry building and survived the bombing.
Went pass where Checkpoint Charlie used to be and you'd be hardpressed to know it was there except for the private museums.
Went back to the hotel and got a room on the 4th floor. No amenities (thought I was a Silver VIP member courtesy of US élite membership but came back to find a Gold membership package and card) but did see robes and slippers. Room also had tea/coffee/hot chocolate and a kettle. No ironing board. The bathroom did have soap, shampoo and moisturiser and came with a hair dryer too. I have to say the concept of air conditioning in Germany doesn't work well here and at the Weimar Hilton (more later). What made it a bit more difficult is that the only blankets are quilts/comforters (nice if it was cool).
Visited the Ethographic museum, an exhibit on print and media, the Pergammon museum, the Antiquities museum, the Berlin Cathedral (the crypt containing the coffins and sarcophagii of many of the Hohenzollern clan is particularly spooky), the Picture gallery, the Egyptian museum and the otherside of the Charlottenburg palace. Didn't have time to take in the Berlin Guggenheim or the various Prussian things in Potsdam or the Luftwaffe museum next to one of the airports (not Tegel or Templehof). None of the major symphonies were playing so I settled for a concert by the RAIS orchestra (a series of youth orchestras were playing) at the Philharmonic hall (the Hilton is at one end of the platz which has the hall sited between two small cathedrals).
Left early Monday for Weimar taking a train from the Zoo station (it's the main station for Berlin despite having only 4 platforms for trains other than the S-bahn as a result of the old Altbahnhof being bombed). Train goes through Brandenburg and Thuringen before getting into Weimar just after 1pm. Got a 24-hr transit pass for DM 6 and went to the town first. Had the local beer and a lunch of local Thuringen bratwurst with sauerkraut (a lot nicer than in the U.S.) before heading to the Hilton in the southern outskirts.
[b[Weimar Hilton[/b]
The Weimar Hilton has a summer rate of DM 174 a night. The hotel is quite nice and was built by the DDR government just before reunification. A tray of chocolates were in the room but I am not sure if this was a special amenity. The room was similarly finished as the Berlin Hilton. Where I left ripped off was when I went back to the railway station to check out how to get to my next stop. Went pass the tourism office where I saw the rates hotels were offering that night and the Hilton was offering DM 169 including breakfast! They wouldn't give me this rate when I got back and asked them.
Walked around the town which, while bombed (it had a big hall built by the Nazis), is mostly untouched and is very pleasant to hang out in. There's a lot of cultural history and culture here if you choose to find it. A local duke of Saxe+ 2 other towns invited Goethe to be his counsel. Goethe also had Schiller move here. Liszt spent the last years of his life here and back spent more than a decade here. One of the dowager duchesses built a palace and it is not a rather nice art gallery. The chilling reminder of the Third Reich in this town is the Elephant hotel which had Hitler as one of its guests as well as the Buchenwald concentration camp (vs. extermination camp) just outside the town..
Moved on to Nürnberg via Naumburg. Should have visited this intermediary town as I had a 1 ½ hr waitr inbetween trains. Arrived at Nürnberg where the local tourism office booked (for free instead of DM5 as in Köln and Frankfurt) me into the Hotel Fackelmann which is just outside the city walls on the south side. Walked there and then stopped to see a sign right outside the hotel telling me that a synagogue destroyed on crystalnacht once stood on the site.
Went inside where this nice chatty frau checked me in. The room was a roof one with a gable window. Small and plain but nice and adequate for DM80 + breakfast and my own bathroom. Walked into the city to sample the local beer (leading brewery is Tucher) and had a nice dinner of Nürnberger bratwurst and brezln. Walked through the old town that night seeing the many nice streets and old houses (the 8% that survived allied bombing).
The next morning, I bought a 2 day culture pass which included admission to almost all the museums and transport and took a train out to the Stadion stop which has the Zeppelin feld arena. This is the place where the Nazi rallies were held and seen in the movLeni Reifenstahl filmed in the Triumph of Will. The thing still stands and there is a museum in the hall. The stadium is not that big but looks huge (field is about 3 football fields long wide and 4 long). It was modelled after the Pergammon altar in Berlin but it's been partially demolished in 1967. There is even a larger but incomplete arena that was very partially built that was to be almost 1 km long. Other things include a huge stadium like the hippodrome in Rome, and huge congress hall that looked likes the Coliseum but used as a storage facility by the city today, and a
Other highlights in the city included the German Nationl museum, the castle, 3 cathedrals (one with a glockenspiel), the altstadt, the rathaus's torture dungeon and the Tucher family mansion. Also of interest is the Deutsche Bundesbahn museum which outlines the development of rail in Germany and has several locomotives and carriages. The coolest job in the world must be in there - running the huge model railway layout for the entertainment of children.
This is the end of my visit so I go to the station to wait for the ICE train, named Gerhard Mercator (after the geographer and cartologist?) to Frankfurt. Disappointment prevails when the train pulls up, and instead of being a new air-con ICE, turns out to be a "ersatz zug" which has old non-a/c DB carriages. Travel time is the same but where is the comfort?
Get to Frankfurt where the tourism office books me into the Pension Backer some 15 mins from the station. Made the mistake of walking through the district full of sex shops and drug-addicted hookers. Good thing it was daylight. The pension is nice and clean but they wanted DM 60 a night inc. a very simple breakfast (the one at the Fackelmann was much better) and you had to pay DM 3 for a shower!
[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 08-21-2000).]