Hard to believe that we are back in Germany after travelling so many kilometres (now approaching 14,000). We left The Netherlands and had a big day's drive to Hamburg in the north of the country. The countryside was quite different to southern Germany - no quaint villages with church spires, and the rolling hills and fields weren't the same lush green. This area of Germany was more sprawling hills of broadacre farming.
Hamburg, Germany's leading port city, was alive with development. Our most exciting stop was at Miniatur Wunderland - an incredibly extensive minature world. It is built around 12 km of model train tracks and the different sections represent many locations around the world. There are over 890 model trains, 14,000 carriages, 200,000 tiny people and 215,000 trees in the display.
We were all overwhelmed by the intricate attention to detail - traffic lights and vehicle indicator lights worked, vehicles moved on complex road plans, planes taxied down the runway and took off and landed, and every 15 minutes day turned to night and over 300,000 little lights came on. There were many exclamations of "Look at that" and "Have you seen this?"
Berlin
Our first day in Berlin was spent very productively visiting the Berlin Zoo. Wow ... what fun. We saw elephants, rhinos, hippos, lions, tigers, panthers, jaguars, brown bears, black bears, polar bears, gorillas, chimpanzees, orang-utans, wolves, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, antelopes, penguins, seals and so the list goes on.
The zoo has the largest number of species in the world, however we realised as we were leaving that we had not seen any Australian animals except for a few birds. We all felt invigorated by our day with the animals - Ellie kept saying, "I can't believe that they are actually REAL."
Although the city of Berlin is a relatively young city it has an incredibly interesting history. A four hour walking tour (which stretched to six hours) was wonderful as we trekked around the city centre learning about its history from the mid 1700's until 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. We visited many sites including the Reichstag (parliament building), Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Mahnmal (a Jewish memorial), Hitler's bunker where he spent his last hours, and numerous city squares including one at the Humboldt University which was the site of the "book burning" by the Nazis. The Brandenburg Gate was impressive and the Jewish Mahnmal was very effective with its 2,711 grey concrete columns of differing height.
We met up with Claire (Vid's sister) and Dave who were planning to spend a couple of nights with us in our spalatial home on wheels but declined as Claire was feeling a little unwell. Fortunately though we still spent a great day exploring with them.
The Mauermuseum had a fascinating exhibition on the history of the Berlin Wall including many stories from those that had escaped and the escape helpers. It was established in 1962 right beside Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin and was a known meeting site of escape helpers. Between the wall's erection in 1961 and its fall in 1989, more than 5000 people escaped across, over and under the wall.
Over the course of time the aids and methods they used to overcome the increasingly perfected GDR (East Berlin) border security system became more and more inventive - the museum's collection includes many of the original items. It didn't feel quite real that all these stories happened so recently in history.
After lunch we walked through the enormous wooded parklands of the Tiergarten to the Siegessaule - a massive column with an 8.3 m, 35 ton, gilded Goddess of Victory standing on top. The Siegessaule was built around 1870 to commemorate the Prussian (of which Berlin was the capital) victory in the Prusso-Danish war of 1864. We climbed the hundreds of spiraling steps to the observatory platform at the top, which rewarded us with excellent views of Berlin.
Spreewald
The Spreewald (Spree Forest) lies just south of Berlin on the way to Dresden. It is a picturesque area of wooded forests and narrow canals feeding from the meandering Spree River. Our highlight was a canoe paddle around the many canals near Lubbenau.
We paddled along at a reasonably leisurely rate until the splashing of raindrops rapidly increased our pace ... alas, too little, too late. We tried to take cover from the brief torrential downpour but could only sit in the middle of the narrow canal and laugh.
Dresden
Shortly before the end of World War II, the Allied forces bombed and consequently incinerated much of the old baroque city centre of Dresden. Fortunately many of the buildings have been rebuilt including the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) where 8,500 of the original blackened stones were categorised and have been reused in the rebuilding. Its beautiful baroque style inside was highlighted by the enormous majestic 12,000 tonne dome.
We walked along The Procession of the Princes, a 100 metre long mural decorating a wall depicting rulers of Germany since 1127. Over 90 people are portrayed through the use of 25,000 ceramic tiles. It was a fabulous masterpiece and little did we know that it was a pre-cursor to what we would see at the Green Vault Museum.
The Green Vault Museum was absolutely extraordinary with its incredible collection of treasures. There were more than 1,000 priceless and beautiful objects. Gold, silver, jemstones, ivory, ebony, stones, wood, rock crystals, glass, bronze and other beautiful materials have been used to create some amazing artpieces. The highlights were seeing the worlds only green diamond (caused by natural radioactivity), an enormous sailing frigate carved from ivory, and a tiny cherry stone that was carved with 185 faces. This treasure chamber was absolutely overwhelming. Unfortunately we have no photos as cameras were not allowed, so we are hoping the memories will remain vivid.
On our last full day we had a quick stop at Wurzburg to soak in, for one last time, a beautiful old city surrounded by castles and acres of vineyards.
It is now time to fly home from Frankfurt. We have had the most amazing adventure and cannot believe how many great sights we have seen. We are definitely feeling richer from the experience although after three months abroad, we are looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone. There is no place like Australia.
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