Tag Archives: Germany

Nov 23 2018
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Daily Post, Interior

Munich Bierkeller

Thursday 22nd November 2018, 3.30pm (day 2,646)

Munich Bierkeller, 22/11/18

And so off I go to Germany for the second time this year, after Berlin in August. Munich was not my final destination, but I passed through this afternoon while changing from plane to train. It seemed appropriate that my best chance to take a representative picture came in this beer hall, for after all, that is probably the city’s most famous product. However, being honest, I don’t particularly like Munich — a couple of previous visits have suggested to me that the place is rather overrated, I just don’t find it a very interesting or exciting city. Anyway — that’s why I was just passing through.

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Aug 24 2018
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

The Garden of Exile

Friday 24th August 2018, 11.50am (day 2,556)

Garden of Exile, 24/8/18

The building which houses the Jewish Museum in Berlin is one of the most brilliant pieces of architecture I have ever experienced. Even if it were empty of exhibits — and at the moment, due to a renovation, it nearly is — it would make you think. There are these great vertical voids throughout the building, including the ‘Holocaust Tower’, a vast blank space illuminated only by a sliver of light coming in through the top. Another is covered with these metal sculpted faces, representing the innocent dead, that you must walk across in order to traverse the space. Then there is this garden, the ‘Garden of Exile’ — its plants placed high up on these stone pillars. Walking around it, other people appear and disappear randomly from view. This is architecture of genius, and well worth visiting. Though don’t expect to come out of it feeling any happier about the world — except, perhaps, that it has been built in Berlin. That fact alone gives me some hope.

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Aug 24 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

By the wall

Thursday 23rd August 2018, 12.20pm (day 2,555)

East Side Gallery, 23/9/18Some parts of the old Berlin Wall remain in the city. Probably they could have been demolished back in 1990 but the authorities realised — correctly — that they were valuable as memorials and/or tourist attractions. Or, as in the case of the East Side Gallery, which runs beside the Spree for about a kilometer near the Ostbahnhof, an art installation; this long line of concrete has been decorated by a range of murals, including this one of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, who seems to disdain the busker beside him, playing as he is on a load of old water pipes, or something.

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Aug 23 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

It’s the Wurst

Wednesday 22nd August 2018, 5.50pm (day 2,554)

Wurst stand, 22/8/18

The next burst of summer holiday is taking place in Berlin, where Clare and I travelled today. We didn’t arrive until late afternoon and I feel I managed to do little, photographically, with the various opportunities offered: a few stereotypical shots of the Brandenburg Gate, which everyone snaps (our hotel is only a few minutes’ walk away). But this sausage stand nearby did capture the attention. As anyone who’s been to Germany knows, if you want a roadside sausage, this is the world epicentre. And that German word always gives scope for some dreadful pun or other.

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Mar 29 2015
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Daily Post, Interior, Transport

In transit, Munich airport

Saturday 28th March 2015, 2.45pm (day 1,311)

Munich airport, 28/3/15

This was just my transit airport, not my final destination. Bearing in mind where I have travelled to, going via Germany seemed rather bizarre, but ask my travel agent. Twenty years ago I once spent one of the worst and longest nights of my life trying to sleep in Munich airport (again, for reasons I can’t remember now), and I don’t like the city’s principal football team either (with apologies to their rivals 1860); so it’s not one of my favourite places. But today’s transfer was problem-free.

 

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Aug 11 2013
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Große Freiheit, Hamburg

Friday 9th August 2013, 9.40pm (day 715)

Grosse Freiheit, 9/8/13

Although it has managed to sneak onto the ‘Best of the Rest’ page thanks to an aerial photo (of Frankfurt) this is Germany’s first proper appearance on the blog: and this is probably its most notorious street, the heart of Hamburg’s red-light district. Well, why not. You gotta do these things now and again. Actually compared to Amsterdam’s it’s rather tame, though interesting. Clare’s sat to my right as this picture was taken, in case you were wondering.

The neon guitar in the background, by the way, marks the site of the Kaiserkeller, one of the host venues for the Beatles’ now-legendary Hamburg gigs in 1961. Probably if you counted the number of people who claimed to be there, it’s in the several millions by now.

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