Our new adventures: April 2008

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Don't leave me in Berlin!

Daddy and his girls.

Inside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial looking toward the ceiling.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial was a Protestant Church that was built between 1891 and 1895 and destroyed in World War II in 1943. They left the ruined tower as a memorial but built a new church next to it.

Pucker up

The bear is Berlin's "mascot".

Inside the Tiergarten Park.

East Side Gallery. Although the wall and what it stood for came crashing down in 1989, parts of it do remain. This is the longest stretch, 1300 meters long and now is a protected "canvas" where artists have left their art since 1990. You can even etch your name or leave your mark on it too.

The East side part of the wall was called "a no-man's land" and was full of watchtowers and armed gunmen, attack dogs, land mines and barbed wire.

The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years and was erected in 1961 by the East German government to prevent the mass exodus of the East Berliners to the West. It was approximately 155 km in length.

Soooo muede. (Soooo tired.)

Rotes Rathaus (1860) is the city hall of the German Senate and Mayor.

The Fernsehturn (TV tower) near the Alexanderplatz.

Inside the Berliner Dom.

Berliner Dom. In the vast crypt are some buried members of the Hohenzollern family, they also used the Berliner Dom as a private church.

The Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) is from 1905 and neo-Renaissance in architecture. Allie found the acoustics to be quite amusing (yelling...hearing herself echo...laughing hysterically to herself...yelling...repeat) until she was informally kicked out by a tour "groupie". We kept joking that if she didn't behave herself that she was going to get us all booted out of Berlin.

Spree River goes through the city for about 30 km.

Having lunch on "Unter Den Linden", a famous and fashionable street in Berlin.

Our good friend, and college roomie of Jamie's was attending a meeting the weekend before we arrived. It was great to see him and catch up.

Berlin's Reichstag was constructed in 1894 and restored in 1996-1999. It was for the 1st parliament of the German Empire. It is now used for today's parliament called Bundestag. On the front of the building you can see the phrase, "Dem Deutschen Volke", which means "To the German People" or "For the German People".

Brandenberg Tor is the only surviving city gate. It was once the boundary between East and West Berlin. Through the gate is the Pariser Platz which is going under reconstruction with many views of scaffolding and cranes (much like the rest of Berlin it seemed). This gate was erected between 1788 and 1791.

Holocaust Memorial (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) consists of 2700 concrete pillars.

Isabelle is now "entering the American sector".

Checkpoint Charlie during the Cold War was the only "checkpoint" or gateway between East and West Berlin for foreigners. This is a US army guardhouse at the site.

This is the Frauenkirche in Dresden which has been rebuilt since burning to the ground in WWII. We couldn't take pictures inside but it was magnificient, pastels splashed with gold. Apparently it took 10 million Euros to rebuilt and was financed by donations around the world. You can see how they used the old stones with the new in a gigantic jig-saw puzzle fashion to reassemble it.

Dresden has about 490,000 people and is a beautiful baroque city. Much of Dresden was destroyed in WWII in one day in February of 1945. The Elbe River runs through the city. Jamie and Isabelle are in front of a fountain in the Zwinger courtyard.

A look inside the Old Masters Gallery in the Zwinger.

Raphael's famous painting "Die Sixtinische Madonna" (Sistine Madonna)1512-1513.

The famous angels at the bottom are only a detail in the painting!

Dresden's beautiful cathdrals and buildings.

Semperoper was built between 1871-1878. (Opera house)

A look toward the Neustadt. It is actually an old part of Dresden, but didn't suffer the immense bombing and destruction as the rest of the city.

Dresden's former Katholische Hofkirche (1738-1755 is now the St. Trinitatis Cathedral.

This is Fuerstenzug (Processsion of Princes). It is made of 24,000 Meissen porcelain tiles and is 102 meters long. It depicts every single Saxon Ruler from the years 1123 to 1904. This mural is on the wall of the Stallhof.

Here you go...

...thanks Allie

Make a wish...

My silly girls! We planned to leave for a long weekend in Dresden and Berlin on Saturday but left early on Sunday to visit these two great cities. It was about a 7 hour drive through Dresden to Berlin. We visited Dresden in the afternoon and then spent Sunday and Monday nights in Berlin. The girls are becoming quite the litte travelers and are getting quite accustomed to our journeys. It is so fun to see the different country-sides of Germany and visit the various states.

The Tuebinger Regional Markt was held on April 26th. Local produce, honey, liquor, and wine was for sale among other things. It was a beautiful morning and the girls and I checked out the scene before the crowds hit.

Happy 3rd birthday Isabelle!!!!!! Birthday ice cream hits the spot!

Buffalo downtown at the Marketplace. I have never seen a white buffalo before.

Allie's new favorite play spot. She loves the fridge magnets, and yes, she is tall enough to open the refridgerator door.

Isabelle picked out a fancy helmet and a wooden scooter for her birthday last Friday. She initially wanted a pink bicycle, but when confronted with such a decision at the toy store she decided that she had to have the scooter. They call them "rollers" here in Germany. For weeks she has wanted a pink bicycle, then she said that she just wanted a pink present, and then she said that she wanted a puppy...so to the toy store we went. She loves the helmet and wears it everywhere.