Our Weekend Getaway to Berlin

This past weekend Chris and I traveled to Berlin for a little getaway trip. As the capital of Germany, Berlin is a perfect mix of history and modern, urban life. Upon arriving, we checked into our hotel and ventured out into the city. We took the U-bahn to the Jewish Museum, which was an extensive exhibit about the history of the Jewish people.

Jewish kippahs come in all kinds of designs...even Superman!

BIOS [torah] exhibit-  An industrial robot writes the torah

The robot imitates handwriting and writes at human speed

Fallen Leaves exhibit - 10,000 screaming metal faces. The clanking noise is startling when you walk on them

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. We saw several sections of the Berlin Wall, visited the Sony Center in the Potsdamer Platz (Berlin's mini Manhattan) and the Brandenburg Gate, and drank the Berliner Weisse (beer with a splash of flavored syrup).

We woke up early on Saturday morning and headed out for our free tour of Berlin. New Berlin Tours offers a free 2 1/2 hour tour of the city, which is a lot of history packed into a short amount of time! Above Hitler's bunker where he ended up committing suicide is now a parking lot. Besides a small sign, there is no other indication of this history-changing location.

Our tour guide told us about Johann Elser, who was one of many attempting to assassinate Hitler. Because of many bizarre circumstances, Hitler was able to avoid all of the attempts on his life. Elser planted a bomb in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, where Hitler gave an annual speech. Unfortunately because of bad weather, Hitler unknowingly moved up his speech earlier in the day, which meant the bomb's timer went off 13 minutes too late.

Above Hitler's bunker

Memorial to Johann Elser

Bricks all around the city indicating where the Berlin Wall once stood

Gendarmenmarkt

We couldn't resist exploring a chocolate shop with enormous chocolate sculptures of Berlin's famous attractions.

Reichstag

Brandenburg Gate

There is a controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe that is quite ambiguous and left up to the viewer to determine the meaning. Underneath the memorial, is a museum that tells a lot of personal stories about Jews during the Holocaust. One room is dedicated to each individual victim of the Holocaust. One name is projected onto the wall for a minute while a narrator tells their story. Our tour guide told us earlier in the day that each person's name only reappears on the wall once every 6 years. Ironically, Joseph Stalin is quoted with saying "one death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

One name of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust

After dinner, we stumbled upon a mini fest. Germans find any excuse to drink, eat and party late into the night!

A few of the booths selling delicious treats!

On Sunday we explored the Deutsches Historisches Museum. The museum covers the beginning of German history through the 1990s, and everything in between. We spent a good portion of the day on World War I and World War II. We could have easily spent all day in the museum!

The "de-Germanizing"of American last names

The model of the Volkshalle (People's hall) Hitler planned to build

Our Anniversary in Rome

For our first anniversary, Chris surprised me with a trip to Rome, Italy. We arrived at the Moses Fountain Hotel, which shares a wall with ....that's right, the Moses Fountain.

The Colosseum is so much more impressive in person than it is in pictures. Unfortunately, like most of Rome at the moment, there was scaffolding on part of it. Our guide gave us the history of the site. One of the most interesting facts was that there are holes in the limestone because vandals in medieval times removed the metal clamps that held together the limestone pieces and sold them for scrap metal. The Colosseum once had 70,000 people in attendance of the gladiator matches....not quite as many spectators as Tiger Stadium!

We enjoyed our anniversary dinner at La Pentolaccia. We had a 5 minute wait to be seated, but the owner was so apologetic that he gave us complimentary glasses of champagne while we waited! Dinner was so fresh and delicious. We shared a "tower" of tomatoes, mozzarella and eggplant. For our main courses, I tried the risotto while Chris tried the spaghetti. We each got our own desserts (cannoli and chocolate mousse) because, why not?, it's a special occasion, and we're on vacation!

We finished the evening by watching the USA vs Portugal World Cup game at a local Irish pub...the game didn't even start until midnight!

On our first full day in Rome, we took a guided tour of the catacombs and the Roman countryside. More than half a million people were buried in catacombs. The catacombs we visited is just one of 60 known catacombs. We were able to see some of the cabiculums, small rooms carved out of the wall that were the final resting place for families waiting for judgment day. The Romans believed that the judgement day would be very soon, and so they wanted to be buried near martyrs, because they believed the closer they were to the martyrs, the less time they would spend in purgatory.

After the catacombs, our tour bus took us along the Via Appia. one of the oldest and most important roads built in the Roman empire. The road was lined with beautiful orange trees, olive trees and massive villas. This was a much prettier site to behold other than the thousands of revolting slaves led by the legendary Spartacus that were crucified along this road many centuries ago. We didn't see any signs of Kirk Douglas though. The last part of the tour was visiting the aqueducts. It's amazing to think that architects thousands of years ago could figure out how to supply enough fresh water to the entire population.

Later in the day we toured the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. There were so many artifacts to look at it was a little overwhelming! One of the most interesting artifacts was the Arch of Titus, which displayed scenes of the Temple of Judea being ransacked, and all of the treasures that were taken. Some of these treasures helped fund the construction of the Colosseum.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Rome to see some of the highlights. This included the Pantheon (the most well-preserved artifact because it was converted into a church), the Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain.  

On Tuesday, we toured Naples and the ancient city of Pompeii. We learned that the only reason Naples survived the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii did not is because of the way the wind was blowing. The wind blew the ash over Pompeii, and the entire city was completely covered in ash. Our tour guide had once been a graduate student who helped uncover the ruins of Pompeii (they are still excavating the site today).

Even the bodies of dogs were preserved in the ash

We spent our last full day touring Vatican City. We had hoped to be part of the morning tour, but unfortunately it was full, and we ended up with the 1 p.m. tour. Which turned out to be the best "mistake" of the trip, because when we arrived in St. Peter's Square in the morning, we stumbled upon Pope Francis giving his weekly address to the crowd. So we can now say that we've seen the Pope, even if it was from a distance!

We had an extensive tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. The Basilica itself took 100 years to build, and St. Peter is actually buried beneath it. We found out that Michelangelo did not want to paint the Sistine Chapel, he was forced into it. After the tour, we climbed the 521 steps to the top of the Basilica. It was a lot of stairs, but the view was spectacular!

We had an incredible trip to Rome, and since we threw coins into the Trevi Fountain, we will hopefully return to Rome in the future.

Memorial Day Weekend in Munich

This past Memorial Day weekend, we traveled about 2 hours down to Munich. It was raining when we arrived, so we decided to do something indoors. We toured the Bier and Oktoberfest Museum, which gave a little history on the evolution of beer in Germany, as well as the origin of Oktoberfest. We learned that on October 17, 1810 to celebrate the marriage of the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig and princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen, a horse race was held for all of Bavaria. At the end of the 19th century, they began commemorating the wedding with beer tents and amusements booths (the present day Oktoberfest).

Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese

When the weather cleared up a little bit, we toured around Munich and found the Viktualienmarkt, a food market with so many vendors selling fruits, olives, cheese and much more. In the center of the market was a typical German May Pole. The market also has a little beer garden. A true beer garden has a counter for buying beer.....Germans bring in their own food and have a picnic.

Later, we stood in the Marienplatz and watched the Glockenspiel (clock) which is a part of the New Town Hall. At certain times during the day, the Glockenpiel will come to life with a four part routine: the wedding procession, the joust, the coopers' dance and the rooster crowing. It recalls a noble wedding that took place in 1568.

Next we drank beer in the Hofbrauhaus, the world's most famous beer hall. We enjoyed our beer while listening to the live oompah music.

The cabinet where they keep all the beer steins

The next morning we walked up the very narrow staircase to the top of St. Peter's Church to enjoy the spectacular view of the city. We even got to watch the Glockenspiel go off again, but this time, we saw it from above!

Next we toured The Residenz, which is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs of the House of Wittelsbach. The architecture was incredible and the amount of royal artifacts on display was very impressive!

We ventured out of the city center to visit Olympic Park, the site of the 1972 Olympics. They have transformed the grounds into a modern-day park, complete with an aquarium and concert stage. We went on a day with perfect park weather, and the locals were definitely there enjoying the sun!

On Sunday we left Munich and traveled 30 minutes away to the Dachau Concentration Camp. We switched gears from our upbeat tourist attractions, but the somber site was filled with so much history. Dachau was the first concentration camp that Hitler built, and it served as the model for the future concentration camps, like Auschwitz.

Down the hallway of the Bunker, where "special prisoners" were held.

"Work makes you free"