hisandhertravel:

Just a few tidbits from our (surprisingly informative) visit to the Historiale Museum. First, a loaf of bread as it would have been divided to last for a week (due to soaring inflation) during the Weimar Republic. Next, a Trabi from the DDR, which could only be obtained after years on a waiting list. Allegedly, these cars were complete jalopies that produced a ton of pollution.

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4
Jun 27

There’s nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.
Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon’s Mines (via travel-quotes)
17
Jun 27

hisandhertravel:

Came across this adorable shop of hand-mades, Ruth Tut Gut’s Pink Shop, in Friedrichshain. You enter through the window! 

4
Jun 27

A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
 Frederick The Great (via hisandhertravel)
4
Jun 27

hisandhertravel:

In our stay in beautiful Potsdam, we felt quite royal and presidential as we laid our heads in the Cecilienhof SchlossHotel. Royal, as the castle was built by the Hohenzollern family that ruled Prussia until 1918, and presidential, as the hotel was the site of the Potsdam agreement where Truman, Stalin and Churchill decided how to split post war Germany.

Everywhere you turn in the hotel is a run in with history; the red star in the main Garden is actually a Soviet star as the Russians captured Potsdam when they were making their way to Berlin. The staircases that ascend to the rooms were imported from the city of Danzig, which is not even part of Germany anymore. While in our room we wondered who might have slept in our chamber as other dignitaries like Queen Elizabeth have also stayed at the castle.

The surroundings were of course amazing, since Potsdam is the German equivalent of Versailles. We were thrilled to find out we could rent bikes directly from the hotel, and spent most our first day cycling and hiking the extensive royal Park Sansouci. That night, we each took our time soaking in the huge bath of our suite. (With a bathroom as big as some hotel rooms, we knew we ought to savor it!) Then, we slept like kings in our master suite. The next day we gorged ourselves on the generous spread set out for breakfast; it was the kind of breakfast that keeps you going until dinner: bacon, eggs, muesli, 20 kind of breads, cheeses, and spreads. All the while, we could look out over the beautiful garden from the restaurant patio.

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And a special thanks to the Cecilienhof SchlossHotel.

7
Jun 27

hisandhertravel:

Throughout Europe, there seems to be a circuit of royal getaway palaces, and we’ve visited quite a few: La Granja in Segovia, Schönbrunn in Vienna, and of course Versailles in Paris. However, our favorite remains in Potsdam: the Sanssouci Gardens. Something about it’s sprawling gardens and the sheer multitude of palaces built by the Prussians makes for a perfect day trip (or three-day trip in our case). On our latest visit to Potsdam, we were able to relax a bit more, having already extensively explored the gardens the previous time around. We also got to take a run out to one of the last remains of the Berlin Wall (Potsdam was in the American occupied zone of the city). And of course, we picnicked for about half our meals. (Tip: there’s a supermarket on Potsdam’s main drag, Kaiser’s.)

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10
Jun 27

hisandhertravel: “ Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam ”

hisandhertravel:

Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam

5
Jun 27

Eating our way through Friedrichshain with Eat the World

In a city bursting at the seams with international cuisine, there’s no shortage of options, and after shamefully feasting only on the 3am delicacies on my last trip to Berlin, I knew I needed to stake out a few good cafes this time around. A friend recommended trying Eat the World, a city tour that explores both a city’s history and cuisine. 

Eat the World will take you on a spin around Kreuzburg, Schöneberg, Prenzlauer Berg, or Friedrichshain to sample food at local bars and cafes. It was a hard choice, but I decided on Friedrichshain because I wanted to hear more about its history. 

As a neighborhood of former East Berlin, food options haven’t always been plentiful in Friedrichshain. In fact, when the wall still stood many of the fruits and vegetables we take for granted at the supermarket were seen as new and exotic. A running joke goes that when the wall came down, an East Berliner crossed over, purchased a cucumber, and said, “Look, my first banana!” (Thanks to our guide Kristina, for sharing that one.)

Contemporary Friedrichshain couldn’t be more different. Brazilian, Mexican, and Vietnamese restaurants find themselves at home among French cafes and pizzerias. On our tour, we feasted upon ginger-pepper soup at an organic restaurant, truffle oil pesto and Spanish Manchego cheeses at a Mediterranean deli, a quiche at a French cafe, and Kaspressknodel at an Austrian restaurant. 

On the sweeter side, we tried lavender cakes with chocolate, Austrian applestrudel, and a fresh, sweet muesli.

Although it’s a food tour, the history portion was equally filling. The tour has a note of “Ostalgia,” or nostalgia for the DDR, as it visits the film locations from The Lives of Others and surveys the Ampelmann crosswalks. We also saw the tumultuous changes the area has seen, as on Mainzer Staße, where violent clashes between squatters and police broke out in the 1990s. 

11
Jun 26

hisandhertravel:

Just after midnight, I rolled into the Generator Hostel. After effectively choosing the wrong direction both every S-Bahn changes, I was dizzy and road weary as I followed the signs to reception and check-in.

I’m used to arriving at a hostel on the dot of the requisite 2 pm check-in time…I wasn’t sure what happened when you arrived after midnight. All the while I’d been lost, I’d started coming up with irrational fears that they might give my bed away. (Spoiler alert: they don’t ever do that.) 

So I was incredibly relieved to be greeted by a smiling, alert, and un-phased receptionist. He then rattled off my two favorite words to hear at a hostel: free breakfast. (It’s always rough to wake up and have to hunt down your first meal of the day.) And then my next two favorite words to hear at a hostel: wifi everywhere. (That’s right: a full signal in my hostel room!)

There are two Generator Hostels in Berlin and the one in Mitte is still brand-spanking new. It still has that sparkly, new feel, and the rooms are spotless. The showers power-washed off all the grime from my eight-hour train journey, and there was no two-minute limit on the hot water.

While happy with their Mitte location thus far, the General Manager Sven Ueberle, is still working furiously to add to the vibe and give it a truly Berlin-esque feel. That means, in the coming months, the hostel will be seeing some changes: a new face to the bar, murals by local artists, an expanded chill-out area, and much more. In the mean time, they’ve already got a head start with a friendly and knowledgeable staff, who were more than happy to answer my million and one questions about Berlin.

4
Jun 26

Navigating S-Bahns and U-Bahns, passing Crobags and Currywurst stands on every corner, and hopping from one national museum to another… although Germany’s big cities have a lot to offer travelers, they leave my head spinning after a few days. After three days in Munich, I knew I needed to see a slower pace of German life.

So I headed to Bamberg. Two hours north of Munich and four south of Berlin sits this Baroque gem of a city. Although technically in Bavaria, Bamberg has its own distinct Franconian culture.

The most striking landmarks in this town is its old town hall, wedged on the tip of a small island on the Regnitz River. The building is covered in colorful frescos, and, with the series of bridges leading to and from it, it looks a bit like Venice (although the city is typically compared more with Rome, since it’s set on seven hills.) Around this heart of the city, Bamberg has plenty to see and do from hikes to museums to breweries. Armed with a transport and museum BAMBERGcard and passes to the city’s BeerTaster tour, I set out to find the best brews and views Bamberg had to offer…check them out on my GNTB blog post.

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8
Jun 17