BERLIN IN WINTER: Stollen and Christmas Markets

 52 Places to Go: Week 51

Friedrichstrasse at night outside our hotel

[Diary of my trip to Berlin in November 2010]  It was the last Thursday in November and we were in Berlin, where Art was attending a conference.  We were staying at the Maritim Hotel, on Friedrichstrasse, the main shopping street of the former East Berlin, now a bustling center of commerce with huge department stores, hotels, and other businesses.  That evening we attended an elaborate buffet at the hotel with dozens of dishes and artfully prepared appetizers, many in little glass containers.  Main courses included venison and roast goose–the closest we came to a real Thanksgiving dinner.  After dinner we walked a few blocks to the intersection with Unter den Linden, a wide boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, which was decked out for Christmas with sparkling lights.  The temperature was around 0 degrees Centigrade and it felt like it was going to snow.  In the morning, as I looked out our hotel window, I saw a light dusting of snow on the rooftops.

View from our hotel window

The next day while Art was attending meetings, I ate at the hotel again.  Dessert came on a plate shaped like an artist’s palette with cake, ice cream, and chocolate sauce in three “paint” compartments.  Everywhere in the hotel, walls were decorated with modern paintings, some of them huge.  Finally, on the last day of our stay I realized that the concept of the hotel was a giant art gallery!  (Hence, the palette for my dessert!)  One thing that puzzled me when I got on the elevator to go to our room was that each floor had a name on it.  I now understood that these were the names of painters and each floor was dedicated to the work of a single artist.  Our floor (the 5th) displayed paintings by German artist Bernd Zimmer.

Carved Christmas Pyramid

On Saturday afternoon, after the meeting was over, we went out shopping, stopping at a Christmas store filled with pyramids (elaborately carved wooden holiday decorations that turn from the heat of lighted candles), as well as many other kinds of other wooden objects, plus holiday table cloths, ceramics, etc.

Entrance to the Christmas Market at Gendarmensmarkt

Our real destination, though, was the Christmas market at the Gendarmensmarkt, a few blocks away, where we paid one Euro each to get in.  This huge outdoor fair had dozens of booths selling food and crafts.  On one side was a stage where entertainers danced and sang.  There was also a semi-indoor section tented off from the chilly air where there were more booths.  We toured the booths and  bought cookies and poppyseed cake to take home, puppets for the grandkids, and a Thuringer sausage on a bun for my lunch.  We also took a photo by a large decorated Berlin bear. (Bears are the symbol of Berlin. They are all over the city--something like the cows in Chicago.)  That evening, German friends took us to the Berlin Opera where we saw Mozart's Magic Flute.  The staging–lots of smoke and lights–was dramatic and creative.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the German lyrics. It was all wonderful.  Afterward, we ate in the opera restaurant where Art had smoked eel and I had gnocchi.

Booth selling stollen, cookies and other baked goods

On Sunday morning we bundled up and walked to the Brandenburg Gate and from there to the New National Art Museum, a large glass box not far from the symphony hall.  The main collection is German art of the early to mid-twentieth century.  From the outside, the building seems unlikely to have wall space for much art, but the inside is surprisingly spacious. In one room, they were screening a 1927 film called Symphony of Berlin, a black and white visual homage to life in the city as it was then, bustling with industry and commerce. (You can rent the film on Netflix.)  Later, we met our friends again for a traditional German Christmas tea with wonderful homemade stollen, fruit bread, cookies, and marzipan, followed by more German food for dinner at a restaurant near our hotel.  The next morning we got on a plane to go back to LA.

Caroline at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

Note: We have been to Berlin numerous times, usually during warmer seasons.  This was my first trip in winter.  The short days and freezing temperatures, along with the sounds of Christmas music in the streets, brought back memories of winters in Minneapolis when I was growing up.  As a child, one of the highlights of the Christmas season was going downtown to look at the displays in the department store windows.  Even though I have lived in California for most of my adult life, and have gotten used to trees being green year round and t-shirt weather in January, Christmas still never seems quite the same without snow underfoot and the air so cold you can see your breath.  In Berlin, we could definitely see our breath in the night air!

This article was first published at The Intrepid Tourist 11/21/11.

All text and photos copyright Caroline Arnold at The Intrepid Tourist.

Berlin, Germany, GARDENS OF THE WORLD

Chinese garden, Gardens of the World, Berlin, Germany

On our recent trip to Europe we spent a few days in Berlin where we visited friends and Art attended a conference. We stayed in the Melia Hotel on Friedrichstrasse in the former East Berlin, not far from the Brandenburg Gate and Museum Island.

Brandenburg Gate

Visits to Berlin always bring back memories for Art, who was an exchange student there in 1961, the year the Wall went up and this part of the city was off limits. What was a divided city then, isolated from what was then West Germany, is now a bustling metropolis, filled with arts and culture, and a spectacular mix of old and new.

Enjoying a currywurst, a typical Berlin fast food

On our trips to Berlin we always look forward to our favorite German foods–apple strudel, currywurst, fresh bread in the morning–and returning to favorite places. But we also like to have new experiences. One afternoon while Art was at his meetings a friend took me to the Gardens of the World (Die Garten der Welt), a large park (21 acres) on the outskirts of the city with gardens built in various international styles.

Oriental garden

We went first to the Oriental garden with its fruit trees, fountains, and colorful ceramic tiles reminiscent of the Alhambra in southern Spain. From there we walked to the Chinese Garden, constructed around a large pond filled with lily pads and reached by a zigzag bridge. We watched swans dipping their heads to feed underwater while we drank tea and ate Chinese snacks in the lovely outdoor tea garden.

Afternoon tea in Chinese garden (lids keep the tea hot)

As we followed the path through the park we stopped at the English maze--where we were unsuccessful at finding the center–and then visited the Korean garden, Japanese Zen garden, and the Christian garden, a peaceful enclave surrounded by a metal arbor created from passages of scripture.

Enclosed Christian garden has a flowing water feature in the center

The afternoon of our visit to the Gardens of the World was cool, but not rainy despite the forecast, and, as it was midweek, few other people were there. Many of them appeared to be gardening enthusiasts, inspecting the plants and reading their meticulously written labels. The park also has a nice gift shop.

Address: Eisenacher Strasse 99, 12685 Berlin, Germany

Phone Number: +49 (0) 30 700 906 699

We paid an entrance fee of 5 euros and a parking fee of 2 euros.
Parts of the garden are under construction as it continues to expand.

For current information and more about the garden click HERE.

Fall flowers near the entrance to the garden

BERLIN and POTSDAM: Brandenburg Gate, Sans Souci, Marble Castle, October 1998

Potsdam, San Souci, former summer palace of Frederick the Great

(Entry from my London Diary, October 5, 1998)
    Last night we returned from a four-day trip to Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, where our days were so full it seemed as if we were gone even longer.  This was my first visit since the Wall came down in the fall of 1989.  The changes to the city are remarkable with countless new ultra-modern buildings, many more building projects underway, and the refurbishing of many beautiful old buildings that had been sadly neglected during the communist era.  The architecture of Berlin is a mix of grandly historical buildings side by side with modern buildings of glass and chrome and the two are surprisingly well integrated. 
     October 3 is the date of Germany’s Reunification Celebration (somewhat equivalent to our 4th of July), so Saturday was a national holiday with speeches and parades.  The weekend of our visit also coincided with the opening of a huge new development called Daimler City, a business, apartment, shopping, entertainment center, built by Daimler-Mercedes Benz  on the site that had once been the no-man’s land close to the Wall and the Brandenburg Gate.  For many people it symbolizes the birth of the new Berlin.  The ceremonies began with music and a huge laser and fireworks display and then the whole center was opened to the public.  It seemed to us that everyone in Berlin had come to see the new center as we pushed our way through the crowds who had come to look, eat, drink, shop and view the new IMAX theater. 
    Berlin has always been a city with a lot of entertainment and culture and boasts many art museums, theaters and musical events.  On Thursday night we went to a piano concert in the Philharmonic center and on Saturday we went to an orchestral concert in a beautiful refurbished concert hall in what had been East Berlin. The entire time that we were in Berlin the weather was bitterly cold and rainy, and we had to wear every layer that we had brought in order to stay warm. but this didn’t deter us from sightseeing.
    On Saturday we went to Potsdam (Berlin’s twin city on the other side of the river) where we visited the castle and garden of Sans Souci.  We ate lunch nearby at Cecilianhof, which is now a hotel and a museum where you can see the room where the Potsdam Agreement was signed after World War II.  We then walked across a large park to visit another recently refurbished royal residence, the Marble Castle, where we admired the art as we skated across the beautiful parquet floors in the wooly slippers that we were required to slip over our shoes.

Boat Trip in Berlin

    On our drive back to Berlin from Potsdam we passed by the cottage at the side of a lake where Albert Einstein lived for several years before he came to America.  Our stay in Berlin also included a little shopping (we added to our china set and Art finally found a leather key case), a boat ride around the city, and a tour of the Technical University where our friend works. 
    By the time we got back to London we were ready for some quiet time.