A walking tour or Berlin with Ed

Every day should start off with a good breakfast, and our hotel, the Honigmond, fit the bill.

The hotel had been suggested by Ed Ward, an American journalist who has lived in Berlin for many years. Ed (who I know from the WELL (www.well.com)), an expert rock critic, writes for many publications, also writes album liner notes, and is a guest correspondent for Terry Gross' Fresh Air on NPR, offered to take us on his 3-hour walking tour around Berlin. Of course, we managed to stretch it to more than 5 hours, not counting the beverage breaks. We are not worthy to capture the range of detail which he described, although we can hopefully reflect a small part of the cynicism and humor.

Most of the tour took place in the old East Berlin, and many remnants remain, including pieces of the Berlin Wall, marked paths of the wall, and a stark (in the English sense, not the German one) memorial. There is a Wall museum (which we did not visit), and, of course, the museum at Checkpoint Charlie (which we had visited on previous trips).

Ed's tour took us through numerous sites of Jewish history in Berlin. Before WWII, Berlin had a significant Jewish population, and there are numerous sites associated with this, both positive and negative. Reform Judaism was founded here by Moses Mendelssohn, and his grave is near monuments and a school he founded as well. A major synagogue was saved from the Kristalnacht violence (9-Nov-1938) which hit many Jewish institutions and individuals throughout Germany and Austria, but was destroyed by bombing during the war (1943), and was reconstructed. Like many Jewish facilities in Germany today, it has significant police protection. Various atrocities of the war and Holocaust are commemorated through plaques and sculpture scattered around the city, including the abduction of individuals and burning of books. The latter is a large underground library, visible only through a small glass window in the middle of the square. The shelves are empty.

Old East Berlin had one type of Walk/Don't Walk signals, and West Berlin had another. Both are still in use, and there is a significant effort to preserve the East Berlin signals; one can even find them on posters, postcards, and stickers.

Speaking of endangered species, many elements of Communist Berlin are under assault. Some have been removed, and some are under the gun. There has even been debate about the removal of a prominent symbol of East Berlin, the radio tower on Alexanderplatz.

Grafitti coats much of Berlin, and there are a number of artists whose work is quite recognizable. Ed has followed up on several of them, and told us a little of their stories.

One guy, the Bananen Sprayer, uses his grafitti as commentary on the Berlin art scene. If a gallery is worthy, we will award them a banana at their doorway. (We did see a few cases where he had gone back and crossed them out.) A relatively new hotel which commissioned a different local artist to do each room, and which tries to be very ecologically sound, got a special version of the banana. The hotel is across the street from a building famous within Japan (reflected in the window in the photo below) - Mori Ogai lived here in 1887 and 1888; he translated several well-known German works, including Faust, and is said to have invented modern Japanese literature.

Graffitti is not the only art, of course. Many galleries flourish, and there is much public art, both old and new. While much of the old architecture was destroyed, some has been reconstructed, and much is new (although not all of it is good...).

Berlin's buildings often surround inner yards, or Hfe. They can be delightful or hideous. A series of well-known connected Hfe have been renovated (along with their surrounding buildings) to make stores, restaurants, and art spaces. Sadly, the weak economy has resulted in problems for many of the businesses. In one of the Hfe, at a bicycle rental place, we found a conference cycle, designed to let eight people to go biking together while having a meeting.

Berlin has long been a center of culture and learning, and has produced many significant artists, writers, and its share of Nobel Prize winners. Ed's tour included some graves which he had recently discovered.

Of course, no tour can be complete without appropriate food. Ed is also a foodie, with claimed skills in BBQ - at least he had found a car license plate to attest to it. Sadly, it was not on his car, just one in the street. Still, we were impressed.

The first night, we ate with Ed at a typical Berliner restaurant (Gambrinus), and the next we went to one of his favorite pizza joints (along with a huge group of loud students).

This short stay in Berlin was enriched by our time with Ed. We appreciate the sharing of his time (no doubt more than planned), his knowledge (great because of its cynical twist), and his humor. We learned and saw much that we would not have seen otherwise. Danke!

Sans Souci is a huge palace complex and park which lies to the Southwest of Berlin, in Pottsdam. The main palace and gardens are built in the French style.