April in Berlin

"Springtime in Germany"  ---  albeit in 2015 Berlin  --- has been good,  even if the birds are waking us up at 4am (a lot earlier than the typical city noises).  Plus the chestnuts are blooming, the tourists are back in droves, the German train conductors were on strike for two days shutting down the train system, and today the local Post Office is closed due to another strike because Deutsche Bank is selling 50% of its shares of the Deutsche Post Bank --- and so it goes.

Here two spring views from our balcony with the cemetery where the birds are doing their raucous mating:

                                             

The TV tower is popular with Bill and me because we can see it from our living room couch, and with tourists because of its revolving restaurant and viewing platform.  The tower, then the tallest in Europe, was built by the former East German government as a Communist show piece and -- in contrast to many other Communist memorials -- survived German unification.  Back then the West Berliners who had as full a view of the tower as the East Berliners soon dubbed it "God's Revenge" -- because of the cross that appears on the metal bulb when the sun shines. (Sorry the photo is too small for it to be visible).

Last week's sunshine made biking even more fun than usual, so we did three longer rides in and around this city where one has almost too many choices with its many lakes, canals, extensive forests, AND, good for Bill and me, many bike paths in all directions: 
On Tuesday we took part of the Mauer-Weg (the path along the former "Wall") to Luebars, a small agricultural village, part of the city of Berlin, where time has stood still.  This path is mainly enchanting; however, there are stretches where the former "no-man's-land (the "iron curtain") is still visible and where the path is strewn with litter and needs cleaning.

 

 

 

 



On Thursday we put the bikes on a train, got off at Potsdam and rode 34 kilometers around two lakes.  We stopped at Caputh, a village where Albert Einstein and his wife spent their summers from 1929-32, and where he loved to sail his boat  just below his house on Lake Templin:

 

and where King Frederic I when he was still Markgraf of Brandenburg expanded a castle/manor house in the 17th century:                               

 

 

On we went to the former artist community Ferch where we stopped for lunch:





 

Much needed renovations are happening at the Petzow manor house. Apparently, writer Theodor Fontane (Effi Briest) found inspirations for some of his novels close by. 

We rode back through Potsdam, the beautiful capital of the State of Brandenburg.  It deserves a separate blog entry.

 

We don't need to go far to be surrounded by green:  A 5 minute walk from our apartment takes us to a large park called Volkspark Friedrichshain. Its two hills are ideal for joggers in an otherwise flat city  (they are remnants of Berlin's rubble and ashes after its total WW II destruction).

 

And one day this week we rode our bicycles along THE main drag of Berlin called "Unter den Linden" that goes right through the middle of the city, by the Museum Island, by the opera house, by all these important places, like the State Library, the Russian Embassy (remember East Berlin was part of the Soviet Zone), through the Brandenburg Gate to the Tier-Park where all we did was sit in the sun and watch the world (i.e. tourists and joggers) go by: