My blog has become a travel journal of sorts but hey...what else is there??? We returned from Portugal on Thanksgiving which was a day of serious feasting. Portugal was great. We only had one day of bad weather and got to see 3 different cities while we were there. We started in Evora (pronounced Evra) which is about 100km East and South of Lisbon. It is a small town that is a UNESCO heritage site. The main site we went to see was Capela los Ossos, Chapel of bones. It is filled with the bones of 5000 people and was made by 17th century monks that thought the people needed reminded that life was fleeting. Creepy and cool! Most of the buildings are painted with yellow trim which is supposed to keep out bad spirits.
Next we went to Sintra which is just North of Lisbon on the coast. This was the most beautiful area and was densely forested and had a number of castles and palaces, one of which was Pena Palace which is probably one of the coolest palaces/castles we've seen on our travels. Our hotel was right on the ocean and we listened to the crashing waves all night.
Finally we went back to Lisbon and did some exploring. The country is very hilly and that was very evident in Lisbon. The city is situated on and between several hills. I really liked the fact that although the city was quite large and populated, it had remained "Portuguese" architecturally. The architecture and decorum were very unique to anywhere we've been. They use tile on both the inside and outer walls.
We really enjoyed being in Portugal and thought it was a very beautiful country. It is good to be home now and have a little down time. Maybe I'll blog about something not travel related soon.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Wittenberg and Berlin
We are just back from another great trip to Germany. We visited the birth place of Protestantism and one of Europe's most troubled cities. Berlin is very fascinating simply because it has so much recent history. Wittenberg also has quite recent history relative to some of the places we've been.
We started our trip with an overnight in Wittenberg where we visited the Lutherhaus where Luther lived with his family as well as having room for a number of his students. It had been turned into a museum which featured a number of his writings as well as the history of his life. We also visited the Castle Church which is where the reformation was formally sparked with the nailing of the 95 theses. Inside is were Luther is now buried. The town itself was a really quiet little town but we really enjoyed our time there and even smoked a little hookah!
We went from there to Berlin where the highlight was definitely the walking tour. We walked through the former East Berlin which is its historical center, visiting the major sites and receiving detailed history from a man who was living in Berlin in 1989. I'll avoid regurgitating the entire walk and just mention some of the sites (although it really was fascinating). We saw museum island which is a nature split in the River Spree that now houses most of the city's museums. Much of it has been restored due to bombing during WWII but they have left some of the lesser damaged structures (mostly riddled with bullet holes) as a reminder of its history. We also saw where the Nazis burned all the books they didn't like from the National Library which is now marked by a plaque with a quote from a 17th century Jewish play write that says approximately, "Once they start burning books, it isn't long until they begin burning people." A bit prophetic. It also has an underground empty book shelf as a memorial. We stood in front of the Brandenberg Gate which was originally commissioned by King Frederick of Prussia but has become the gathering point for every major event in Berlin's history. We saw the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, a maze of rectangular blocks of varying heights that you can walk through and even become a little disorientated. We stood over the spot of Hitler's bunker where he and his mistress committed suicide on April 30, 1945. We walked to the former Nazi Air Force building which was remarkably untouched by the war and became the headquarters for the Communist Soviet government in East Berlin. It even features a big mural showing the "joys" of communism. It is located right next to the remnants of the Wall. For the vast majority of the area where the wall was and is no longer, there is a brick line tracing where the wall once stood. We ended the tour at Checkpoint Charlie which was the checkpoint between the American Soviet sectors and the point at which the Americans and Soviets had a 3 day tank stand off that nearly started WWIII! It was all over an ambassador that wanted to attend the opera in the East and wasn't allowed in. Crazy huh?
The one story that I will relay is of how the wall eventually came down. The Southern Communist states, Hungary in particular started to allow free travel to the Western countries. The East Germans began taking holidays in Hungary and then slipping across into the West. The Soviets copt on to this and locked in all the East Germans. The people became agitated so the Soviets held a news conference with an ill prepared spokesman who said that the Soviet government would "soon" be allowing people to freely cross into the West. This was done to placate the people. However when asked when??? his reply was..."effective immediately." The people began to gather at the checkpoints and the confused boarder guards began allowing a few people through. Eventually the guards were over-run and within 48 hours 2 million people had crossed into the West and that was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
We started our trip with an overnight in Wittenberg where we visited the Lutherhaus where Luther lived with his family as well as having room for a number of his students. It had been turned into a museum which featured a number of his writings as well as the history of his life. We also visited the Castle Church which is where the reformation was formally sparked with the nailing of the 95 theses. Inside is were Luther is now buried. The town itself was a really quiet little town but we really enjoyed our time there and even smoked a little hookah!
We went from there to Berlin where the highlight was definitely the walking tour. We walked through the former East Berlin which is its historical center, visiting the major sites and receiving detailed history from a man who was living in Berlin in 1989. I'll avoid regurgitating the entire walk and just mention some of the sites (although it really was fascinating). We saw museum island which is a nature split in the River Spree that now houses most of the city's museums. Much of it has been restored due to bombing during WWII but they have left some of the lesser damaged structures (mostly riddled with bullet holes) as a reminder of its history. We also saw where the Nazis burned all the books they didn't like from the National Library which is now marked by a plaque with a quote from a 17th century Jewish play write that says approximately, "Once they start burning books, it isn't long until they begin burning people." A bit prophetic. It also has an underground empty book shelf as a memorial. We stood in front of the Brandenberg Gate which was originally commissioned by King Frederick of Prussia but has become the gathering point for every major event in Berlin's history. We saw the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, a maze of rectangular blocks of varying heights that you can walk through and even become a little disorientated. We stood over the spot of Hitler's bunker where he and his mistress committed suicide on April 30, 1945. We walked to the former Nazi Air Force building which was remarkably untouched by the war and became the headquarters for the Communist Soviet government in East Berlin. It even features a big mural showing the "joys" of communism. It is located right next to the remnants of the Wall. For the vast majority of the area where the wall was and is no longer, there is a brick line tracing where the wall once stood. We ended the tour at Checkpoint Charlie which was the checkpoint between the American Soviet sectors and the point at which the Americans and Soviets had a 3 day tank stand off that nearly started WWIII! It was all over an ambassador that wanted to attend the opera in the East and wasn't allowed in. Crazy huh?
The one story that I will relay is of how the wall eventually came down. The Southern Communist states, Hungary in particular started to allow free travel to the Western countries. The East Germans began taking holidays in Hungary and then slipping across into the West. The Soviets copt on to this and locked in all the East Germans. The people became agitated so the Soviets held a news conference with an ill prepared spokesman who said that the Soviet government would "soon" be allowing people to freely cross into the West. This was done to placate the people. However when asked when??? his reply was..."effective immediately." The people began to gather at the checkpoints and the confused boarder guards began allowing a few people through. Eventually the guards were over-run and within 48 hours 2 million people had crossed into the West and that was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
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