Berlin Wrap-Up

Just a few quick words about our six days in Berlin...

Thanks to Craig and Annie and Clara for a wonderful time. Craig knows Berlin and its history to an amazing depth, and is great at showing it to anyone interested. If you know anyone traveling to Berlin, please have them get in touch with Craig to arrange a day or two of tours with him. They will, however, have to pay him more than we did.

And thanks to Annie and Clara for letting us have Craig so much. A three-week old baby requires a lot of attention, and I am sure there were times Annie wished for Craig's help when he was out squiring us around. And I suspect that Clara wished for her Dad to be there, too. Thanks to both of you for that.

We did get lots of time with the whole family - a couple dinners and some long walks, some good sitting-and-talking time, and it was just great to be with them. We really, really did not want to leave, and it seems like forever until we'll see them again.

And speaking of Clara...probably time for another photo or two.

Berlin III

We're flying home now, somewhere over way Northern Canada, and I'm typing this with one hand because British Airways has seen fit to squeeze so many seats into coach that I can't get my iPad far enough away from me to use the other hand. I've got a few other comments about BA, but I'll save them for another post.

A little about Berlin architecture... I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but Craig and I took a morning to look at a rather small niche of architecture: industrial architecture. Yes, that would be factory buildings. It turns out that an interesting (I use the word advisedly, understanding that most people would not use that word to describe this) shift in how factory buildings are designed and built occurred in Berlin in the early 1900s. Here's a picture of a factory building designed and constructed in Berlin around 1905:

It really doesn't look much like a factory, does it? It could be a school, an office building or even an apartment. (In fact, I think it has been converted to a school.) At the time the only style of industrial architecture was this. Its motto could have been: "Make a factory look like anything but a factory."

In 1909, Peter Behrens designed the first factory that shouted: "I'm a factory!" It's also in Berlin, a 10-minute S-bahn ride away from the building shown above. Here's the facade of that building:

And one side wall:

Now this building loudly proclaims its purpose. By designing a factory building to be a factory, Behrens was able to focus on making it a much more efficient building. Steel structure meant he could incorporate glass walls. Glass walls meant lots of light. The steel structure also meant that interior walls bore no weight, so the interior configuration could easily be changed. This design was revolutionary, and much of today's industrial architecture follows it. Seeing this revolution in the space of an hour fascinated me. This building is still in use, as a factory, by a successor of the company that commissioned Behrens to design it. Fortunately, Craig was as interested as I was, and, as always, proved a knowledgable guide.

A couple days later, Laurie and I followed that same guide down Karl Marx Allee. We'd seen a bit of this street two years ago on our first Berlin visit, and I really wanted to see it in greater detail. Again, architecture brought us to this place.

Post-World War II, all of Berlin was in ruins (some neighborhoods had 70% of their buildings completely destroyed). Housing had to be built quickly. In 1950, the Soviet-run government of East Germany started building apartments, and building them quickly, and at the same time, decided to make Stalin-Allee (later renamed Karl Marx Allee) a showplace. A two mile stretch of the Allee was designed to be a showplace of Soviet architecture and living. The first buildings were assigned to Hermann Henselmann who was a great fan of what was known as "wedding cake" architecture. Here is the first building designed by Henselmann and built at the start of Stalin-Allee:

Some later buildings on the Allee:

The style was named for the wedding-cake-like decorations on the top and sides. Joe Stalin loved this building style, and it became common in many Iron Curtain cities.

Two things ended its popularity. First, it was more expensive and took longer to build, and time and money were in short supply. Secondly, Stalin died, and was quickly shown to have been a murderous (to say the least) dictator and went quickly out of favor. By 1955, East Germany was throwing up the apartment buildings for which it was known: ugly, primitive, and shoddy. But the wedding-cake buildings of Stalin/Karl Marx Allee remain; restored and modernized, they are prime residential locations now. I, for one, love them.

Berlin II

Germany, as I mentioned in an earlier post, has been through a series of regimes, and been through them very quickly. All of them, except one failed government, have been heavily authoritative and repressive.

Governments use art and architecture as propaganda tools, and Berlin has quite an array of buildings and momuments that serve a political purpose. Here, for instance, is a monument in East Berlin, where the Soviet Union-controlled German Democratic Republic ruled from the end of WW II until 1990! when communism collapsed in Europe.

This monument, installed by the Communist East German government and sited in East Berlin, honors the Germans who fought against Franco on the Spanish Civil War. Sounds innocent enough and memorializes a good cause right? But the Nazi's sent troops, supplies and the infamous Condor Legion to Spain, to fight with Franco. So this monument is to Germans who went to Spain to fight the Spanish and German armies. Say what?

The propaganda purpose of this monument is to show that East (good) Germans (who were Communists, in name at any rate) fought on the side of the Spanish Republicans, while the West Germans (bad) fought on the side of Franco and Facism. In fact, only a couple hundred Germans fought on the Republic side in the Spanish Civil War, and they came from all parts of Germany, east and west included. The siting of this monument makes a propoganda statement.

In Berlin, you see the artifacts of this propaganda game in many places. In 1953 East German workers went on strike, protesting an order that they work more to increase industrial production. Soon after the strike was put down by force (Soviet tanks fired on the strikers), a statue appeared just across the border, on the main street, of a woman calling to the workers, calling them out to strike again.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, followed quickly by the re-unification of East and West Germanies into one Germany, these monuments became a problem. Some people preferred life under the Communist regime, and protests arose when plans were announced to tear down statues of Communist heros. Even Berliners who did not support the East's German Democratic Republic felt that, for good or bad, monuments and buildings constructed during the Communist years, represent an important time in Berlin's history. So, although the 60 ft high statue of Lenin has disappeared, there remain in East Berlin statues of Marx and Engels, Thalman (an early Communist) and a number of other monuments to events and people of the Communist era. The huge statue of Stalin disappeared in the 1950s, when the Soviet Union realized some rather unsavory truths about him.

Clara 2

Okay, I realize that most readers are slogging through this blog for one reason: pictures of Clara. Okay, okay, here are a few...

Berlin - the Wall

I suspect all readers of this travel blog know what the Berlin Wall was: in 1961, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany - the Soviet-run sector, that is) built a wall that divided Berlin. The wall ran around the three Western sectors of Berlin. Everyone knew why the Wall was built: to keep East Berliners from escaping the communist life of East Berlin for the opportunities in the democratic West. (A similiar wall separated East Germany from West Germany; it ran about 100 miles west of Berlin; West Berlin was, literally, an island of the Western Allies in East Germany.) In the East German mind, though, the wall was not there to keep East Germans from escaping; the official East German rationale for the Wall was to keep West Germans from coming to the East to kidnap good East German Communists - the Wall was officially titled the "Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier."

For those of my generation, that wall was the focal point of the Cold War. It separated a city, a country; it split families apart, with members on both sides unable to see each other. West Berlin built towers on its side so that people could climb up and wave to family members still in the East. East Berlin built towers on its side so that guards could shoot people trying to escape across the Wall to the West.

The Berlin Wall is mostly gone now, torn down in 1989 when two things happened: several countries bordering on Germany opened their borders, allowing people to leave East Germany, if they wanted, without risking their lives to cross the Wall; and the Soviet Union told East Germany it would no longer support it militarily or financially. Almost overnight the Wall was gone.

I find the Wall and its remnants fascinating. The Wall reminds me of what Power will do to maintain itself. Lie? Of course. Tear families apart? Sure. Kill anyone trying to escape? No problem.

In many ways, Berlin has tried to keep the ugly parts of its history in its day-to-day life; there has been no effort to sweep the ugly parts under the rug and pretend it never happened. So there are quite a few places where bits and pieces of the Wall remain, and one memorial in particular, at Bernauerstrasse, which has an excellent museum accompanying a stretch of the remaining Wall. But I also find that anytime I come upon a section, I stop and look at it and, if I can, I put a hand on it, thinking of all it represents.

These pictures were taken at the Wall memorial at Bernauerstrasse. Here an original part of the Wall remains and is maintained (everywhere else, Wall remnants are literally covered with grafitti). Though you can't see it, here the Memorial also retains the 100-yard wide "death strip" behind it, which was guarded by towers with armed guards, patrolled by dogs and soldiers, and covered with sand and touch-sensitive fences. Can't do too much to keep those Fascists out of the East German workers' paradise.

Location:Invalidenstraße,Berlin,Germany

Berlin - I

How to describe Berlin? On a day such as today, it's easier: crystal-clear sunny, mid-50s temperature - a great day for walking. Yet I think many people of a "certain age" (those not interested in the bustling night-club or social scenes; that would be us) would find Berlin not too interesting. The city has some beautiful museums, all grouped together on "Museum Island" and beautiful parks and streets. But, compared to almost any other major European city, it's not particularly pretty and the food is, well, German food, and there are not really any beautiful churches or buildings to see.

But I find Berlin fascinating, because in its short life on the world stage (Germany became an important country only in the late 1800s), it has often occupied the center of the stage. Craig talks about how dispropotionate Berlin's influence has been in the last 150 years: a middling-sized city, it was the capital of the Hohenzollern empire, which culminated by starting World War I; the capital of the Nationalist Socialist Party (Nazi) that started World War II; the focal point of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the Western Allies stood eye-to-eye many times; the most visible scene of the collapse of Commumism, and finally, the capital of a re-unified Germany, which has led the economy of Europe.

In most cities of the world, that's a history that should take up a thousand years; in Berlin, it's recent history, occuring over less than 150 years.

A visitor can see remnants of much of this rapid-fire history in Berlin's architecture, its monuments, its cemetaries, and other not-so-obvious places. Since he arrived here two years ago, Craig has been researching this history (a work visa is almost impossible for him to get), and he has been a phenomenal guide; certainly a large part of the reaon we like this city wo much. I hope to write a bit about some of this here and I warn you: it will likely be long and it will almost certainly be boring. I'll break it down into several posts and try to get them written while I'm here.

Location:Invalidenstraße,Berlin,Germany

Clara

After the first uneventful transit day of the trip, we arrived at Berlin's Tegel airport, where a wonderful sight greeted us: a smiling Craig. You know, we think it's just great that Craig and Annie have the opportunity to live here in Berlin, but dang, when it's a year between visits, we realize just how far away they are.

After settling in at our hotel, it was off to see Annie and, of course, Clara. I am not even going to try to describe how it felt to see her and hold her for the first time.

When Clara woke up and had her dinner, we all went to an Italian restaurant around the corner for ours. Laurie and I took turns, one holding Clara while the other ate. Craig and Annie just looked on. Clara was wide awake and checking everything out.

I don't know what else to write about seeing our granddaughter for the first time. I doubt that the feeling will ever change.

The Other France: Chartrettes

The day before yesterday we left Paris and came to the other France - the small town of Chartrettes, about 35 miles southeast of Paris. One half of our France "family" - Mary and Gilles Germain - lives here in Chartrettes, and we love to come stay here for a few days to see them, enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside, and have a now-traditional dinner with Mary and Gilles and the other half of our France family, Jamie and Hervé Rufin, who live in another small town: Samois-sur-Seine, just a few miles from here.

Mary and Gilles visited us several times while we were in Paris. It's about a 35-minute train ride from the local train station at Bois-le-Roi to Paris, so Mary and Gilles came in last Saturday and we had a wonderful dinner together. They took the last train back to Chartrettes, which left Paris at 12:30 in the morning and took probably an hour to get there; that's friendship!

Then Tuesday they came into Paris in the morning. Gilles and I went to the famous Paris Automobile Show and, though I'm not the car nut I once was, I had a great time with Gilles, looking at all the lastest, greatest and sleekest cars ever. My favorite was, as always, a Ferrari, but at 368,000€ (somewhere north of half a million dollars) I decided to forego buying one right now, though i'm sure I could have gotten a car show discount. Soon, I'm sure...soon.

And that day Laurie and Mary had lunch with Martine Aubry, the head of the French Socialist Party. Well, they had lunch in the same small restaurant as Martine Aubry. Mary said that Martine politely pretended not to recognize her, and Mary returned the favor.

Then Wednesday Mary and Gilles drove into Paris to take us and our boatload of luggage back to Chartrettes. Again, that's true friendship, since driving into and out of Paris is a chore not taken lightly. I'll do it when hell freezes over.

Now, I'm writing this Friday morning, sitting on the deck of Mary and Gilles' house. The view is over a beautiful green forest and if I look closely, I can see boats on the Seine River, about half a mile away. I could get used to this. Last night we had a wonderful, 4-hour dinner with Mary and Gilles and Jamie and Hervé - all our French family - here at Mary and Gilles' house: champagne, wine, salad, wine, lamb, wine, potatos, wine, cheese, wine, apple tart, and wine. Again, I could get used to this! I realize, as Mary is right to point out, that this isn't daily life here. First off, everyone would weigh 400 pounds and die at age 35 if this were daily life, and secondly, I couldn't afford even the wine bill, but it surely was wonderful to spend an evening with dear friends who we see way too rarely.

Yesterday we walked through the town in which Jamie and Hervé live, Samois-sur-Seine. We had two objectives: first, we would like to live in France for a year after retiring, and Samois is a likely place to do that, so we wanted to see more of the town; and secondly, to find the grave of Django Reinjardt.

Jazz enthusiasts will recognize that name, but for everyone else: Django Reinhardt was a guitarist who, along with the French violinist Stephane Grappelli, created a unique and still popular form of jazz in Paris in the 1930s. Because Django was a gypsy, this form of jazz is often called "gypsy jazz," though it is better described by its French name, "manouche jazz." (For you Seattle readers, the Seattle jazz band "Pearl Django" plays manouche jazz, and is known as one of the best manouche bands in the world.)

Django Reinjardt lived the last years of his life in Samois-sur-Seine and died there when, returning from a performance in Paris, he suffered a severe stroke. He was 43 when he died. After only a little searching we found his grave in the Samois cemetary. On it were guitar picks, left by his followers 57 years after his death. In the park on the river is a memorial to Django, and every year Samois presents a jazz festival in his honor, named for him.

Statue of Django Reinhardt

We then strolled down to the river. Since you've seen pictures of other parts of Spain and France, you should see a couple pictures that show the other side of France: a small village.

Samois-sur-Seine

Samois-sur-Seine

Samois-sur-Seine

Today it's off to Berlin, for a marathon of Clara adoration. We are so looking forward to seeing Craig and Annie and Clara.

Location:Avenue Charles de Gaulle,Chartrettes,France

R.I.P. Elliot Paul

In the late-1920s, the American journalist/author Elliot Paul found himself in rue de la Huchette, in Paris. He lived there off and on for 18 years, chronicling the lives and fortunes of rue de la Huchette and its denizens through the Depression and the approach to World War II. His book, "The Last Time I Saw Paris" evokes a Paris not seen now; a Paris of small shops and a slow and comfortable pace and neighbors living together, not always at peace with each other, but neighbors nonetheless.

I suspect that the Paris Elliot Paul described cannot be found anywhere in the city today. I can guarantee that it cannot be found in rue de la Huchette. This small street, two blocks long and just a few steps from Notre Dame, is a horrendous hodge-podge of Greek and Turkish restaurants, with huskers in front cajoling tourists. Mixed in are souvenir shops, bars and a jazz club. Elliot Paul would not recognize rue de la Huchette as part of the city he loved, much less as the street in which he lived and which he knew intimately.

One of many Greek restaurants on rue de la Huchette, taken early in the morning, before the hordes arrive.

The hordes, visiting rue de la Chat qui Peche (Street of the Cat That Fishes), at its intersection with rue de la Huchette.

I thought of Elliot Paul today because we took a walk this morning that carried us down rue Mouffetard. Most descriptions of rue Mouffetard make it sound like rue de la Huchette years ago: a neighborhood, a street market each morning, a look back into an older Paris. Rue Mouffetard is, indeed, an ancient street, known when Paris was a Roman-governed city.

What we saw was a "modern" rue de la Huchette in the making. Restaurants of all types: fast food, Greek, Thai, Sushi, Turkish, and, occasionally, French. Upscale fashion stores, souvenir shops (there are two "Souvenir's [sic] and two "Accessorie's" [sic again] stores on the street), some authentic food stores, and many other stores catering first, foremost and exclusively, to tourists. It was, in a word, ugly, and in another word, sad.

I love Paris, more than any other city in the world. I have come here half a dozen times and we are already planning a two-week stay here next year. I don't for a minute expect to turn a corner and find myself transported back to a Paris neighborhood of the Twenties or Thirties or Fifties. Yet I can't help but wonder if rue de la Huchette and rue Mouffetard and the hundreds of other neighborhoods that have become "moderne" are an improvement. Can a row of garish Greek restaurants really be better than the same street 80 years before, with small shops and hotels and people for whom that street is home? I can't imagine that it is better.

I look at a block of apartments built in the 1800s and early 1900s with beautiful and classic architecture, bordered by buildings built later in a style that can only be described as "modern ugly" and wonder what architect and what planning board looked at that ugliness and thought it would be a good idea. Here is a photo of two apartment buildings side-by-side along Canal St. Martin.

What architect could be proud of placing that bland, non-descript building on the left next to the elegance of the building on the right?

Or this:

Belleville, a working class village converted to apartments for the working class.

It has become much harder for this to occur, as Parisiens have, over the last 30-40 years realized that the beauty of their home city was bleeding away, building by building, and reacted by requiring that new buildings fit into their neighborhoods (in most cases, when an old building needs replacing, the façade on the new will be the same as on the old). And maybe as the ugly buildings get replaced, their replacements will be of an architecture that befits this grand old lady of a city.

In the meantime, Rest in Peace, Elliot Paul. You saw and loved and described a different Paris, and I don't think you'd much like Huchette or Mouffetard today. And be glad that the residents of this still-beautiful and still-elegant city are learning what they have and striving to keep it.

Location:Avenue Charles de Gaulle,Chartrettes,France

Comments

I just made it much easier to post comments, so I'm hoping my faithful readers will add a comment or two. On the other hand, opening up comments may bring spammers, so I'll see what happens. But for now, please comment away!

Paris

Just kind of a wandering around day, with a few very nice experiences. We have always found that there comes a time in Paris when we're just worn down and today was the day. A bottle of wine and an early evening and we'll be ready to go. But how people come here, start at 8 a.m. and go to midnight, or visit three or four museums a day, well, I don't know how they do it. And I wonder if they really feel the magic of this city.

We started today at the Louvre. Now this is one huge museum, so we picked a small part to see, trying to limit ourselves to a couple hours there; after that, museum comatosity sets in. We got up early so we could be there soon after it opened, at nine. At 9:15, we're there, and there are lines to get in, which we expected. The lines are not moving, which we didn't expect. Oh, a sign explains it: there is a general meeting of museum staff and today, the Louvre will not open until 10:15. Forget that.

We walked down to l'Orangerie, a smaller museum that contains Monet's "Water Lillies," a series of huge paintings, in rooms designed for them in cooperation with Monet. I think there are seven of these paintings, all but one of them about forty feet long and six feet high. We have seen them before and were glad for the serendipity that allowed us to see them again. When we entered the first of the two rooms containing the Monets, there were four other people and an almost reverent silence.

Lunch was at a tiny restaurant recommended by son Craig, Au Pied du Fouet, the Whip Handle. The server explained that coachmen used to come there and leave their whips at the door, hence the name; this was when the restaurant first opened 150(!) years ago. It is a typical neighborhood restaurant - crowded (they'll seat two couples, completely unknown to each other, at a small table for four), small menu, nothing fancy, but great food. I had a soup, beef bourguignon, Laurie had a salad and salmon, we both had a claufoutis for dessért. All portions were big; none of that nouvelle cuisine here! Cheap for Paris: about $65 including half a liter of wine.

Then we went to a new, to us, museum: Cité de l'Arhitecture et l'Patrimoine. Big name for some big exhibits. In the early 1900s, someone got the idea to do molds of large parts of French buildings to preserve the history of French architecture. They did thousands of these molds. The museum is comprised of casts made from the molds. It's as if they've transported all these building parts to the museum; they are 100% accurate copies of the real thing. To give you an idea, here's a picture of one part of one room of one gallery.

That's a full-sized cast, painted to match the color, of the entrance to a Romanesque church in France. There are probably fifty such casts of church facades, and hundreds of other architectural features.

Laurie and I have gained an appreciation of architecture and what it tells about a country's history and culture; this museum provides a tour of the most important architectual sites in all of France, in one place.

Next time, we'll come to this museum early in the trip and early in the day. As fascinating as it was, our brains were full and it really overwhelmed us.

Then it was back to the hotel for a rest and some wine, a late-night walk and a relatively early evening. Bonne nuit.

Location:Rue Le Regrattier,Paris,France

Meet Me in Paris

You know how it goes, trying to get together with friends at home: they're busy, then you're busy, then they're busy...and so on. The solution: meet up with the friends in Paris! That's what we did last Friday, with great results.

Pam and Lee are friends through the library - Laurie worked with Lee for quite a while and though Lee moved on to another position in the library system, they have stayed in touch. When we realized that we had one day that we'd all be in Paris, we planned a get together.

So last Friday Pam and Lee, and Lee's brother and his wife, Wendell and Pat, slogged up to our hotel (it had not been a nice day in Paris) and we all slogged further to Taverne Henri IV, one of our favorite places in Paris.

Four hours later we slogged out. Talk about a great time! We ate. We drank. We talked. We laughed. We had pictures taken of us sitting at a table used by Georges Simenon, the prolific author of the Chief Inspector Maigret detective novels, who was a habitué of Taverne Henri IV and did some of his writing there. Here's a picture of Laurie, Pam (front, right), Lee (front, left) and me. You may wonder about the books; they are, of course, Chief Inspector Maigret stories; our favorites: "Man on the Bench," and "The Headless Corpse."

Reading Maigret in Taverne Henri IV

We truly hope that we don't have to wait until our next trip to Paris to see Pam and Lee. But I'll tell you, this was one memorable visit; just a great evening with great friends.

Location:Rue Le Regrattier,Paris,France

Just some pix

We went on a walking tour today, which wasn't all that interesting, actually, so I'll just post some pictures I took.

A postcard picture, but I like it nevertheless.

Who says we don't have art in Paris.

Our favorite walk in Paris: Canal St. Martin.

Grandfather and grandson.

Another from Canal St. Martin.

The ubiquitous Paris café - always enjoyable.

Hector Guimard

The architect Hector Guimard designed a number of buildings in Paris in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was the foremost architect of a style known as French art nouveau. And although few people know of him, more people see his works every day than probably any other architect in history: he designed the art nouveau entrances to Paris metro entrances, so millions of Parisians see his work every day.

A couple years ago we took a walking tour of the 16th arrondisment here in Paris (on the western edge of "downtown" and on that walk saw Guimard's most famous building. This arrondisement contains the two old villages of Auteuil (pronounced just as it's spelled, our friend Mary says: Oh-toy) and Passy, and is interesting in that parts of the area still have a village-like feel. We wanted to return to the 16th.

While preparing for this trip, Laurie found a book of Paris buildings and monuments, written by an architect, who also illustrated the book with drawings of each building and monument described; the book contained about a dozen Guimard buildings, all in the same area of the 16th. So off we went today, looking for Guimards.

Guimard was part of the Art Nouveau movement of his time, which emphasized organic forms and abstract floral designs. One of the first buildings we came to was a house he designed, and we think it is one of the prettiest houses ever. Pictures don't do it justice, but here's one anyway:

It seems to us (we are far from being experts on architecture) that every part of this building is perfect, eveything just works together beautifully. We decided that this is the house we want to live in. That it's in the middle of a rather nice part of Paris, inside a gated community, makes me think it might be beyond our means... There may be other Guimard buildings bigger and better known, but this one will always be our favorite.
Some more pictures of other Guimard designs in Autueil:

If you've ever seen the Moderisme buildings of Barcelona, you'll recognize this style. In France the movement was called "French Art Nouveau" and Guimard was the leading architect of that style.

Sadly, Guimard fell out of favor in the 1920s. Many of his buildings were demolished; the one considered to be his best is known only through photographs and drawings. In 1938 he moved to New York, believing that the anti-Semitism of the Nazis would cause problems for him and his Jewish wife. He died in New York in 1942, not at all impoverished, but certainly unknown. Only in the last 40 years or so has his work received the attention it deserves.