Europe 2009. September 2-14, 2009.

Nurnberg, Dresden, Berlin, Erfurt, Eisenach, Thuringerwald, Rüdesheim.

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Nürnberg

We arrived early in the morning to Frankfurt International, where we grabbed a high speed train to Nürnberg. We checked into the Grand Hotel Meridien and Heidi decided it was time for a nap. I needed ice cream, so I walked into town and took a few photos. What a gorgeous city.

I tried out my awesome new German language skills I’d been practicing on Rosetta Stone (all three levels) over the past year. I tried to order ice cream and sounded like an idiot and they spoke back to me in english. Deflated, I ate my ice cream and walked back to the hotel to get Heidi out of bed.

We spent a lot of time walking around the old town, checking out the castle and the original neighborhood of Albrecht Dürer.

One of the local churches had some photographs of the damage during WWII.

We found some more ice cream later that evening.

We decided not to visit the old Nazi stomping grounds, rather we wanted to do a cursory visit of a city we’d like to come back to for the Christmas Markets.

Dresden

Heidi and I visited Dresden in 1996. The city had only been out of the control of the DDR for 7 years and there was a lot of work to be done. It’s amazing how much has been accomplished.

But first it was time for noon beer. It still felt a little like 3 am, but we were ready to win the jet lag battle!

Heidi found some shopping…Not much of a surprise there.

This is the Augustusbrücke crossing the Elbe River to the Innere Neuestadt or the inner new city. The Innere Neustadt, interestingly enough, is the most socialist looking portion of the city. Zwinger Museum fountain. Dresden Castle. Example of a typically refurbished building in the Altstadt. When we were here in 1996, most of the building looked like this.

This is the Dresden Frauenkirche. In 1996 it was still rubble and the local government was trying to raise funds to built it. The original bricks were still lying in place where they had fallen after the firebombing in 1945. They used as many of the old bricks as possible to reconstruct this beautiful church.

Typical building in the newly rebuilt innerstadt.

“Procession of the Dukes” murals on Augustusstrasse. It was originally constructed in 1589, rebuilt in the 1800s and early 1900s. It consists of 25,000 ceramic tiles.

Shopping area.

Looking west from our hotel.

View of the Frauenkirche from our hotel window.

Berlin

We arrived by train at the AMAZING new hauptbahnhof. It was incredible and had JUST opened.

This is the hotel we stayed at in Berlin. I forgot to mention that we didn’t really plan this trip at all. We just bought plane tickets and went for it. This was the best hotel we could find in Berlin that actually had an available room. Everything in the city was full or WAY out of the center.

Walking back to the city center from the hotel.

One of our first stops was the Brandenburg gate. When we were here in 1996, this part of town was a huge construction zone- now it is beautiful.

We spent some time riding the subway. It was incredibly clean and the only system we’ve experienced using the honor system. No turnstiles. No mandatory tickets. Of course we bought our 3 day passes, but we never got checked. No huge lines, no jumping gates, no craziness. Very German. Very clean.

One of the most interesting historical places was the former Berlin wall.

The next few photos are of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche). The top was blown off in WWII. The ugly belfry was built in 1960.

Construction of modern apartments.

Reichstag. This is the meeting place of the German parliament. Many think Hitler intentionally set it on fire and blamed the socialists to help raise his popularity in the 1930s. Lots of history here- plus it’s a gorgeous building.