Page 12 of 12
Berlin, Germany
She says- ooh babe why don't you let it go
This is my fourth visit to Berlin since 1997, each time it feels a little more complete, each time I am enjoying it a little more than the last. My past three visits have all been eerily similar, they all started with an overnight train that arrived (usually in Zoo Station) from either Paris or Amsterdam and all ended 14 or 16 hours later with another train (almost always leaving from the Ostbahnhof) to somewhere in Italy or Switzerland. Those were always an interesting 14 or 16 hours, a chance to watch the wall-less city slowly heal itself. Back in 1997 there were pipes everywhere, Potsdamer Platz (and the city) was overrun by construction cranes and the steel was just starting to go up at the Reichstag. Nine years later, Potsdamer Platz and the Reichstag are finished, along with the balance of the large projects that have totally transformed the city into something that always feels a little different from the last visit.
These first pictures show the result of some of those changes. From high atop the observation deck at the Daimler Chrysler Building at Potsdamer Platz, this is far eastern end of the Tiergarten with Helmut Jahn's Deutsche Bahn Building (part of Sony Center) on the left and Norman Fosters' Reichstag Dome on dead center right (for reference, Albert Speer's monster dome would have been just to the left of the Reichstag and beyond the Tiergarten).
Too cool to pass up, this is another picture from the Daimler Chrysler Building's observation deck, although one that ignores the otherwise unparalleled and expected view. Designed by an actual German (Hans Kolhoff), it more than holds its own between projects designed by international stars Helmut Jahn, Renzo Piano and Arata Isozaki.
Just two stops down the line from Zoo Station (ok, really three stops down the line- sorry Bono), Berlin's brand new Hauptbahnhof is finally open and ready for business. If you have been to Berlin or West Berlin before than you were already familiar with Zoo Station, an unimpressive little building with a lot of lockers just off the Ku'damm. It was the main international stop for long distance trains but today is no more than another place to pick up the S-bahn.
The spectacular new Hauptbahnhof consists of two main track levels, an upper level that is on the main east-west rail line and another underground level that features the main north-south line. Between them are three intermediate levels of shops and restaurants and ticket offices and escalators in a building that feels more like a good international air terminal than a train station. It's location (which would have been right next to Albert Speer's Volkshalle) conceivably allows transfers between trains from places as far away as Scandinavia, Italy, Poland and France, but oddly avoids the local U-bahn subway system altogether.
Wolfsburg (the home of Volkswagen) was less than an hour from the Hauptbahnhof via regularly scheduled hourly ICE trains, so I took the opportunity to take a quick trip to see the new, celebrated but ultimately disappointing science museum designed by Zaha Hadid. The Phaeno Science Center has been getting a lot of positive press and is featured at the overall worthwhile Zaha Hadid exhibition currently showing at the Guggenheim in New York, but the sad truth is that most of those people have gotten it all wrong. The building is not all that interesting- sure the thoroughly unpleasant public areas underneath it may photograph well (see below), but the rest of it is just kind of depressing. Maybe it's the materials, maybe it's the nothing special interiors, maybe it's the whole design concept. Who knows.
On the Spree River side, five minutes from my hotel and five minutes from the Berlin Fan Fest that had taken over all the best parts of the Tiergarten (where I had watched France eliminate Spain from World Cup contention), this is the well lit Reichstag. Home to Germany's Bundestag (Parliament) and its single best tourist attraction (the dome designed by Norman Foster), the Reichstag has hosted everyone from Kaisers to Nazis to Russians to Cristo and (for the third time in seven years) me.
There are two things that I have come to accept about the Reichstag Dome in this my third visit. The first is that it is virtually impossible to stop taking pictures once you've entered, especially in an all digital world where old fashioned limitations such as film and developing expenses are so quickly ignored. Don't even try to fight it. The second thing that I have learned- and I don't say this lightly- is that the dome itself is probably the single nicest space that will have been completed in my lifetime. Seriously. The room has everything- amazing history (Nazis burned the building down and then used the fallout to consolidate power), great views over the Tiergarten and the whole Mitte section of Berlin, an amazing sunscreen and mirror system, and ramps that provide well choreographed views of the entire experience. I say this as plainly as possible, if there is anyway you can think of to get yourself to Berlin, go and see this space for yourself. Then write me back to tell me how wrong you think I am.
But wait, there’s more…
Despite what you may have thought (or hoped), this trip did not end in Berlin. This slideshow continues with stops in Potsdam, Lübeck, Copenhagen Helsinki, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Moscow and finally London. Continue on by clicking below…
