Sunday, 18 July 2010
Day 5: Arrival in Berlin
We arrived in Berlin at about 3pm. Once again Dermott was invaluable, his route was perfect and he really takes the stress out of driving in a foreign city, something I was slightly nervous of. At the risk of becoming some sort of tedious ambassador of Tom Tom, the difference a competent sat nav makes is pretty remarkable. Instead of Jojo map reading and me inevitably shouting at her as I take the wrong lane, or we simply go the wrong way, Dermott keeps the team intact. It's us against him. If he sends us the wrong way we can get cross with him, not each other. He is single-handedly helping our fledgling marriage flourish by removing all potential navigational arguments. Thanks Dermott!
We also managed to get ourselves a Low Emissions Zone sticker. A prerequisite if driving in many German cities. This was achieved by visiting a German AA (ADAC) centre. Where we met a very nice man who helped us out and spoke perfect English. I continue to be shocked by how good everyone's English is throughout Germany. I feel slightly embarrassed to be so inept at speaking anything other than English.
So to Berlin! We decided to treat ourselves and stay in a hotel in Berlin, rather than commute in from a campsite outside the city. We stayed at the Park Inn Hotel, Berlin's tallest hotel, which is in Alexanderplatz, opposite the famous TV Tower (photos to come!). Das Van was too big to park in the underground car park, so we were given a "Limo" space right out the front of the hotel where the van has been resting throughout our stay in Berlin. It felt a bit mean abandoning our trusty van, yet also fantastic to have so much space in a hotel room.
Our plan for Berlin was to explore a mixture of the famous sights and take in a few of the famous (amongst vegans anyway) eateries too. Our first trip was to Kreuzberg an area in the south east of Berlin's centre which is apparently Berlin's answer to Brighton's North Laine, or London's Camden. Certainly the areas we explored seemed to have the requisite number of dreadlocked, tattooed and pierced individuals to suggest this is an accurate label. The whole area had a very laid back and scruffy feel to it, and also allowed me to experience my first ever vegan doner kebab. Yes, a voner kebab. Like so much fast food, it was amazing at the time, but not something you'd be able to eat too often!
Later in the evening we headed out to walk alongside the East Side Gallery on our way to dinner. This is a section of the Berlin Wall that remains standing and is now something of a tourist trap. Despite it having been repainted with peace murals, and therefore considerably more colourful & less unfriendly than it was when heavily guarded, it was still a pretty stark experience. It would be too much to say it offered an insight into what living in a divided city would be like, but certainly with the River Spree running just behind it & the views across to the other side it was possible to see just how artificial, strange and repressive it would have been. It's interesting to note that almost all of Jojo's and my time in Berlin was spent to the east of where the wall once stood.
We ate dinner at a place called Yellow Sunshine. Vegan fast food of a different nature - burgers, not kebabs this time. In my naivety of having never visited Germany before, I was surprised by how (in Berlin at least) it shares "cafe culture" with other places I've been in Europe, mainly the Mediterranean or Paris. Every street had a number of cafes with people occupying the tables and chairs outside sitting, chatting in groups, and in a huge range of different languages. Some were drinking alcohol, some coffee, some water but it was all very civilised and relaxed. It made me wonder what a Berliner visiting London or Brighton would make of some of our nightlife with it's rowdiness and vomiting! And where in the UK could you get ice cream after midnight?! Yummy.
We got back to the hotel late, and shattered. I barely had time to enjoy swinging a cat in all our new found van-free space before going to sleep.
Day 4: Cologne to Hannover(ish)
Today we set off to the countryside on the way to Berlin! All in all a fairly uneventful day of driving, eating and sleeping.
We set off fairly early from Cologne so that we could enjoy the afternoon in some more rural surroundings. After 11 miles of our 195 mile journey, Jojo declared that she needed to stop for a wee. So we stopped, but Dermott and I rolled our eyes!
We got to Ingenensee campsite (near Hannover) at 3ish after a good motorway drive, i.e. totally uneventful. Although the van's ability to comfortably do 100mph on the autobahn is worth a mention.
The campsite had a lovely lake, so we went for a swim, cooked some dinner and settled down for an early night.
Tomorrow we reach Berlin!
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Fog on the Rhine (is all mine all mine...)
After a breakfast of beans on toast (courtesy of our new 4 berth camping toaster!) we packed up and headed out on the road to Germany and more specifically Cologne (or Koln).
Dermott once again came up trumps leading us without hesitation or question. Is it wrong to develop a crush on an Irish satellite navigation system whilst on one's honeymoon? I fear it's happening.
We entered Germany with minimal fanfare. Having only travelled Europe by plane before, we're both used to all the customary borders, security and customs that entails. As such, the road borders between countries are a surprising non-event. Leaving Belgium and entering Germany was simply a question of passing a sign welcoming us to Deutschland. No passport check, no customs, nothing. In fact Jojo and I are yet to have our passports looked at since leaving the UK. Even Dover - Dunkirk was accomplished with nothing more than a cursory glance at the front covers of our passports.
We got to our campsite in Cologne and were greeted by a stern german man who looked at Jojo's tattoos and asked her if she was a sailor. Which was, at least, original. He booked us in, directed us to our pitch by the river & informed us that all other questions could be answered by his (frankly useless) noticeboard.
We headed from the campsite into Cologne. As our van did not yet have a Low Emissions Zone sticker it was banned from the city centre. So we took a tram (my first tram ever!). Things didn't get off to an auspicious start in Cologne. As we crossed our first road junction I looked down to see the road was strewn with at least a dozen used needles. This was made worse when I looked across to see Jojo's flip-flopped feet. Not nice. Luckily, more by chance than anything else, we avoided any needle-stick injuries and continued on our way. Jojo decided to look on the brightside & chose to blame the whole thing on a "clumsy diabetic". I decided not to allow myself to descend into a paranoid spiral of feet-checking, ignore it and hope for better sights and experiences ahead!
We checked out the Dom (cathedral) & some other Cologne landmarks before moving on to the inevitable vegan eateries. In this instance this entailed an ice-cream serving cafe and a vegan shop where we stocked up on loads of fake soya meats for the miles ahead.
As we left the vegan store, the skies darkened and the wind started picking up. Within 5 minutes it was almost dark (think Independence Day all you bad film lovers) and blowing a gale. The wind whipped up sand from the base of the trees lining the streets straight into our eyes and before long the city was inhabited by zombies - everyone eyes shut, moving slowly, arms out feeling their way ahead. It was a bizarre experience, but not totally unexpected after the humidity of the day. As the rain started pouring the darkness was joined by a wet fog, which fortunately coincided with us reaching our tram stop for the journey back to our campsite. The tram was not straightforward however, as the sudden change in weather meant our line was closed, and our shocking lack of any german meant we didn't understand the announcement telling us this and happily sat on the tram going in totally the wrong direction. A few phrase book searches and tram changes later we made it back to the campsite to find several branches had fallen from the trees and we had been lucky to be out and thus avoid any branch/windscreen dramas.
Our final task was to get some food for our dinner. A mundane trip to Aldi was made more entertaining by the checkout lady randomly heckling us as we wandered round. It was only as the lights went out that we realised this was because they were closing. Unfortunately our bemused shrugs & continued slow reading of bread ingredients (the joys of veganism) hadn't done much to endear us to this lady. She recommenced her shouting with more hostility as we finally reached the checkout. Even letting her know we were English and had not understood her earlier shouting did not appease her. She simply shouted some more. She was great. I named her Hilda. Jojo named her Aldi-Bitch.
Tomorrow we start our two day trip to Berlin.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
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