Oslo Tuesday 10th July 2012
It was sad to leave the good ship Quest in Longyearbyen after such a great week, but we had a short appointment with Oslo, which, if you have been paying attention, we had visited previously.
Because of this, we were smugly confident that we knew the way to the station at the airport, knew to buy the cheaper train tickets, rather than going on the Airport Express train at 50% more money, because it only took 26 minutes to Oslo Central station, and only stopped once anyway! And our hotel was adjacent to the station.
The train arrived on schedule and we dragged our bags on board, settling in for a 26 min ride. We did become aware that the train was stopping considerably more than once, and, after about 40 minutes we started to wonder whether, in fact, this was the correct train. We asked a fellow passenger, and we’re told it was ” another 10 stops”. This surprised us, but, at least it confirmed we were on the right train.
Eventually, after about an hour, the train stopped at a station, and everything went quiet. The conductor came through and asked us where we were going, and we told him Oslo Central. Then came the knockout blow; Oslo Central station, he said ” is closed for the summer” . WHAT???
Yes, he told us that this train would go no further, and we would have to drag our cases along a footpath for about 7 or 8 minutes to another station which had a subway system which would take us into Central station. We were astounded; what sort of city closes its main railway station for the summer, when all the tourists are in town, not to mention the residents?
We finally found the station and also Central station via the subway, but then spent another 30 minutes trying to get out of the station through all it’s renovation works, to our hotel. We eventually found out that, in fact Oslo doesn’t close it’s station just to make life difficult, but that it has been conducting renovations all summer for the last 3 years, and still it goes on. Some hint of this, perhaps from the lady who sold us our train tickets, would have been good, since, only a week ago none of this was happening.
We were scheduled to take a train out at 8 the next morning on our way to Bergen, via Flåm, but of course, the trains weren’t running were they. However, we were fully prepared and had found out that a bus would substitute for the first hour or so of the journey.
This all went well, and eventually transferred on to the train for a 3 hour ride to meet up with the Flåmsbana railway, which travels a 20 km run from fairly high up in chilly mountains down through a spectacular valley, past waterfalls and stunning scenery, into Flåm, which is at the head of a magnificent fjord. The train did make one stop on the way at a spectacular waterfall, and we were allowed off for 5 minutes onto the station there. Suddenly we heard music and singing coming from above us, and there, some way up, adjacent to the falls was this poor woman miming and dancing around, no doubt getting soaking wet, putting on a show for the tourists. Talk about over the top corny!
Flam
Arriving in Flåm was just lovely. It is a gorgeous little town with a lot of character, at the head of a fjord surrounded by sheer mountains. The thing which immediately caught our attention was an enormous 2,500 passenger cruise ship berthed just metres from the town, in fact, our hotel which was in a fabulous position almost at the water’s edge was dominated by this ship towering over it.
It was due to leave at 6pm, so we wandered across to get a good view of the departure, which was entertaining in itself. This place is one of those ” Wow” places that occasionally come along in life.
Our hotel had a micro brewery attached, so, of course, we wandered in and found ourselves a small niche and went about sampling their wares.
Next morning we had brought the superb weather with us again, and a new ship had arrived. We did a double take at this one, it was the Costa Fortuna. Not only a ship from the unfortunate Costa line, but obviously nobody thought about how it sounds in English!
They apparently have a ship, sometimes two, arriving every day, which effectively doubles the population, and, obviously provides a steady income source for the locals. We noticed that, back a little way down the harbour, there was, in fact, another, smaller, cruise ship, which was ferrying its passengers using the ship’s tenders.
That afternoon we boarded a ferry, to begin our journey back to Bergen. The plan was to take the ferry on a 2 hour journey to a small town called Gudvangen, there to transfer to a bus to take us to Voss, then train to Bergen.
As we left Flåm, looking back at the beautiful little town surrounded by peaks on three sides, and looking forward into the fjord, it was just the most incredible sight. We were on the top deck which was open air, the weather was sunny and perfect, and we sailed along the fjords, quite narrow waterways with towering peaks on either side, and waterfalls at every turn. Simply a classical example of what we all imagine Nowegian fjords to be, but somehow, exceeding the imagination when you actually find yourself there.
After 2 hours we found ourselves at Gudvangen, and transferred to the bus for what we imagined would be a straightforward drive to Voss. It wasn’t straightforward. We turned on to a narrow road which appeared to be just wide enough for our bus, and I commented that I hoped it was a one way road. It wasn’t. Another bus was coming from the opposite direction. After some reversing and a bit of fiddling, we managed to get past. The next surprise was about to materialise, as the driver announced that we were about to negotiate a descent into a valley on the steepest road in Norway, – a gradient of 18%.
We began the descent on this sharply zigzagging road, looking almost directly below us into the valley, whilst being surrounded by peaks looming over us, and encountering waterfalls every few metres. This was something you would be a little hesitant about doing in a car, let alone a bus, but we survived, and loved it. Cameras were clicking relentlessly, including, of course, Elly’s.
After arriving in Voss, we transferred to the train for the hour journey to Bergen. The views were lovely, mainly of lakes adjacent to the railway line, and a continual reminder of the difficulties that must have been encountered years ago when trying to build a rail service here, the fact that, wherever you turn, there is a mountain in the way. The answer, of course, is tunnels, dozens of them. Just when you were enjoying the view from the train, everything would go black, such that there was almost as much black as view!
Bergen again
We arrived back in beautiful Bergen, to find it buzzing with activity, much more than it was a month ago when Elly and I were here last. It is now full Summer, whereas previously it had been pre- Summer. Once again we had brought the good weather with us, and the locals and the tourists were all out in the streets, and into Elly’s favourite, the fish market.
After a full day in Bergen, basking in the beautiful weather, we found ourselves in the situation in which we were leaving next morning, Elly and I, and Bev and Andrew to St Petersburg, and John and Bronia to Warsaw, so the group of six was about to become the group of four.
We awoke on the morning of departure to steady rain. I reasoned that because the weather had been so kind to us, it realised we were going to St Petersburg, so it had to leave Bergen early, because we know that weather doesn’t go as fast as aeroplanes, so it could arrive in time to meet us at our destination.
St Petersburg, Russia
Sure enough, when we arrived at St Petersburg, (formerly Leningrad), the fine weather was there waiting for us. The bad news was that the aircraft was at a stand off bay, due to no aero bridges, and the bus drivers were on a go slow, so we were told we would have to wait half an hour for a bus to take us to the terminal – welcome to the workers paradise. As it turned out we didn’t have to wait that long.
Flying in, and also driving in to the city, it really struck us how large the city is, and how there are no houses as we know them, just acres and acres of apartment buildings. Our hotel was in a good position, near a lot of points of interest, and also near the river. We decided to have dinner at the hotel until we got our bearings. It turned out to be very good, with the possible exception of the out of tune Gypsy band playing at the other end of the dining room, along with ” an almost live bear” as the sales pitch informed us. The almost live bear was some poor soul who was dressed up in an unconvincing bear suit, accosting people on the street outside and then strolling inside to dance with the gypsy band.
We decided to go for a walk after dinner, and for the first time realised the enormity of whole place, and especially the buildings. On every corner of every block, along the river front, adjacent to beautiful parks, there are the most magnificent buildings everywhere you look. It says a lot about the vast amounts of money that must have been poured into the construction of these amazing buildings over the years. The scale of these buildings is so vast that Elly was having trouble working out how to include everything in her photos. We retired for the night, with a city tour planned for the next day.
Out for the city tour with guide Olga, we started to get a picture of our surroundings. The previous night’s wanderings helped get us oriented. Once again we had to marvel at the sheer extent of the building that the ruling classes, from Peter the Great onwards had indulged in. They certainly left an amazing legacy for everyone to marvel at, but you can get a sense of why the revolution happened, when such profligacy was going on while undoubtedly the ” have nots” looked on at the self indulgence. The surprising thing is that it took them so long, because the spending started in the 1700s, but the revolution wasn’t until 1917.
History remembers the winners and the strong, and the tour concentrated on this legacy and the amazing history of this place. Interestingly almost nothing was said about the Soviet era – maybe that’s because nothing physical was created.
I asked Olga whether, as a citizen, she was happier then or now. Her reply was interesting. She said that she lives in Leningrad, she was born in Leningrad, and one day someone told her that she now lives in St Petersburg, and she said that was a “surprise”. She said that life used to be secure and predictable, you knew you would go to school, go to university, get a job, and prices would stay the same. You weren’t aware of the inequalities that existed, because everyone around you was the same as you. Poverty and wealth were not visible, so you didn’t consider them. I got the impression that she felt life was harder now.
St Petersburg is made up of many islands, formed by the river Neva and the many canals that run off it and each other. The original concept of Peter the Great was to have all canals instead of roads. That hasn’t quite happened, but the canal system is very beautiful. In the afternoon we took a canal tour on one of the seemingly hundreds of boats making their way along the canals. We are not used to travelling in peak tourist season, but it is in full swing here. The canal tour meandered along the canals and out onto the Neva river. This was another perspective on the city, and was great fun – they even gave us a plastic cup of cheap sparkling wine – what about that?
In the evening we decided to indulge in a little culture, and Elly managed to locate the local concert hall, where we obtained tickets for a performance of Shostakovich 7th Symphony “Leningrad” by the St Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Alexander Dimitriev. This was a special performance marking the 70th anniversary of the Siege of Leningrad. The seating etiquette in St Petersburg is interesting; there was someone in my seat when I arrived, and when I showed her my ticket she just stood up and moved without any acknowledgement. There were people in Bev and Andrew’s seat as well, who said they wanted to sit together. Bev and Andrew said that they wanted to sit together too. Four people in front of us also were in the wrong seats. This seatbswapping went on right up to and into the introductory announcement. It appears that you just buy a basic ticket and then sit anywhere you like and hope the seat hasn’t been sold.
Then dinner at a restaurant we found on an iPhone app, which didn’t tell us anything about the standard, just simply that it was there. Turned out to be pretty good Georgian cuisine in a little downstairs restaurant, basic but nice.
Next morning we were collected by our tour guide, Marina, to take us to The Hermitage. She spoke perfect English and was a brilliant guide, getting us through the massive queues, and into little corners to give us personal insights into all the history of the buildings and displays.
The Hermitage is a massive complex comprising the Winter Palace, staterooms, museums and art displays. It was initiated by Peter the Great, but it was Catherine the Great, later, who indulged in profligate spending of the state treasury, buying works of art about which she knew nothing, even buying whole galleries from many European cities. There are 3 million items in the collection, but only a small percentage are on display. We had heard the tourist spiel that if you spent one minute looking at each item, it would take you 8 years to view them all. Marina said that wasn’t true, they only made that figure for the Americans, it would only take 7 years really.
It took us nearly 4 hours to tour the complex, and the history of the place is fascinating. The displays included 2 of only 10 in the world of Da Vinci paintings, an unfinished sculpture by Michelangelo, plus acres of artists from Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Mattisse to Gauguin and Renoir etc and gold everywhere.
After the tour we walked to the St Isaac cathedral, just to climb the 300 steps to get a view over St Petersburg, identifying some of the landmarks we have come to know.
The evening saw some more culture; the Opera House to see Prince Igor, which none of us had seen before. Andrew still hasn’t seen it, as he elected to remain at the hotel to watch the European soccer final on TV. The opera house was a beautiful example of how you envisage an old European theatre, with many dress circles and small chandelier lights around the balconies. The performance was really enjoyable, and it was strange to think that we were watching the opera in St Petersburg. Even so, we both believe that our Melbourne opera productions are as good or better than this performance.
Marina came to collect us the next morning, this time with driver Alexander. We headed out into the suburbs for about 50 minutes, and arrived at Peterhof, a country summer residence for Peter the Great. Again we were amazed at the staggering wealth on display. Beautiful gardens, and a system of seventy something fountains, established in the 1700s, which operate entirely by gravity, with no pumps involved. The water comes from some distance away from permanent springs, and is piped to several holding reservoirs which have a 17 metre fall to the fountains, giving ample pressure to drive the whole system. This combined with a beautiful display of statues, most in gold leaf, is just magnificent.
This all surrounds the buildings themselves, which, like the Hermitage, are also decorated and furnished in the most opulent fashion. The exterior is similar to the Hermitage, but has sections of onion shaped domes, again, all in gold leaf. Peter and his entourage apparently only came for two or three days at a time, so mostly this whole complex was not even used.
Our guide, Marina, was extraordinary. The crowds lining up outside the Peterhof palace were a sure sign that the tourist season is in full swing. She would disappear for a couple of minutes, then return and summon us, whereupon we would manoeuvre our way around the crowds, and be quietly ushered in ahead of everyone standing in the queues. This obviously upset some of the crowd, but the fact is that we had apparently paid extra for this queue jumping privilege, and we were very glad we had. Once inside, she would effectively edge us in front of other groups which were already there, and then turn on the charm in the most incredible manner, such that nobody seemed to be upset. Her eyes were everywhere whilst she was guiding us, and she would move us to the best position, or move us out of the way of a following group so that we didn’t inconvenience any of the other guides. She was the ultimate professional, and her knowledge was extraordinary.
We then travelled for another hour or so, this time to Catherine’s Palace. This, again was an exhibition of extravagance, absolutely beautiful again, and all in the similar vein to the Peterhof Palace, and again, apparently only used for a couple of days at a time.
One really interesting aspect of this palace was the display of photographs depicting the state of the building following World War II. A large part had been damaged, and some sections had been almost completely destroyed. There was a photo showing a section we had just emerged from, which was now exquisite, but which, in the photo was just rubble. It was amazing to realise the extent of the restoration which has taken place, using old photos and drawings from the archives. The restoration was done in as accurate a manner as possible without resorting to cheaper alternatives. The astounding thing is that governments, including during the Soviet era, have been willing to spend those sums to do the restorations, when, looking at the damage, one would suspect it would be written off. The fact that the Soviet rulers would spend that sort of money restoring what must have been the antithesis of all they admired, is quite amazing.
Returning from our travels we called in at the local synagogue which, no doubt has been involved in an interesting past, but is now apparently operating without any overt problems. Elly, Bev and Andrew had a vested interest here, and it transpired that Marina was also Jewish, so they tapped into her once more extensive knowledge.
It is difficult to imagine a more professional guide than Marina, and we finished with a much greater knowledge of the history here than we could have by any other means.
Dinner at a restaurant called The Vodka Museum was very good, with some of us having a few glasses of vodka (not me, I stuck with beer and wine), and, on returning to the hotel, Bev and Andrew, at Elly’s instigation, played cards until late o’clock, while I wimped out and went to bed at midnight, as we were off to Helsinki the next morning.
Elly at the Vodka Museum
Helsinki
Elly and I took the “Allegro” train to Helsinki whilst Bev & Andrew flew, so it was a bit of a race, and they won by an hour. We just had time for a bit of a wander and dinner, which was in an old trapper/ hunter/woodcutter type restaurant with lots of wood and character.
Tallinn
Next morning we took the ferry across to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia for a day trip. This took two hours, and we had a morning champagne to celebrate Bev and Andrew’s birthdays, which happen to be on the same day.
We were met on arrival by a guide who gave us an overall view of the city by car, then a walking tour through the old city.
Poor old Estonia has been raped and pillaged several times over the centuries, and has been under the control of Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Russia. During the second world war it was occupied by Germany and bombed by Russia. Peter the Great had raised his head here in the 1700s – he gets around.
Tallinn is a lovely old walled city with original buildings and cobblestone streets. They actually do the tourist bit by having genuine Estonian food ( if you believe they actually eat bears paws and elk lips!), and have people dressed in ye olde costumes calling out indecipherable things across the town square. We had a good time and it was worth doing.
This was our last day with Bev and Andrew, as we headed towards Berlin the next day to meet up with 3 of our 4 children, Eleanor, Michael, and Daniel. Michael is now living in Berlin, and El and Dan have flown over to spend a bit of time with him and let him show them Berlin.
Berlin
Arriving in Berlin, we went straight to the apartment Michael had organised for us. Really nice, and 10 minutes walk to Michael’s apartment. We went for a walk into town, first visiting the Holocaust Memorial, which is a quite powerful presentation of several acres of large, smooth concrete blocks of varying size which you walk through and around to get your own subjective feel for the meaning of it all, which hasn’t been provided by the designer. You then head down stairs underground to the museum section below, which is very well done. A little difficult to describe the place, but a photo might help.
From there we took a river cruise to check out the city from that perspective. The commentary was in German, but Michael gave us our own personal version.
The weather started closing in, with a spectacular thunderstorm entertaining us at Michael’s apartment, while we tried to decide where to eat without getting drowned. A local Indian place did the trick, with only minor drowning. Michael’s German is very impressive, he can get around quite comfortably with it, and his knowledge of the city and the tram and train systems makes life easy for us.
Up reasonably early for a “free” city walking tour. It is officially free, but you pay what you think it is worth at the end. Our guide was excellent, an American living in Berlin and studying at the Humboldt University. That went for around 3 hours and gave us a good look at the city. The most amazing thing he did was to take us to a small scruffy little area being used to park cars, outside a very ordinary looking block of apartments. Underneath where we stood was Hitler’s bunker, where he made his last stand and finally committed suicide. There is absolutely nothing there to indicate what is underneath, which is intentional, so that no looneys can be tempted to make it into a shrine of some sort.
We passed a statue commemorating a lone carpenter who attempted to place a home made bomb in a stage where Hitler was giving a speech in 1937. His usual orations went for quite a long time but alas on this particular day it was a short speech and unfortunately the bomb detonated 12 minutes after he had finished. How different history could have been!
We passed by some remnants of the Berlin wall, the Topography of Terror museum and then proceeded to the location of “check point Charlie” which is rather commercialized but the guides story telling of some of the political standoffs and intrigues at this check point made it fascinating.
The tour ended on Museum Island, which is actually an island formed by the river, clustered with several museums. A good tour, really worth doing.
In the PM all 5 of us took a tram to a place Michael had sussed out. It was a former STASI detention and interrogation centre, now being shown to the public. The STASI was the East German secret police organisation which did its job of terrorising the public following the end of the war. This was a scary place, and was, in fact, still in operation nearly 12 months after the Berlin wall came down, simply because it was kept such a secret that nobody from the outside knew about it. The political prisoners were held in the facility in small cells for up to 3 years, and we’re not allowed to sleep during the day nor make any sound. They were continually monitored by guards through peep holes to ensure compliance. They were subjected to various forms of physical and mental torture before being interrogated, and arbitrarily convicted. They would then be sent to other prisons or to the gulags. In later years they stopped the physical torture, at least the type that left tell tale injuries, because they often sold the prisoners to West Germany as a source of income.
Some of the guides here are actually former prisoners. Unfortunately they do the non English speaking groups, so we didn’t get one for our group, but our guide continually referred to them during our tour. He also said that the guards and prison officers are still living in the area, and show no remorse over their years of abuse, they still believe they were in the right.
In the evening we all went by train to a very popular cocktail bar called The Green Door, then to a place which is basically a very successful American hamburger restaurant. It is so popular that Michael couldn’t get a booking before 10 pm even though he booked the day before. We had a good time, then we headed home whilst the others went out partying as it was Daniel’s last night before heading home.
Next morning Elly and I went through the rain to the Jewish Museum, which traces Jewish settlement and history in Berlin from the beginning through to current times. It is a very impressive collection of history, using photos, items from family collections, quotes from people through the ages and extensive writings, cleverly done on occasions such as having script appear internally in clear glass walls without any sign of projection from anywhere, technology at work. The display covers all the times when Jews were welcome in Berlin, through the times when they were not permitted to hold any positions of high office, or any high level professions, to the pogroms and, of course the Nazi years.
The museum tour starts in the old building where we saw a temporary exhibition of the migration of Russian Jews to Berlin, and then we proceed to the new amazing building designed by architect Daniel Libeskind which displays 2000 years of German-Jewish history from the Romans and the middle ages to the age of enlightenment to today.
The building is in itself a work of art and it is essentially a 3D metaphor representing the tortured history of the Jewish people. It is comprised of silver walls sharply angled and instead of windows there are small openings. There is a steep staircase descending to three intersecting walkways, called axis’ representing the fates of Jews during the Nazi years- death, exile and continuity. Only the later leads to the exhibition.
The “Fallen Leaves” installation has more than 10,000 open mouthed faces cut from rusty iron plates lie scattered on the floor and when you walk on them the noise is like an ocean of screams. Libeskind called this area “memory void”
The third photo below is The Garden Of Exile. It has 49 columns filled with earth and they are arranged in a square standing vertically on a slanting floor. Olive willows grow out of the columns. The garden Is a square which is the only completely rectangular form in the building. Libeskind quotes”One feels a little bit sick walking through it. But is is accurate because that is what order feels like when you have the history of Berlin.
We spoke to Dan, who had the sense to go home at a reasonable hour the previous night, unlike others I could name, and we arranged to meet for dinner at a restaurant adjacent to the Concert Hall. When we arrived there was an open air concert in progress. We couldn’t see over the fence unless we stood on the Concert Hall steps, but we could clearly hear the music from our outdoor table. There was an orchestra and choir and opera singers, and they performed a range of well known opera pieces. It was just a fabulous way to spend the evening and to share it with Dan, who said: ” it doesn’t get much better than this.” ( Yes, Pete Godfrey, I know; guess what? – it didn’t!)
We have been checking all the flights for our return home, and, once again we are in trouble with standby travel. Our intended flight from Frankfurt to Singapore is full, and there are at least 12 staff waiting on standby. Singapore to Melbourne is also full, as is London to Singapore, which would have been an option.
The bottom line is, we have had to substantially increase the cost of the trip by buying a full fare trip home with Qatar Airways, otherwise we could be here forever – Elly probably wouldn’t mind. Dan also is desperate to get back in time for uni, so he booked a Qatar flight as well for the next morning.
The morning arrived and Dan headed for the airport. Elly and I were on a tram into the city centre when Dan rang to say there was no record of his ticket, and the flight was full! We had booked these flights through Expedia – BEWARE EXPEDIA – we had paid by credit card and received email confirmation for both Dan’s flight and ours. The emails contained reference numbers, booking numbers, flight details, the works. Daniel rang Expedia, only to be told that there seemed to be a possibility that our Amex card was stolen, so they rejected the card and didn’t make the booking. And nobody bothered to tell us!!!
We then spent the next few hours on a 3 way conversation with us, Dan and Michael in his apartment, trying to find alternative flights. Dan was showing the airline staff his emailed confirmation, and they did nothing. He rang Expedia and they did nothing.
Our flights, also, had not been booked, even though we had all the confirmation documents.
Daniel finally spoke to Flight Centre at the airport, and found an Qatar flight for later in the day, but it has a 17 hour connection in Doha, and he will miss a critical day at uni. He shouldn’t have cut things so fine, but you don’t expect such gross incompetence in things like that. I will never use Expedia again.
We then set about working on our alternatives. All our standby options out of Frankfurt, or London were all overbooked, so it was full fare again at the last minute. Eleanor was going via London for a couple of days, the flight for which she already had booked, however, she bought a full fare with Cathay to Hong Kong in the hope she will get on standby out of there.
We have done a scary thing; we have booked out of Berlin for Hong Kong on Aeroflot!! If we survive that we will try standby out of Hong Kong.
Dan finally departed, and we had a visit to an enormous flea market near Michael’s apartment before being rained upon by another thunderstorm. It was in a grassy area with beer gardens and music all around and of course thousands of people enjoying the outdoors. We have had about three since we have been here. We went for dinner to a restaurant which had a deck overlooking a canal, lovely environment, and food OK. On the way back we stopped at the East Side Gallery, which is a long stretch of the old Berlin Wall, which has been preserved and used as a venue for street art. There is some really clever stuff and some which is a bit hard to interpret, particularly as it is mostly in German. It is illegal to deface or paint over, and apparently is re commissioned every now and then to allow sections to be painted over and something new done. Overall, it is an interesting area to stroll past.
On our last full day we took the train out to Wannsee, where there is a lovely, leafy area on the shore of a large lake ( Wannsee), and in that area is an old mansion which once belonged to a wealthy merchant. In 1942 some senior members of the SD along with Heidrich, who was trying to increase his power at the time, held a conference in the mansion, to set out the terms and methods of the destruction of the European Jews. This was more confronting, horrendous history and a walk through of the house is arranged to give a chronological sequence of events in Germany from the early thirties onwards. We found the contrast of the lavish beautiful surrounds and the history of evil very disturbing. Michael tells me that he recently watched a movie of this conference, called Conspiracy.
We then continued on to Potsdam to visit the Schloss Sanssouci, which is the palace built by Frederick the Great. We didn’t arrive there until 5 pm, which is when it closes ( of course) but being Monday it was not open, but we could still walk through the grounds. The building itself is showing definite signs of disrepair, but the gardens and fountains were lovely, and we walked through the gardens to the New Palace, which was built later. The gardens were not only lawns, but also the typical European type forests as well. There was a Chinese Tea House embedded in the gardens, which was a circular building with lots and lots of gold leaf. Apparently Chinese Tea Houses were very popular in the 18th century, and everyone just had to have one.
Back to Berlin for a drink and a meal at an open air beer garden, while Elly did a side excursion to the Berlin synagogue and an old derelict building, which is used as an art colony. A couple of floors are used as display areas, covered with graffiti, and you can wander through checking out their weird artwork. Elly said it was fabulous.
Half was through our meal, under formerly clear skies, we suddenly found ourselves being rained upon heavily, so there was a mad scramble as everyone headed inside carrying meal plates, drink glasses and whatever to try to get under cover. Inside we found a DJ playing Latin American music, with a lot of people dancing. Very noisy, but we found a table and finished dinner.
We have come to the end of our fabulous 7 week journey, so this is the final blog posting.
Thank you all for following our adventures, and we will see you soon – Aeroflot permitting, and, of course, standby travel ex Hong Kong permitting also.