Our German adventure

Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland! So long golden beers and roasted pretzels. See you again, schnitzels and currywurst. We'll miss your wonderful train and metro systems. Your old houses and cobblestone streets. Your high tech and ultra efficiency. Your rivers and forests. Your single-mindedness and your infinite complexity. In short, life in Germany is comfortable and enjoyable.

When we left Florence, we were sad to leave la dolce vita behind. Having sipped our last cappuccino, we boarded a propeller plane that flew over the Alps in fits and starts, bouncing between clouds. By the time we arrived in Berlin, we were just glad to be on firm land again. We bought a tourist pass for the public transportation system, got on a tram and arrived at our destination one hour early. That's how efficient Germany is. We had to sit on a park bench for a while before meeting our Airbnb host, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it allowed us to people-watch at our leisure.

Charlottenburg is a quaint and elegant old neighborhood just to the west of the city center, which clusters around the Zoo and Mitte areas. Our street was a wide boulevard with little boutiques selling artisanal goods and bakeries dispensing bread and other goodies all day long. We lucked out with Airbnb this time, as our apartment was probably the nicest one during our whole trip around the world. Large rooms, high ceilings, beautiful bathroom with a huge bathtub. It was positively luxurious. Not that we stayed in it much…

We spent the next few days running around the city, trying to experience as much of it as possible. We loved Berlin. Yes, it has a heavy history, but it is also dealing with it head-on and forging something new. We decided to start with the trauma of the past, as there's no way to avoid it, really. A quick walk around Potsdamer Platz is a good start. The square was completely razed by bombs at the end of the Second World War. Apparently, one building is still standing in modified form, but I couldn't find it. All I knew of the Platz was what I'd seen in The Wings of Desire (the original title translates as "the heaven above Berlin") by Wim Wenders. In one memorable scene, an angel walks with an old poet trying to find the haunts of his youth, but instead he finds a wasteland bisected by the Wall; nothing left but ruins.

A short distance away, maybe a couple of small blocks, there's an apartment complex that was built by the East Germans over the site of Hitler's residence and the main headquarters of the Nazi regime. Today, people go about their daily business, indifferent to the history beneath their feet. For instance, Hitler's bunker, the infamous site of his final hours and suicide with Eva Braun, which is now a parking lot and small park where little children play without a care in the world. The only nod to the past is a signpost explaining the layout of the Chancellery and the last days of the Nazis.

This was all hard to comprehend. How could anyone possibly live there, we wondered. Why would you let your children play in such a haunted place? But, the more we thought about it and looked around at the schools and nurseries, the more we understood the people's desire to bulldoze the past and move on. The years after the war were brutal for the Germans. They experienced defeat, humiliation and hunger, but no one would let them forget their wartime atrocities. In an instance of poetic justice, a memorial to the Jewish peoples brutalized and murdered by the Nazi regime stands close by. A powerfully moving museum tells the stories of real people and their families who suffered senselessly, which keeps their humanity and dignity front and center. Above stand dozens of grim stone columns rising into the air in a maze, causing claustrophobia and a sense of oppression. Once you're out of the maze, you feel relief and surprise at the depth of the stone forest. Everything else in the neighborhood is a memory of Germany before the Nazis or during the Cold War. The overwhelming sensation is that the road of total hatred and greed leads only to one logical conclusion: annihilation. A good lesson for today and hopefully one that will last into the future.

An interesting example of resurrection is the Reichstag, the German Parliament building. It's a majestic old structure that was burned down in 1934. The Nazis were quick to blame the Communists and use it as an excuse for purging all opposition parties, but historians have long suspected that they set the fire themselves. All that remains is the façade. British "starchitect" Norman Forster designed the renovated building, which opened in 1999. The façade has been restored to its former glory and the inside is simply spectacular. Tourists can visit the glass dome, which is recognizable from a distance and affords great views from the inside. Seeing the whole of Berlin from the roof of the Reichstag at night is quite a moving experience.

Then, there are the obvious tourist attractions, like Checkpoint Charlie, which is a replica of the original hut at the border between East and West. It's cheesy, surrounded by American fast food joints and tourist shops, but it's still a fun thing to do, because it provides a small window into the craziness of the Cold War. Another site that achieves this is the East Side Gallery, a 1.3 km (1 mile) section of the Berlin Wall that remains in place by the river. The municipal government invited artists to decorate the wall, so it's a colorful walk with some iconic murals. We liked Thierry Noir's brightly colored heads and Dmitri Vrubel's "My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love," depicting the kissing communist leaders Brezhnev and Honecker.

When in Berlin, you have to go to a live music event or some sort of artistic performance. We managed to visit CO Berlin for the first day of their new Irving Penn exhibition, which was fantastic and that night we made our way to Kernkraft for the Maerz Music Festival. The theme of this year's event was "The Long Now," an exploration of our relation to time, which was perfect timing, as the clocks sprang forward that night. The venue was an old powerplant, all cavernous concrete and lofty warehouse. The basement is home to Tresor, the legendary techno club, but we were about twenty years too late for that party, so we stayed upstairs for the experimental ambient music.

The next day, we set out on a couple of music pilgrimages around town. First, we paid our respects at David Bowie's old apartment on 155 Haupstrasse that he used to share with Iggy Pop between 1976 and 1978. While he was in Berlin, Bowie wrote three of his best albums: Low, Heroes and Lodger. Next up, the former Zodiak Free Arts Lab, a short-lived but highly influential experimental live music venue. It's no exaggeration to say that, without the beautiful free spirits who congregated here in 1968 and dared to be different, electronic music would not have been what it is today. They were way ahead of their time. Sadly, the city of Berlin has not yet recognized this landmark with a plaque or acknowledgement of any kind.

We managed to pack a lot into that last day, heading to the Bauhaus Archiv, which is about to be renovated and is therefore empty. The building's design was impressive, but not as fun as the fashion shoot happening outside. A short walk down the road stands another monument I knew well from The Wings of Desire: the Victory Monument, with its golden angel perched at the top of the ornate column, surveying the whole of the city. She didn't disappoint.

By the time we made it back to the apartment, we were exhausted, but it was a packing day, so we stuffed our suitcases for the 25th time in seven months and headed to the train station the next morning. Direction: Düsseldorf, which lies to the west of the country. Riding one of Germany's fast ICE trains, we reached Düsseldorf in about an hour-and-a-half. I knew the city from my childhood, when we visited for the annual carnival. I remembered the city was fun and modern, so we decided to stop for a couple of days on our way to Belgium.

We managed to see most of Düsseldorf in a day, cruising its elegant shopping streets, meandering along the river, trying its Alt beer, pretzels and mustard, and paying our respects at the former Kling Klang studio where Kraftwerk recorded most of their epic albums. This city is famous for its fashion, its gleaming modern office buildings (including three by Frank Gehry) and its carnival parade. While we could have easily had another relaxing day in D'dorf, we decided to take a day trip to Köln instead. It's only a short train ride away (25 minutes on the ICE) and it's very different from Düsseldorf.

Köln is elegant, older and more traditionally German somehow. It has its own beer, Kölsch, which competes with D'dorf's Alt. Most important of all though, Köln has an incredible cathedral, the Dom, a magnificent gothic structure that looms over the city, a constant reminder of humanity's grasping for the divine. It was a welcome addition to the temples, pagodas and mosques that we've visited on this trip. Our walk around the church was followed by a more prosaic pursuit: Jona wanted to try a real German schnitzel, so we headed to Bei Oma Kleinmann, which is famous for its traditional dishes and beer. Let's just say that Jona got her wish and ended up with a schnitzel that was bigger than my head! She ate half, took the rest home and enjoyed two more meals from the same serving. That's how big it was…

So, now we're on another train, heading for Luxembourg, a beautiful city-state that you've probably heard of, but have likely never visited. We'll tell you all about that next time. In the meantime, we have to get back to our pretzels and spaß.  Auf wiedersehen and danke for reading.