Germany

Knowing little about Berlin, we decided to take a hop-on hop-off open-top bus tour of Berlin. The bus route was great, covering a large part of both east and west Berlin, but unfortunately the commentary was not as good as it could have been (a little dry, with lots of dates of government department buildings) so we didn't learn as much as we might have wanted. Our first stop was the 'Topography of Terror' museum located on the site of the headquarters of the Gestapo and SS during WWII and documenting the atrocities that occurred there. We had wondered how the Germans relate to their difficult history, and had suspected that there might be some defensiveness, but this exhibition was a bold, honest confrontation of the horrors that took place and the people responsible for them. The kids were remarkably attentive during this pretty brutal introduction to the persecution and murder of Jews, gay, Sinti and Romany people, and many others, by the Nazis. The tour continued along the line of the Berlin Wall towards Checkpoint Charlie, which facilitated an in-depth discussion of communism and western democracy and the differnces between these. Berlin is probably the best place to illustrate these - literally in concrete terms.

The temperature was becoming less and less hospitable, so we stayed on the bus for the rest of the trip. As we approached the Brandenburg Gate we came across a Ukranian protest march and had to be re-routed around this famous landmark. A full circle of strongly anti-war sentiment right from the epi-centre of the two greatest wars of our history. Of all the countries we have visited so far, the support of the Ukranians and the rejection of Russia's invasion has been strongest in Germany and in Ireland. Interesting. Just around the corner was the Reichstag - an imposing building that is the seat of one of the houses of the German parliament. We were particularly impressed by the glass dome, added by Norman Foster during the reconstruction of the building. It was explained to us that the parliamentary debates can be observed by the public from the dome above, representing transparency and the fact that the people are meant to be above the government.

Our second day in Berlin was incredibly cold. Despite the mercury hitting -7 degrees, we felt we had been sufficiently hardened to the European winter and were determined to take to the streets of Berlin on foot. We started off by circumnavigating the zoo (closed due to an outbreak of avian flu) and some very chilly kudus and wild dogs, and headed into the enormous grounds of the Tiergarten park. As we entered, the snow began falling and we spotted the frozen rivers and lakes. Fortunately these were a sufficient diversion from the freezing cold to keep the kid's spirits up, and they had great fun throwing rocks through the ice and hitting the surface with sticks to make an eerie pinging sound. We then came across a much larger frozen river upon which a couple of kids were playing ice hockey. After much debate and argument with a risk-averse father, the kids ventured onto the frozen surface, followed by a curious mother. After watching two guys ride across it on bikes and a couple push their baby in a pram out onto the ice, dad finally felt brave enought to join in the novel experience. The rest of the walk through the park was bracing, to put it mildly, but we made it through thanks to a flask of tea, some Jaffa cakes, and a frozen playground. By the time we got to the Brandenburg gate, the anti-war demonstration had dispersed, and an enormous menorah stood above a stage ready for Hannukah celebrations - amazing living, layered history in this city. We marveled for a while, realised we were absolutely freezing, and made a beeline to the nearest shopping mall to thaw out. There we found some wonderful stores to do some Christmas shopping (for tiny items) amongst beautiful Christmas decorations.

Our final stop for the day and the last highlight of Berlin was the Hofbrau Wirsthaus for a traditional Bavarian meal. It had to be eisbein, wurst and saurkraut, complete with German beer. When Nix ordered a 500ml beer, I warned her that that was a big one, but the waitress corrected me to say "No, that is the small one". - 1 litre of beer is standard... The meal was great and as we finished, the oompah band started up, making it all feel very German and jolly. On the way home we ambled through the Christmas market on Alexanderplatz and sampled our first sneeuwballen - apparently a Belgian delicacy, but widely available in Germany, it is a 'snowball' made out of multiple baked biscuits baked into a ball and dusted with icing sugar and other wonderful goodies. Yum.

From Berlin we were heading south to Prague, so we navigated our way back to the Hauptbahnhof for some last-minute shopping before a long day on trains and buses. We love sitting on trains and this journey was particularly special, as the cold snap had dusted everything white and it all seemed so magical. Unfortunately the German trains were not so magical and the final train from Dresden to the Czech Republic had been cancelled so we had to catch a bus across the border. In the confusion of having to navigate across the icy pavements to the bus, we missed it, and ended up having to get a train to another random dorp to jump on a bus from there. Thank goodness again for our Eurail passes and the Schengen arrangement in the EU. It just makes these little mishaps that much less stressful, and without really noticing it we were over the border and soon on a Czech train heading to the capital.