Ich bin ein Berliner

Berlin. Of all the cities we have visited so far it's easily the one which has had the greatest emotional impact. Probably because some of Berlin's most significant historical events have happened within our lifetime, or at most, only a couple of generations removed.
As you stroll through the German capital you get the feeling the once-divided city is gradually becoming at peace with itself, as well as with the rest of the world. Theo remarked that it carries the weight of Germany's recent past and that is clearly something it takes very seriously.
We were both compelled and appalled as we read the searing accounts of the holocaust by some of its millions of victims in the bleakly honest information centre beside the Memorial For The Murdered Jews Of Europe.

The memorial itself is an extraordinary piece of work - an expanse of ground given over to thousands of "stelae", huge, dark grey slabs of concrete laid out in a grid. At first you look at it in some doubt as to what it signifies and what emotional response it demands. Then, when you walk among the stelae until they tower over you and you are completely surrounded, trapped and overwhelmed, you understand.

But only a few hundred metres away is the triumphalist Brandenburg Gate, the chariot on its summit turned to face west since the reunification of Germany in the '90s, signifying glory and a nation holding its head high.

I vividly recall my emotional reaction to the news the Berlin Wall had come down in November '89 and seeing some of the few remaining sections of the hated Mauer - the much-graffitied East Side Gallery and the recreation of the Death Strip in Bernauer Strasse - brought it back. As we read the history and looked at footage of the Wall's construction, the escapes and its ultimate demolition, I don't mind admitting that at times I was moved to tears.

Yet, even now there is an invisible East-West divide in Berlin, increasingly blurred though it is. Theo and I found ourselves most drawn to the East side, especially some of the anything goes districts like the grungy, alternative Friedrichshain or the laid-back cafes and bars of Prenzlauer Berg.

The latter set the stage for a somewhat alcoholic and suitably pan-European night out on the eve of our departure from Berlin after a four-day stay. We met up with Theo's doctor friend, Dora, her half Iranian boyfriend and a couple they knew, an Italian and a Greek who had met in San Francisco and now lived in Berlin. With neither speaking the other's language, English is their lingua franca, which certainly made life easier for Theo and me as our German is patchy to say the least.
We partied in four different bars, including one where you paid a Euro for a wine glass, refilled it as often as you liked then paid what you thought it was worth at the end of the night. With admirable stamina, as they all had to work the next morning (Dora having to start a 24-hour shift in the hospital from 0800), we parted company with our new friends after two. But, despite the late-night public transport's Teutonic efficiency, we didn't get back to our campsite at Kladower Dam until half past four.

Finally, it should be mentioned that Berlin is big. It spreads out over a great, flat expanse of land, further than the eye can see. As we stood looking out at the city from the Norman Foster-designed Reichstag glass dome, Theo and I marvelled at the widely-spaced, sprawl beneath us. There are scarcely any hills to be seen, the main landmarks being the once East German TV Tower, the Angel of Victory, the glass skyscrapers of Potsdamer Platz and the cranes building Berlin's next shopping super centre at Alexander Platz.

It is an impressive sight of an impressive, visceral, fascinating and compelling city.

Round Berlin (for a fridge)

It shouldn't be possible, but today we managed to drive across the centre of Berlin, West to East then East to West, twice. I say this because just imagine trying to go across London or Paris. Not fun, not easy. But in Germany, crossing the capital city (population 3.5 million) was a bit of a cinch.

The reason for our grand traverse was that we had a couple of tasks to try to achieve today before we got on with the business of being tourists. Firstly we had to go to Steglitz to try to get our MacBook fixed - it's developed an annoying line down the middle of the screen. This meant an 8am departure from our campsite in Potsdam in order to be there when the shop opened at 10am. Now our experience trying to find glass for Sheena should have taught us a thing or too about how chains work. We had been to the Mac store in Amsterdam who had told us, after examining our laptop, that we needed a new hard disk, which would take a week to order. As we were leaving Amsterdam the next day this wasn't an option. However, we struck on a plan and with the help of my German friend Franzi, we had telephoned the Mac store in Berlin a week ago with this information, asking them to order in the relevant part ready for us. Unfortunately the store assistant (who hadn't seen our laptop) we spoke to decided he knew better than the technician in Amsterdam (who had seen our laptop), and said it wasn't a disk problem. Be there at 10am Monday and we should be able to get it done by Thursday. We were there at 10am Monday. "Oh it's probably a disk problem. This may take between a week and ten days." We should have known! Anyway rather than faff around any more, we've decided just to put up with the line - it only really impinges on our ability to watch films.

Our second task - to find a new fridge for Sheena, our previous one having expired in Lubeck - was succesfully accomplished. After a quick, google in German - an interesting experience, rather like attempting to buy clothes for somebody you've never met - we found a likely looking caravan centre. The extreme opposite side of the city. It being 11am we decided to go for it. We were there by 12pm. Driving in Berlin you see is simply a matter - based on one day's evidence - of surfing a massive green wave down long, straight 6-lane streets with amazing names like Karl-Marx Allee and Strasse Parisienne Commune, full of Eastern Bloc block housing. Once we got there and bought our new fridge (or rather, electric cool box) we realised that the campsite we wanted to go to was back the other side of town, in Spandau. Back we drove, this time going right past the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag and through the Tiergarten. Amazing.

You couldn't do it in London. In fact, 20 years ago, you couldn't have done it in Berlin. Perhaps that's why it's so easy now - the Germans are making up for all those years when you couldn't go West-East without passing Checkpoint Charlie (which I think we drove through) and are now determined to make it as easy as possible to traverse Berlin. It's bizarre to think the journey we did today in just a couple of hours would have been inconceivable 20 years ago. A strange notion for all, I suspect, excepting perhaps the residents of Jerusalem.

a less adventurous adventure?

Despite having already visited five countries in 3 weeks (6 if you count the five minutes we were in France) this leg of our Grand European tour feels distinctly less adventurous than our last. This may be for purely superficial reasons - we're used to being on the road now and the novelty of living in a campervan has worn off, while for my part I have been to all five of these countries - Belgium, Luxembourg, The Nertherlands, Germany and Denmark - before. However I think the reasons are more cultural.

Northern Europe simply is not different enough to feel as much as adventure as, say, traveling through Thailand would (though we're guessing here as neither of us have been to Asia). The towns and cities, while beautiful, new and exciting are not alien to us despite the little differences: indeed Ribe in Denmark reminded me strongly of my home town of Cirencester, except with a Viking Museum instead of a Roman one. For all the intricate canal systems, decorous Rathauses and ancient city fortifications we have seen little that we cannot relate back to our English experience, unlike the tiled houses of Portugal, the relics of Moorish Spain or the Roman ruins in Italy and France. The landscapes we have driven through haven't evoked for us a way of life all that different from our own, pretty as there are. In the south there were countless times, in France, Spain and Portugal, when the surrounding countryside and vegetation reminded me strongly of African vistas, while the lack of traffic on the roads (unlike the busy North) increased the sensation of other-worldliness and exploration.

Plus, we have to admit, we're being totally spoiled up here in North Western Europe. We don't just mean Fran and Henning's wonderful hospitality at their flat in Kiel, but in general. Campsites have been cheaper and yet better equipped: showers hot and strong, camp kitchens available for use, and toilet seats and loo paper a given. None of these was guaranteed at campsites further south, even those in Italy and France. Linguistically we've been having no problems either, for even though we speak even less Danish, Dutch and Flemish than we do Spanish and Italian (that's to say none at all) EVERYONE speaks English. We've hardly had to try at all to get by.

So, basically, while we're having a wonderful time and have been to some brilliant places we're not feeling like we're being particularly adventurous at the moment. We're hardly heading up the Inca Trail or even crossing the Carpathians. Still, we'll be in Poland soon. And after that Slovakia and Hungary; if being vegetarian in Hungary isn't an adventure I don't know what is.

The Free Cities

Over the last couple of days we've visited the last two remaining free cities in Germany - Bremen and Hamburg. Both are essentially states with Federal Germany with their own Landtags (Parliaments) meaning that they enjoy the same status as huge states such as Bavaria or Saxony (Berlin also has it's own Landtag but for more recent historical reasons). In British terms that's kind of like giving Liverpool and Newcastle their own Parliaments with the same powers as the Welsh Assembly. The reasons for these cities retaining control over their own internal affairs is ancient, dating back to the origins of the Holy Roman Empire when the Free Cities were self-governing bodies that owed allegiance directly to the Emperor rather than local princes or bishops. By the time Napoleon abolished the Empire in 1806 there were only 6 remaining; now there are only two, Bremen and Hamburg, great port cities of the Hanseatic League. They are quite different.

Bremen, on the Weser, no longer seems to be much of a port, the river undoubtedly too narrow and shallow for modern shipping, but there was plenty going for it. We had a lovely time wandering around the beautiful old town square, chocolate box Schnoor district and a crazy Art Deco street, before befriending three Canadians (Matt, Monica and Thor) and sharing a few beers with them.

Hamburg, on the other hand, is very much a working Port, with the huge cranes the line the wide and choppy Elbe dominating the skyline as you approach on the autobahn alongside huge stacks of shipping containers. It's the richest city in Germany and my friend Franziska, currently living in another old Hanseatic Port, Kiel, has just landed a job there. Inviting us to tag along as she went flat-hunting we were introduced to the joys of speed-limit free autobahns as she bombed along in her Alfa Romeo at speeds of 160kph (100 english). The working nature of the city was evident in the throngs on the High Street, the huge (but attractive) brick warehouses and the Reeperbahn - the biggest red light district in Europe!

I think it's easing off....

We're in Germany now, on a campsite in Bremen. It's pissing it down and has been since we left Amsterdam.

That is all.