It is somewhat shaming too, to have every taxi driver and waiter, shop assistant and museum attendant speak almost faultless english. And the taxi drivers in particular made a point of welcoming one and coming out with phrases like "You are my guest. I am happy to welcome you." Extraordinary! And it sounded as if they meant it and that it was not some tourist board indoctrination.
More museums than almost any other town. Managed to set off the alarm in one by stepping too near a picture. No waist high barriers as one might get here - just horizontal strips of wood set into the immaculate parquet flooring. Obvious once you know!
Very moved by the Holocaust Memorial. 2,700 concrete slabs on undulating ground forming a huge field-like square. No inscriptions. No plaques but it is a very emotional experience just walking along the vertical or horizontal rows. As far as I am concerned it says it all.
Great food but legendary hot dog stands selling frankfurters, a dollop of mustard and a thick slice of German bread on a rectangular cardboard plate now offer Curry Wurst. Can that be a legacy of all the turkish workers who live here? Curry? But Berlin potato soup remains mouth-watering - and filling.
DRESDEN came next. Just two days but enough to see the majestic Frauenkirche, reduced to rubble just before the end of World War II and now rebuilt with financial assistance from the whole world. They have used the old masonry which remains smoke-blackened and, as a result, it looks the same as it must have done before it was bombed. Superb inside too in pale blues and pinks. Very un-churchlike!
The Semper Opera house was sumptious. Like a many-tiered wedding cake on the inside and, of course, totally rebuilt too. The only thing the communists built before the reunification of Germany was housing for the workers and some horrible public buildings. It is only in the last decade that historic heart of the town has been recreated. Worth a detour, as they say.
