Adventures in Deutschland: Luther Land and Beyond

Can we just talk about how ridiculously hot it was in Germany our first week there? Ok, no, I can't even talk about it. It was that hot. 

Our second full day dawned bright and sunny and stupid hot. And if you weren't aware, there's not a lot of air conditioning in Europe. But we did enjoy a relatively cool train ride down to Wittenberg from Berlin that morning. Absolutely loved the train system in Germany! And it didn't hurt that we were able to ride First Class due to our global rail passes. Seriously, if you are traveling abroad, check out Eurail. You won't be disappointed!

After a short train ride through the German countryside, we disembarked at the Lutherstadt-Wittenberg station. Bags secure on our backs, we made the short walk into the little town of Wittenberg. We stepped onto the 500-year-old cobblestone streets, as the tiny village was just waking up and shopkeepers were placing their goods out onto the sidewalks. 

The first main attraction at the entrance of the town is the home where Martin Luther resided and served as dean of theology at University of Wittenberg.

   I think this basically means, "Let no man think that God doesn't expect something great of him." But don't quote me on that. Quote Luther on it.

            "Academic library" (if my...Latin?...is correct)

From Luther's home, we made our way into the "town square", if you will...

Wittenberg is way smaller than I imagined. But it was rich in history and full of character.

Stadtkirche ("City Church")---the church where Luther did most of his preaching---stands tall and proud above the town center. And services are still held there today! 

       Did I mention that everything was under construction? 

Just down the street (also currently under construction), Schlosskirche (Castle Church)---the church where Luther nailed his 95 Theses--sits on the end of the town.

   That's Castle Church down there on the left. It--along with City Church--is under            construction because Wittenberg is already preparing for "Luther Week 2017", the 500th year since the Reformation began. Martin Luther is kind of a big deal here in Wittenberg.

And here's the famous door on which Luther nailed the 95 Theses:

Because of construction, we couldn't get right up to the door, so we improvised:

         Hubs and the replica of Castle Church

Our self-guided tour of Wittenberg almost complete, we headed back toward the direction of the train station. We had an ICE train Munich-bound to catch! But before we made our way out of town, we stopped at the Wittenberg mall. Yes, a mall. If you scroll back up to the picture of the water canal/flower boxes and look to the left side, you'll see the word  "Arsenal" on the building. That's the two-story indoor mall in Wittenberg. Weirdest thing I'd ever seen: walking from the ancient cobblestone streets into a modern shopping center complete with stores like H&M and the German equivalent of Verizon. It was like Doc Brown and Marty McFly tossed us into the Delorean and sent us into the Wittenberg future. Except, like the rest of Germany, it wasn't air conditioned. 

We snagged a few lunch items at the grocery store inside the mall and hoofed it in the beating sun back down the quiet street leading to the train station. 

    Waiting for our ICE train

We finally boarded and cozied in for our 6 hour trek to Munich, enjoying the landscape view as our train whipped through the countryside.

        Castle? Church? Could be either!

As soon as we arrived at the Munich hauptbahnhof, we emerged out onto the bustling city street and headed over to Schillerstraße to find Hotel Belle Blue. I couldn't believe the absolute melting pot that is Munich. Turkish, Indian, Asian, African--name the culture, it was there! We found our little hotel (Did I mention it was flanked on all sides by strip joints and casinos? Whaaat?), dropped off our bags, and headed back out in the few remaining hours of daylight to explore Munich.

We decided to find a store to grab some snacks for our excursion the next day, so what better place to stop than Aldi. How would an Aldi store in the Aldi motherland compare to it's American counterparts?

Three words: Bread vending machines.

Why aren't American stores funding these?! Genius!

Oh, and if anyone was wondering, beer really is cheaper than soda in Munich:

From there, we hopped aboard the S-Bahn for Marienplatz, the beautiful, historic, not-so-big-city-feeling center square of Munich. 

       New Town Hall (where the famous Glockenspiel resides)

          Old Town Hall 

And of course, a trip to Munich isn't complete without a visit to that world famous beer hall, Hofbräuhaus. 

Three stories of food, fun, oompah music, authentic Bavarian dancers, and of course, beer.

Buuuut, after a quick look around, we took advice from some locals and actually ate our Bavarian dinner across the street from Hofbräuhaus at Augustiner. We were not disappointed!

Dunkel and Radler the size of our heads!

    Pork loin and kartoffelknödel (potato dumpling)

   Wurst and kraut

I'd say it was an excellent end to a great day! Munich was fast becoming one of my favorite places. And it only got better from there! 

Adventures in Deutschland: Berlin

"Ich bin ein Berliner!"

No, I'm not actually a Berliner, and President Kennedy wasn't either. Nor was he a jelly donut. But that phrase has stuck around Berlin after all these years: while exploring, we passed a cafe that boasted of a sandwich with that very name. They still appreciate JFK's singular sentence of solidarity to this day.

We only had a day to spend in Berlin, so we wasted no time. Starting out on foot in that huge city, we made our way to Reichstag (the German parliament building). It's a beautiful 120 year old building that fell into disuse after WWII and wasn't put into full use again until 1999. 

From there, we made the short walk over to...

Yep, that would be Brandenburg Gate. It was once the main entrance of the city, surrounded by the infamous Berlin Wall. Amazing to think it wasn't that long ago when no one had the freedom to pass underneath this exquisite piece of architecture and take a picture like this...

We made our way under the gate and out onto Unter den Linden ("under the linden trees"), the pretty, tree-lined road that stretches from Brandenburg to what used to be the city castle. The famous road was unfortunately mostly under construction, but I managed to snag a picture of the linden trees. 

Next stop: the Berlin Wall.

  Replica

   Memorial

  Memorial to those who died trying to cross the wall

  Family members place flowers at the pictures of some of those that died.

  Through the wall

  East meets West

Crazy to think this structure once stretched for hundreds of miles, keeping East Germany in its own little prison. Even crazier to think that it really wasn't that long ago when the Wall finally came down after its almost 30 year reign of division and separation.

And here is where my camera battery died. Should have thought to charge it or bring my extra one along. Back to the hotel.

After a quick break, we took a walk along the outskirts of the Berlin Zoo and made our way to the first biergarten of the trip. Fatigue was slowly creeping in and taking us over, as we had been awake for almost 24 hours at this point. But we pressed on.

Lock bridges are EVERYWHERE in Europe.

   The biergarten where we had lunch. And by lunch, I mean two weiß beers and a piece of strawberry cake. Yuh-mee.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the quaint and quiet little section of Berlin near our hotel and finally forced ourselves to sit down at a cafe and eat dinner. Lifting a fork was hard work. Keeping our eyes open was even harder. 

Somewhere around 8pm, we were in bed and ready for a peaceful night's sleep, memories of our first day in Germany replaying in our dreams.

Of course, no one thought to mention that A) our hotel room was above a bar, B) Berliners don't come out to party until 9pm, and C) they don't stop until 4am...