Misha and I took advantage of the September holiday season in Israel to skip town for a week and head to Germany. Rather than return to Bavaria, this time we spent two days each at the beginning and end of our trip in Berlin with two days in Saxony sandwiched in the middle. The food was delicious, the weather warm and sunny, the trip a great success.
Berlin: Part I
We kept our first night in Berlin relatively mellow, but the highlight of the evening was a small punk rock bar not far from our hotel in Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg is known as the artsy, hipster district of the city, so we were excited to wander around and find somewhere fun for a night cap. We found a place called Clash hidden in a graffitied courtyard next to a small theater. We only stayed for two drinks, but the music was great, the atmosphere dive-y in the right ways, and signage surprisingly progressive. Although you aren’t supposed to take pictures inside, someone was able to snap this one off:
Our second day in the city was filled with a 3.5 hour guided bike tour. Our guide was South African, but she had lived in Berlin for almost a decade and her passion for history and love of the city made the tour very memorable. Pictures can be seen above, but highlights of the tour included the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate, the Tiergarten, and the Reichstag. At night, we continued our wanderings, this time taking in some of the Berlin Festival of Lights, which featured light projections on over 70 buildings around the city.
Saxony
The following morning, we rented a car and drove three hours south to Saxon Switzerland. This national park is down by the Czech border and is named for its similarity to the Swiss landscape. Bizarre rock formations jut up out of the land, providing nauseatingly steep drops for lookout points carved into the rocks. The view of the Elbe Valley from the top of the hills was nothing short of breathtaking.
That night, we made our way to Leipzig, a surprisingly quiet city despite the high number of universities. We stayed at the Pentahotel, which was a regrettably only one night. We found the city very walkable, with basically everything within a 20 minute walk of our hotel. Getting a Covid PCR test was also super easy, with no line and an efficient staff at a very central location. After knocking back a few goses (see below), it was time to head back to Berlin.
Potsdam and Berlin: Part II
On the way back to Berlin, we made a pit stop in Potsdam, which is about 45 minutes outside Berlin. Once the summer home of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, Potsdam is now a beautiful city known for its many palaces, Italian-style gardens, and the conference where Germany’s post-WWII fate would be decided. Although we didn’t stay too long to avoid a thunderstorm, we did wander around the Sanssouci Palace grounds, the large pink and yellow buildings as well as the statue-crowned castle shown above. We were amazed to find out that the grounds were also home to part of the University of Potsdam. Can you imagine biking by those buildings on your way to class?
Back in Berlin, we finished up by visiting the sites we missed the first time around. This involved a trip into the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. While neither of us found it as discombobulating as we had heard, we both found it a bit haunting. We were disheartened by the unwelcome sound of screaming children and preteens in this place of somber mourning. While most of our last hours were spent wandering without a destination, one event worth mentioning is our dinner at Hackethal’s. If you stay in the Mitte borough of Berlin, you absolutely have to eat here. We found the restaurant on TripAdvisor, but it felt more like a neighborhood watering hole than a place you find readily on the internet. The menu was only posted on a sidewalk chalkboard and only one waiter was working. I had a venison steak slow-cooked in rotwein sauce with mashed potatoes and cabbage while Misha had spätzle noodles and veggies. It was easily the best meal on the trip. I don’t usually take pictures of food, but this trip had a few notable exceptions.
A Note on the Beer
A few things surprised me about the beer on this trip. First, Berliner Weisse is considered a tourist drink and is not common at restaurants. The first time I tried to order it the waiter recommended something else, and the second time it lacked the acidity I always crave. I was told that this style of beer is usually consumed at home with a squirt of fruit-flavored syrup as a digestif. Another low alcohol sour beer I came to love in the US is gose, a wheat beer brewed with sea salt and coriander. Leipzig is known as the home of this style, and here it is less sour and salty than in the U.S. (unsurprising for my fellow beer nerds), but more citrusy. The green beer shown above is a gose with waldmeister syrup, a German specialty. Translated literally as “forest master syrup” and known as woodruff in English, the flavor is somewhere between candied green apple, fir, and mint. In other words, it tastes like green. Lastly, I was only able to find one each of festbier and schwarzbier. I’ll have to return for Oktoberfest another time.
Final Thoughts
To close things out, I wanted to say a few words about how well Berlin acknowledges their role in the Holocaust. Museums and memorials are all over, often taking up prime real estate in bustling parts of the city. Most notably, the stumbling stones of Berlin are found outside the last known freely chosen residence of those they commemorate. The inscriptions read: “Here lived”, followed by the name, DOB, and fate. They clearly state “murdered” to drive home the message that their fate was not of their choosing. Germans are a very proud people, and their ability to acknowledge this horrific past, honor the victims of their own atrocities, and respectfully move on is something that many countries could certainly learn from.
I loved every minute I spent in Germany this summer and hope some day to find us posted there. However unlikely, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Beer and Diplomacy 
Leave a comment