First Class on the Deutsche Bahn

Saturday 23 to Sunday 24 March 2013

I am writing this sitting on the top bunk in the First Class sleeper compartment on the Deutsche Bahn train from Berlin to Paris.  At the moment we are stopped in Hannover shunting and adding more cars.  Unfortunately, none of the new or existing cars is a dining car, so my vision of a quality dinner on the rails to Paris was replaced by a Salami and Cheese sandwich served by a classic German Train Conductor.  Said GTC works by the motto that everything should happen in the predetermined order. So we had the predictable clash of cultures when the French passenger in the first compartment wanted his Salami and Cheese feast as soon as he had received his lesson on closing the door, but the GTC insisted on showing each compartment of passengers how to close their door before moving on to the sale of the feast.  Looking forward to breakfast, which will only be served to those passengers who push the button on the inside of the compartment to stop the wake-up alarm and then open the compartment door to indicate readiness for Früstuck.  No wonder they have had so many wars with each other over the centuries.

A View from the Top Bunk

GTC Wake up Call

Another clash of French German culture came at breakfast time when Dominique wanted breakfast sitting on the bed in the compartment.  GTC considered this inappropriate, and insisted on folding the bed up and revealing the bed for “besser sitzen” so he could serve the “erster Klasse Früstuk”. 

GTC won. 

Goodbye Berlin

Saturday 23 March 2013

Our last day in Berlin was proceeded by a night of minus 10 degrees and heavy snow.  The locals were calling it winter wonderland, a little tongue in cheek since it was meant to be spring. 

The main feature of the day was a visit to the Jewish Museum, which is impressive as much for its architecture as for its content.  I can’t describe it, you just have to experience it, but one of the stated objectives of the architect was to create the feeling of disorientation to reflect the 40 years wandering in the wilderness from the Old Testament.  He managed to achieve that.  The museum is refreshing because, while it does have a section devoted to the Holocaust, the majority of the exhibition is dedicated to the history of Jewish people in Western Europe, focusing for once on the extraordinary contributions to European culture.

The Wall

On the way to the Jewish Museum, we stumbled onto a preserved remnant of the Berlin Wall, along with several thousand other tourists, and realised how divisive it had been, with bridges cut off and homes of former neighbours suddenly on different sides of the wall.  With that experience, it is sad that another wall is being built in Jerusalem – seems history is not a good teacher.

After the museum, we took a detour to see the famous “Checkpoint Charlie”.  I recommend that you don’t.  A not very impressive reproduction of the checkpoint is the highlight, the nadir is the huge amount of cheap unimpressive rubbish available for sale to anyone who might wander along.  The lows easily outweigh the highs.

Bundestag

We finished the day admiring the new main railway station, the renovated Reichstag (aka Bundestag) and experiencing the luxury of the first class Deutsche Bahn waiting room, heated to a life saving 22 degrees.

If I were asked to sum up my impressions of Berlin, I would have to borrow from Harry Seacombe who, when asked what he thought of Sydney in the 1970s said he expected it would be very nice when it was finished.  It is not possible to walk for more than a block without being diverted by some construction work, whether it is renovating old buildings, building major developments to replace some of the East German era structures, or dredging the river to increase the berthing areas.  Everywhere there is building.  The sky is full of cranes.  However, if the quality of building so far delivered is any indication, it will in fact be much more than nice when it is finished, it will be extraordinary.

The Sony Centre

Three Pinned Arches

The railway system in Germany would be lost without the structural capacity of the three pinned arch.  Most people are familiar with the arches in stone which were the structural system of choice for bridges and buildings prior to the 19^th century.  They were sufficiently massive to ensure that the forces in the arch were dominated by the downward force of self-weight and as a result resisted all loads applied while still generating a compressive force in the stone.

Bottom Pin

When arches were built from cast iron, they became lighter and stronger, but since the major load was no longer self-weight, the arches began experiencing tensile forces.  Cast iron can resist some tension, but not much, so the span and height of the arch was limited.  Enter the three pinned arch.  It can be identified by the support at the bottom of the arch, which looks like a pin around which the arch can move. 

There is a similar pin at the base on the other side, and a third one somewhere near the top.  These pins combine to allow the arch to move and therefore eliminate bending forces, and thus allowing all forces to be resisted by compression.  The result is the huge spanned light structures which can be reproduced side by side to cover several platforms, and duplicated along the length of the platform infinitely. 

Top Pine visible along the centre line

The have the advantage of off-site manufacturing and easy assembly – no welding or riveting up there at the top during assembly.  That is why you find them everywhere in the Deutsche Bahn railway stations such as Frankfurt and Leipzig both shown here.

The final result of the arch structures

Altenburg

Friday, 22 March 2013

A common experience for young men in France during the World War II was transportation to Germany to work, replacing the men who had been conscripted into the German Army.  Not all experiences were positive, but fortunately for Bernard Bruneau, Dominique’s father, he managed to find work in a butchery using his qualifications, rather than being set to work in munitions factories under the management of the SS.  His place of work was in Altenburg, near Leipzig and that is where we visited today.  Fulfilling a promise to his parents, he wrote home regularly during his detention and numbered each letter to indicate if any had been intercepted or lost.  Those letters have been preserved, and it was with this information that we set out to retrace his steps.  We found an impressive train station, which must have been less welcoming in 1940 than it was in 2013.  We found a pretty town and lovely people.  His letters report the same from 73 years prior to our experience. 

The Market Building

Inside the building

We took some photos of the meat market in which he first worked, now derelict, and spent some time retracing his steps through a museum, and trying to identify a painting which he reported depicted a town near his home in Mamers.  The museum staff was very helpful; the Tourist Bureau seemed uninterested until Dominique mentioned the years in which he visited their town.  Then they could not do enough.  Finally, the man who stopped in the street when we were taking photos and identified himself as the former inspector of the meat operation, and son of the previous inspector, was eager to pass on information.  We have email addresses and leads to follow and will certainly re-visit Altenburg for its own charms as well as to follow the story further.

The symbols on the outside 

Museum Island (Museumsinsel)

Thursday 21 March 2013

Alte Nationalgalerie on Musemsinsel

With spring refusing to arrive in Berlin, we found ourselves dealing with a day of cold wind, snow and icy conditions underfoot.  This was the perfect day to spend inside and Museum Island was the perfect place to do just that.  Museum Island was classified by Unesco in 1999 to recognise the farsighted project to establish the museums in one place with each specifically designed for its content. Unesco link   The five museums on the island were built between 1824 and 1930, and we managed to visit three of them in one day

We started with the most beautiful woman in Berlin.  Queen Nefertiti is housed in the Neues Museum as the star attraction.  She is not here really, but there is a bust of her which is in remarkably good condition, colour and all, given that it is over 3,300 years old.  Photographs were not permitted, but if you are curious, you can see her at the museum’s home page Nefertiti Photo .  The photographs do not do her justice, and up close she really does look beautiful, with a long neck, dark eyes and a strong bone structure to the face.  Interestingly, small wrinkles under her eyes were visible on the sculpture, I am not sure they would be in a modern image- photoshoped out - and in that case we are the poorer. The exhibition around her was extensive celebrating the centenary of the discovery of the bust and the archaeology site that surrounded it.

Apart from the Queen, the most interesting exhibition displayed material that was recovered from what is considered to be "almost certainly" the site of Troy including an extraordinary headpiece known as the “Treasure of Priam” and a range of Trojan artefacts which look completely different from any of the ancient pieces I have seen which have usually been from Greece or Egypt.  Unfortunately, they haven’t found the Trojan horse.

There was also some great information on the archaeology of Berlin, making it a very worthwhile visit.

We moved on to the Bode-Museum, which has an excellent café. The key exhibit which overwhelms the visitor on entering the foyer is a bronze statue Fredrick the Great on his horse which is reminiscent of the statue of Louis XIV in front of Versailles and reminds us that they were great rivals for influence in Europe.  I think Freddy won, although Lew had a bigger statue.  He overshadowed everything in the museum including the statue of his Uncle, Frederic William, the Great Elector, without whose work, FTG would have struggled to develop the powerful state of Prussia.  Like Newton, he stood on the shoulders of giants.  Unlike Newton, he did not admit it. 

The other feature of the Bode-Museum (yes the name is hyphenated, don’t ask me why) was more “Virgin and Child’ pictures than I knew existed.  It became apparent that, in an age where art was almost required to be religious, the only way to have a picture of your son was to pose for a virgin and child portrait.  The girls did not make it.

There were also some other interesting works, particularly painted sculptures such as this sculpture pictured on the right and his friend pictured below, which featured painted plaster over the underlying stone, to give a lifelike effect.

We rounded off the afternoon at the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) where we viewed the early 20^th century German painters, and the art from the Romantic period, with lots of nature, castles by the sea and dark landscapes.

The highlight of the day was, for me, the buildings.  They were all constructed in the second half of the 19^th century at a time when Prussia was growing in nationalist feeling, and as a result sought to demonstrate its importance by building imposing buildings.  The other strong impression was the number of times the audio guide referred to the missing treasures which were taken to Moscow as war booty and not returned “in contravention of international law” and the references to lost works and artefacts which were destroyed in the bombing of Berlin in the last few weeks of the war. There was acknowledgement that if you start a war, you can’t expect pity but there was also an air of injustice in some of the commentary.  Personally, I don’t see which military objectives are met by the bombing of museums, but maybe I need more study in military strategy.

Across the road from Museum Island was the Berliner Dome pictured below.  It was closed, and in any event we were too cold and tired by 6pm to bother.

Berlin

Wednesday 20 March 2013

The Germans must live with their past, so before launching into a tourist frenzy, we decided to spend a day looking at that past and how they deal with it.  What better place to start than “Unter den Linden” the main avenue through the centre of town which passes through the Brandenburger Tor (that is gate) so that we could approach the gate from a distance to have a memorable start to our Berlin tour.  Unter den Linden, being the main parade route through Berlin central has been rebuilt, remodeled  destroyed, replaced and abused by every regime that took control of the capital over the last few hundred years.  It still remains a beautiful avenue, and is the address of choice for several Embassies, including the Russians and the French.

Brandenburg Gate

The only time I had seen the Brandenburg Gate was in 1979 when it was surrounded by the Berlin Wall, one of the elements of the past which still shows its presence in Berlin, in spite of its breach in 1989.  It was wonderful to see the gate restored to its monumental glory.  In front of the gate there was an exhibition of posters, photos and text (in German and English) which celebrated 2013 as the 80^th anniversary of the first blatant attacks on the Jews by the NAZIs and the 75^th anniversary of the events of 1938 which escalated that policy into detention, concentration camps and murder for not only the Jews, but anyone not conforming to a very narrow definition of a valuable citizen.  The exhibition celebrated diversity and sought (subtly and for me successfully) to paint the general population of Germany at the time as being victim of the events which they were unable to control.

To see more of my Brandenburg Tor photos try this link

Holocaust Memorial

We moved on to the Holocaust Memorial which was a very powerful experience.  If I described it as a park with concrete blocks of various sizes almost aligned on a grid, it would be accurate but inadequate.  In walking around the memorial, it becomes much more.  The first impression is that everything is aligned and identical, perhaps signifying the anonymity of the victims and way Jews have been lumped together as a group with no recognition of individuality.  However, closer inspection reveals that the blocks are all different sizes, and they are not quite square, not quite aligned and not quite conforming to each other the way things first seemed.  There was diversity in the seeming conformity.

I was intrigued to find that the view from the memorial took in many national flags – it is close to the Embassy district – a view of the triumphal military based monument in the Brandenburg Gate, and perhaps most poignantly, a smoking chimney.  Cause and effect all in one place.

Some more photos here

Stasi Musuem

Carrying on the theme of Germans dealing with their history, we headed to the Stasi Museum.  The museum is deep in the old East Berlin located in the former headquarters of the GDR Ministry of State Security, which was responsible for ensuring that everyone fell into line with the, again narrowly defined, community standards.  One of their greatest achievements was the project management of the delivery of the Berlin Wall.  I had seen and forgotten a documentary which was partly based on research in the Stasi Museum archives, so I was a little taken aback to recognise the buildings.

Inside the museum, there were many posters which proclaimed some of the propaganda themes promoted by the GDR Government, the full office of the Minister for State Security, including his recording equipment, a range of secret cameras for spying, and a great deal of information on the methods and results of their work. 

More importantly, the museum identified many East Germans who had been investigated by the Stasi for their work in environmental and political organisations.  It was clear, at least from the cases presented, that even under the boot of an intensive totalitarian state, many people are prepared to risk all, just to pursue their ideals.  My mind went back to the exhibition in front of the Brandenburg Gate and I realised that at that time too, many people tried but failed to stop the machine. 

They too were victims.

More of the stasi

Sachsenhausen Museum

To round out the day, we visited Sachsenhausen Museum, which is located North of Berlin.  I have visited Dachau before, but Dominique had not seen a concentration camp and this was a good opportunity. Sachsenhausen is the site of the first major purpose built concentration camp.  It became the model for other camps around the Reich.  Importantly, linking the two visits this morning the camp was taken over by the Red Army at the end of World War II and remained in operation until 1963.

It is not an easy visit.  There are exhibitions detailing the medical experiments undertaken here including testing of poisons and investigations into the cause of Hepatitis C by actually infecting several children.  There are pictures of people hung up on a pole by their hands, which are tied behind them, as punishment for trying to escape.  These pictures were more disturbing knowing that it took place outside at Christmas when the temperatures were certainly colder than the zero degrees Celsius which we were only just coping with in our modern coats and cold weather gear.  While walking around in the snow, we came across a small plaque on the ground which simply proclaimed that this was the location of the gallows.  There were countless other horror stories which don’t need to be retold here, we have all heard them before.  It just becomes more real when you visit. 

I recommend that everyone should.

Premium Economy

Now that I have arrived in Frankfurt I am in a position to report on the Premium Economy Experience Qantas Style.  It seems very much like a slightly toned down version of the old business class before lie flat beds were introduced.  The seats are bigger, so that there are only two rather than three seats on the window rows, the spacing is greater so that I can stretch my full 1.71m frame without being constrained by the back of the seat in front of me, and there are the little benefits of boarding with the business class passengers, having more space to stow bags overhead and business class tags on the bags for faster collection at the end.  All in all a positive experience.  

We arrived in good shape after grabbing six or seven hours sleep (in 23 hours) on the way.  It is questionable whether it is worth around two and a half times the price of the economy seat, but it did look crowded back there. 

Qantas knows how to take the edge of a good experience.  There were no dedicated premium economy toilets, so we had to queue with the economy class passengers to use the facilities.  If one had the temerity to sneak up to the business class toilets, the comparison was stark, with cotton hand towels and expensive soaps and creams available.  There was no toiletry pack.  Normally, in such a pack one finds toothpaste, a shaver – since it is not possible to take one through security – eye covers to allow sleep while the lights are on, and ear plugs to cut the noise of the engines.  So, since I was expecting a toilet pack, I had none of these and it reduced my enjoyment of the flight.  There was no general screen for safety videos, and since we were required to stow our personal screens for take-off and landing, I was not properly briefed on safety.  In fact, I could not hear the safety presentation, which I am sure breaches some sort of operating protocol.

 

Overall these are teething issues, and it is clear that the service is an add-on to the existing configuration back fitted to the aircraft.  However, given the cost, they could have taken better care of the details.  I am still undecided on Premium Economy, but I know I hate Economy!

The Technology

In sitting down to write this post, I expected to say that I have not changed much since last time.  But, in fact, almost everything is different. Starting with the laptop, I am now armed with an ASUS Ultrabook which is faster, shinier, lighter, and thinner, with a bigger screen and a longer battery life than the old Dell I carried in 2011.  The camera remains the same, the old and not so faithful Cannon EOS 350D.  Alert readers will recall that while I was in France waiting for the Tour de France to ride past my hard won vantage point, the 360D decided not to recognise its memory card. It has since been repaired, and since let me down again in Hawaii only the second time it was the lens and not the camera.  As a result I am also carrying a Cannon IXUS 115HS compact camera in case of emergencies.  The iPhone trip sim card and Netcom MyZone 3G modem was such a success last time that I stayed with that combination again.  This time I took the precaution of starting the activation period one day prior to departure so that I could resolve any connection issues before leaving. Alas, the modem refuses to connect automatically.  I hope that it was due to the use of the Vodafone network in Sydney and that all will magically correct itself on arrival in Berlin, but that is a surprise waiting to happen. 

One addition to the technology this time is the iPad. I was almost tempted to leave the laptop behind except for the difficulty in typing and the inability to load photographs from my cameras to the iPad for editing, loading up to this blog and providing a backup to protect against loss of photographs.  Another difference is the lack of DVD player / writer on the Ultrabook.  In the past I have downloaded photographs to the laptop and written a DVD to provide two sources of security.  The response to that loss has been to buy a bigger memory card for the camera – 16 GB – and to use a 32 GB flash memory stick as a replacement for DVD backup.  This has the twin advantages of providing an extra level of security by holding all the photos on camera, on laptop and on flash drive.  In addition, the elimination of a stack of DVDs from the luggage is one small step in the drive to more efficient travel.

Overall, life would be easier if the world’s telcos did not charge stupid amounts for global data roaming, but I am reasonably happy with the efficiency and security of my current arrangements.

I have added Dropbox and MegaCloud services to my backup and my email is now on a hosted Microsoft Exchange server, so communications should appear seamless to anyone who is trying to deal with me over the period of the trip.

Let’s see how it all goes.  I am already planning some radical changes for the next time.

The Trip

This time we have chosen to fly to Frankfurt, Germany via Singapore with Qantas.  This decision was driven by the frequent flier points.  I thought it was more likely that I would find a suitable award flight to Frankfurt than I would to London, and it was indeed the case.  As an experiment we are travelling Premium Economy, to test whether a Premium Economy flight with no stopover will deliver us to Europe and Home again in better condition than an Economy flight with a day or two break each way.  Part of the reason is that I have limited time due to business commitments back home and the other part is that the Frequent Flier points make it an economic choice. 

The part of the trip I am looking forward to the most is, not surprisingly, the overnight train trip between Berlin and Paris.  Ever since my two years working in Durban for the South African Railways, with cheap trips to Johannesburg in the overnight sleeper train, I have loved the experience of arriving at the station in the evening, finding a bed on wheels, dining in the dining car and sleeping on the top bunk with the rock of the train motion to put me to sleep.  I have travelled around Europe on sleeper trains on my under 26 Eurail Pass in the late 70s, and more recently between Madrid and Paris, Johannesburg to Cape Town, Sydney to Broken Hill on the famous Indian Pacific and even between Sydney and Melbourne.  So Berlin to Paris will be one more to add to the list.

On the Road Again Germany and France 2013

It has been far too long since we set out for Europe and so a quick trip this Easter seemed to be in order.  The main focus of the trip is to attend the baptism of our grandnephew in Le Mans, but built around that are a visit to family in Mamers, a week in Berlin on the way over and, for me, two days in Chartres to have a close look at the Cathedral on the way home.

The trip to Berlin should be an eye opener. My last trip there was in 1979 when I visited for two days with the major focus of that trip being to pass through the famous Checkpoint Charlie.  Too many spy novels for my own good made that a must.  I was surprised, even shocked, by what I saw.  In particular, the extensive unrepaired damage from World War II, thirty five years after the end of hostilities, compared with the extensively rebuilt West Germany and even West Berlin.  However, the unexpected shock was the lack of advertising in the streets; nothing, not even shop windows or posters on poles.  I am happy to proclaim that I hate advertising, especially when it intrudes on TV or during my on line experience (I watch the ABC and use Adblock on line) but even I missed the life it puts into the streets which, if the East Berlin experience is an accurate guide, is completely lacking without it. 

On my last trip I also spend some considerable time looking at the Berlin Wall and peering through the fences surrounding the Brandenburg Gate.  So seeing the immense change there will be a highlight.  I guess that 34 years of life experience will also change my perspective.

In 2010 I spent a short time in Paris for business and took the opportunity provided by the weekend and the TGV to visit Rheims to really explore the cathedral. It was something I had wanted to do for a while.  I have visited many cathedrals throughout Europe.  However, a walk around shooting ten or twenty photographs, reading the tourist guide summary of what is important and moving on to the café or ice-cream shop next door seemed to miss something.  So I spent a little time researching the Rheims Cathedral before I left Australia.  I started out by trying to understand how the stability of the structure worked, and read a number of papers on physical and mathematical modelling of similar buildings.  I also found considerable material on the building process, the decoration of the building and the politics around the whole delivery of the project.  As a bonus, since Rheims is in the middle of one of the most active areas of battle in the First World War, I found some interesting material on the war, the damage to the cathedral and the restoration.  When I arrived I had plenty to explore and so I spend two full days visiting the building, inspecting the roof, the foundations, the columns, the beams, the arches and then on to the more decorative aspects of the building.  I revisited the area around the building several times over the two days, listened to the choir and organ practice and even attended Sunday mass.  I intended to record it all on this blog, but did not.  So I will try to engage in an equally comprehensive review of the Chartres Cathedral and write about them both on my return.