Photo impressions around Berlin, Winter 2013

our S-Bahn stop Savignyplatz

40 Euro fine ticket

      Berlin has turned out to be a bit of a bummer. As I look back on my posts since our arrival at Frankfurt Flughafen they seem to be mostly a catalogue of bitches and gripes: screwed up trains, language dustups, physical injury and, last but not least, today we got pinched on the S-bahn for not having a properly stamped train ticket and got fined 40 Euros each. Well, at 70 Euros each for a monthly train pass, we still got off cheap.

Schloss Cecilienhof

Churchill, Truman, Stalin in Potsdam
[Wikipedia]

  






   The weather has been uncooperative as well. The skies have been uniformly gray almost the whole time we have been here (since January 10), there has been quite a bit of show and temperatures remain stubbornly at or below 0 degrees centigrade.       

     Nevertheless, we have intrepidly gone out and about town taking daily walks. We took a day trip to Potsdam yesterday for a little more walking and sightseeing. I was especially interested in seeing the venue for the Potsdam Conference among the "Big Three" powers (Churchill, Truman and Stalin) to discuss the fate of Germany and Japan in 1945 at Schloss Cecilienhof, an early 20th Century palace that was spared the allied bombing of the rest of Potsdam. 

Unter den Linden

Brandenburg Gate

     Of course my camera was ever with me and following are a few photos of my impressions going about in Berlin. You will notice that only one photo shows blue sky--a rarity during out stay here. We are off to a Berlin Philharmonic concert tonight and off to Prague next week on Monday. 

guarding US Embassy, not the Tor

 the Wall is an open air gallery, this is one of the paintings

Jewish Holocaust Memorial

section remaining of the Berlin Wall

another painting on the Wall with graffiti

souvenirs at end of the Wall

love hotel? -- across the street from the Wall

this drab station was in old East Berlin

Schloss Charlottenburg Palace, [only blue sky photo]

flea market in Tiergarten

Schloss Charlottenburg statuary 

Burger KIng in Tiergarten

Lion Bridge in Tiergarten

sign seen at U-Bahn entrance 

photo on subway wall near
Brandenburg Gate

portico of Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam

swans bottom feeding in fountain
at Sans Souci Palace

BigThree conference room in Schloss Cecilienhof
[Wikipedia]

Reichstag