Wen and I have been living here for a month now and we’re absolutely loving it. I thought I’d try and explain why, so here – in no particular order – are some of the reason why this is such an incredible city.
1. The Entire City is a Canvas
I’ve never been to a city with as much street art as Berlin. There are a lot of crummy tags and the like, but there are also untold works of art hidden across the city.
Sometimes the scale is tiny; a painting hidden at the margin of your field of view:
Other times it’s a massive blow-up that can practically be seen from space:
If you take the U1 between Kottbusser Tor and Goerlitzer Bahnhof, this spaceman appears to float on the wall to your north:
In between are countless images waiting to be found:
One of my personal favourites is this samurai warrior who protects the park near our apartment:
The pure essence of this spirit probably best caught in the Kunsthaus Tacheles, a former department store in East Germany that was squatted in by artists in 1990 who have turned it into a series of spray-painted galleries. Walking around it is a celebration of the countercultural energy that built this city (since it was run by the Allies, not the German government, anyone who didn’t want to serve in the German army fled to Berlin where they could keep citizenship but not be forced to do armed service):
But it’s not just illegal art and grafitti. There are plenty of legitimate random works of art around the town too.
Here Wendy and Aine show off just how big Germans are:
I was in the subway and walked up to this kiosk to buy a magazine:
Then I realized that it’s actually a photo of the other side of the kiosk, where the actual shop is:
There is a joy in finding unexpected art around your town.
2. People are Taking Small Steps to Save the Environment
It’s almost a cliche how North Americans are told “if we all just did a couple of small things we could make amazing changes to the environment”. But here in Berlin (and, really, all of Germany), people have actually done it.
People separate their garbage into wet, dry, paper, three different types of glass, metal containers and packaging. There are EUR 0.25 deposits on almost every bottle – and they can be returned everywhere. People bike everywhere – which is easy as there are bike lanes all over the place and posted bike routes. When you go in the hallway outside your apartment it’s unheated and the light is off by default. The street lighting is also running at half power – but the place is so safe that you don’t feel awkward about it.
There are also a couple of bigger things that are being tried. For instance, you can get hydrogen (Wasserstoff) at some of the gas stations:
3. This is a City Aware of, but not Incapacitated, by its History
The 20th century was incredibly destructive for Berlin. The insane, racist, total war of the Nazis meant that it was leveled. This was followed by fifty years of partition at the hands of the Soviets. The full insanity of this is on display at the Topography of Terror where the Wall happened to run through the old headquarters of the SS:
Some cities get stuck on their past and can’t move on (Rome – I’m looking at you). Some try to build for the future but don’t really mean it (Paris, where anything modern has been relegated to La Defense or outside the downtown). It’s rare to find a city that can acknowledge it’s past but build for the present and the future. London does it well and New York isn’t too far behind.
Berlin has done a great job of it – and it’s even more impressive because the history here is frankly so awful. All around town are tasteful reminders of the past:
Any building from the WW II era is a patchwork of replacement stones to cover up wartime damage:
Similarly, the Soviets dotted the city with war memorials to their fallen:
Berliners could have been forgiven for turning their city into a mausoleum for the 20th century, but instead they’ve simply created a new architectural style that builds off the positive aspects of what they had to offer. Incredible modern architecture abounds and is juxtaposed against older buildings:
Interestingly, many of these buildings are schools. The ones below are a cafeteria at a school and a kindergarden respectively:
It’ll be interesting to see if anyone studies whether modern architecture alters the perspective of children.
4. The Light
Berlin is at roughly 50 degrees north. That means that at this time of year the sun struggles to get above the horizon and is so exhausted when it gets there that it doesn’t stick around too long. It throws weak light and long shadows that paint the city is a particularly beautiful hue.
5. The Bread. And the Sausage
Bread justifies people doing strange things. The New Yorker‘s Adam Gopnik moved from Paris to New York because of a pretzel croissant. Having been to the City Bakery (home to said delectable croissant), I can safely say that if Gopnik had been to Berlin and visited any bakery, he’d now be a Berliner.
The pretzel croissant abounds, as do delicious ham and cheese or marizpan or chocolate versions. I am gorging on kaselaugenstange (a finger of pretzel bread with baked cheese on top). Every morning it’s toast from a loaf containing pumpkin and 12 other seeds; sometimes it’s rye from a curiously cylindrical loaf:
There are sweet-smelling bakeries everywhere; sometimes next to one another. Numerous have been strategically placed in subways so that between trains you can get your wheat/rye/oat/gluten fix.
I am salivating as I write this.
But I must continue as we haven’t even begun talking about the sausage yet.
You know a country is serious about its meat in a tube when they’ve created a self-contained, portable sausage cooker:
The bratwurst in this town is incredible, and if it wasn’t for all the bread, I’d probably just eat sausage. In fact, the Bavarian breakfast – two sausages and a pretzel – is a good equilibrium.
The only thing more common than the bakeries are the sausage sellers. While a good bakery is a beautiful bakery, there is an inverse correlation for your friendly sausage vendor. This charmless currywurst (cut sausage with ketchup and curry power) vendor in the middle of nowhere near the Gesundbrunnen subway stop serves such great sausage that I’d go back in an instant:
6. Berliner’s Have a Great Sense of Humour
Those of you who have been to Germany are probably saying ‘Ha, ha – I get it Lindsay; you’re being ironic because everyone knows that German’s have no sense of humour.” But I’m going to suggest that this is not the case and that some Germans (notably Berliners) actually have a great sense of humour.
Here’s a random example of it.
Germany has a popular, but trashy, tabloid called Das Bild. It’s like the New York Post with bare breasts. They make their money with outrageous headlines and frequently the story gets ahead of the truth.
Bild is part of the Axel Springer Verlag and headquartered in their massive skyscraper that used to sit right on the Berlin Wall. Axel was a conservative who hated the communists and he wanted his building to reflect the freedom of the West and be a beacon to those in the East; his papers reflected his conservative ideals.
Two blocks away, in a squat six-storey building, is the Tagezeitung (taz). It’s a left-leaning paper inspired by the likes of Rudi Dutschke (a 60′s liberal who fought against Springer’s views; he ended up narrowly surviving an assassination attempt). They love to try and stir the pot.
First, they successfully petitioned to have their street – Kochstrasse – renamed Rudi Dutschke Strasse – for three blocks: from them just to the Springer building.
Then in 2002 they wrote an article about the alleged penile enhancement surgery of the Bild’s publisher. A suit immediately followed and a court injunction prevented the article from being published. This was followed by an attempt to sue for EUR 30,000 in damages.
But it was rejected by the courts who said that the publisher (Kai Diekmann) “consciously seeks economic advantage from the violation of others’ privacy” and hence “is less severely burdened by the violation of his own privacy. After all, he has knowingly and willingly gone into the business of violating people’s privacy.”
To celebrate this ruling, the taz commissioned a piece of work by artist Peter Lenk and slapped it up on the side of their building (where it’s visible from the Springer building). What is it? Nothing other than a four storey sculpture of, amongst other things, the publisher and his pneumatically enhanced “cobra penis”.
See, Germans do have a sense of humour.
7. Berlin is Home to the Happiest Place on Earth
I could go on, but let me close with one more thing. I have a weakness for chocolate. Particularly Ritter Sport and their nerdy, only-in-Germany slogan of Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut. (I don’t think a translation is really needed)
So imagine my sheer joy when I stumbled upon the Ritter Sport store. It’s kind of like finding out like there really is a Willy Wonka chocolate factory.
You go inside and they’ll make you your own Ritter Sport bar with pretty much anything you want. They’ve got special flavours that you can’t get anywhere else. There are oversized bars for sale and a cafe.
It’s all Ritter Sport all the time and I love it (and I’m not the only one):
They’ve even got a Ritter Sport advent calendar, so now my Christmas will officially be the best ever:
Berlin. As many reasons to love it as flavours at the Ritter Sport wonderland.
I’m 1,000 meters above the earth and falling at 5 meters per second. Actually, it’s not just me – Wendy’s there too, plus almost 20 unbathed French, German and Japanese tourists.
The funny thing is that I have no idea that we’re falling. We’re not accelerating so I can’t feel anything. Despite the fact that the air is in front of my face – no windows here – I can’t hear any rushing or anything. And the martian landscape we’re above gives no clues as to depth. Add in the fact that the balloons around us are both going up and down and I’d have no idea which direction we were moving if our pilot didn’t tell us.
A balloon ride over Cappadocia is an essential means of seeing the landscape. Every morning almost a thousand people go up in 72 different balloons; it’s the largest collection of balloons found anywhere outside of balloon festivals.
You arrive early to watch them inflate in the pre-dawn twilight.
Depending on the whims of your pilot, you might then rocket to a few hundred meters and watch the other balloons rise. And I should add that you have no idea where you’re going to go; your course is set by the vagaries of that morning’s wind.
Our pilot then dropped down into one of the many ravines that dot the landscape. We all watched speechless as he glided over ledges and dropped down into canyons that contain thousand year old cave dwellings. We could have literally reached out and touched them or plucked walnuts from trees. You can get a sense of it about halfway through this video:
Our pilot then rose quickly to 1000 meters where the temperature is noticeably lower and we got a profound sense of just how thin the bottom of a balloon’s basket is and how far we were from the ground…
Landing is also an interesting time. Since nobody knows where you’re going to land, a fleet of chase vehicles are following you around as you fly. When you land, a trailer pulls up directly underneath you and the basket drops into place. Very professional.
A quick glass of sugary fermented grapes masquerading as champagne and you’re back to your hotel. And it’s not even 8:30 am yet.
2.
In the distance, looming over all of Cappadocia, is the massive volcano that deposited all the rock and ash that makes the area so unique. Except that according to our guide – and one should never fully trust a guide in this touristy an area – there were actually three simultaneous volcanos that flooded the area with ash and lava millions of years ago.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a little bit of miscommunication here between geologists and the tourist industry. I mean, think about the word “simultaneous”. For type A people like me, it’s got a pretty clear meaning. At exactly the same moment (define it as the time taken for an atom to change state, a hummingbird’s wings to flag; whatever nano-scale small increment of time you want…), two or more identical things need to be happening.
Now imagine you’re a geologist. You spend your time wondering how a four billion year old rock evolved and most things take millions of years to occur. Unless your one of those adrenaline junkies who studies volcanos and earthquakes, it’s likely that in your entire career you’re going to see nothing happen. All the action has either occurred in the past or is set for the future. That continental drift ain’t fast enough for you to observe. On any given day, it’s the academic equivalent of watching paint dry.
So maybe, just maybe, when the geologists talk about “simultaneous” volcanos they really meant that three volcanos, only separated by a few hundred thousand years, formed the valley. I mean, they could be forgiven for getting carried away in the excitement of a few things happening in less than a few million years and calling it “simultaneous”. In the grand scheme of four billion years of volcanos blowing apart and reforming the earth, that’s a pretty inconsequential error.
But I digress; it’s just one thought that ran through my head as we were in the bus riding from site to site.
And there’s a lot to see in Cappadocia.
Let’s start with those thousands of Star Wars-style (despite any protestations by your guides, none of it was filmed in Turkey) rock-carved dwellings that are ubiquitous. Some have even been converted into hotels:
These were built by early Christians; when anyone invaded, they would rush underground to various cities they had built. The area is literally pocked with multi-layered underground cities. At Derinkuyu you can go eight floors undergound and explore countless booby traps. Interestingly, no one knows how they disposed of their bodily wastes…
There are also vast crumbling castles. The ruins of Cavusin were used from the 9th century until the Ottomans. Erosion gradually pulled down the mountain’s facade and revealed all the dwellings there:
And the similarly ruined castle of Uchisar looks like a failed cross between Mont St. Michel and Kowloon Walled City:
It also happens to have one of the best views of the area…
…and the view from the neighbouring Cafe at Argos is one of the best views you’ll ever find in a cafe (if I could afford it, I’d stay at the associated Argos In; mindblowing place).
The region also abounds with numerous stream-filled canyons, almost all of which can be hiked. It’s fun to descend from the dusty plains into the tree-lined bottoms. At some points you actually have to hike narrowly through ancient hacked-out caves or water-eroded tunnels. Also, beware that nothing is marked clearly; you occasionally come to cliffs and have to backtrack:
Finally, since Cappadocia was once covered in water and composed of different layers of sediment, the rocks have eroded at different rates and left some pretty incredible – and almost unbelievable – shapes behind:
3.
Those early settlers were mostly Christians who excelled at creating churches. There are hundreds of them; when some of them break, the Turkish authorities don’t even bother to fix them or seal them from the elements:
The earliest recorded cave paintings come from the 9th century and are fairly simple:
However, over the next two centuries they got increasingly sophisticated:
When the Muslims came, they began a process of gradual assimilation and slowly exercised their power over the locals. Since Muslims aren’t allowed to worships idols, Christians weren’t allowed to paint eyes on their saints:
What did these people do to survive? Farming was pretty common – and you can see it pretty much unaltered from how it was likely practiced then (the following photo is actually an orchard amongst many dwellings and rocks):
But the real money was in dovecotes. This is a polite way of saying that the locals earned their keep by collecting bird shit. They would create caves that contained numerous alcoves for pigeons and then brick them in:
The red paint apparently attracted the pigeons; once a year they would go in and collect all the guano. Erosion gives the casual tourist a sense of what the alcoves looked like:
Nowadays it is all tourism, all the time. In fact, the main city – Goreme – is literally built out of the old dwellings (as are Uchasir and Cavusin):
4.
If you look at all the photos above, you may noticed the complete and utter absence of horses. This would be of no consequence, except that, curiously, “Cappadocia” means “land of beautiful horses”.
If you go on a group tour of the many sites, remember this, as eventually you will be taken to a jeweler to watch onyx be carved (as a prelude to shopping!). This trinket will then be offered to the first person who can recite the meaning of Cappadocia.
Also make sure to remember that speed is more than accuracy here as your judge is not a native English speaker. If you, as I did, should yell “land of many horses” or something similar you’re likely to win. And then you, like me, will be the proud owner of an improperly finished paperweight.
If one of you kind readers gets it for Christmas, please enjoy your handmade souvenir, created by a Turkish master who has spent his life – just as his father and grandfather – perfecting the art of turning raw rock into emotion. I’m sure you’ll love it.
5.
Cappadocia is a fantastic place and here are a couple more photos to close:
Istanbul. The chaos of 13 million lives. A city bursting at the seams and simultaneously thriving. A place where you cannot escape over 2,000 years of history – nor would you want to. Where the East literally meets the West but it feels more like modern meets ancient. A fantastic place to spend a few days.
1.
A bit about the city. Founded by Greeks but developed by the Romans (most notably, they left the Hagia Sophia) whose Constantine made it the new capital of the empire. Inherited by the Byzantines who built it into the largest city of world. Conquered by the Ottomans; it took 100 years to recover. Now ruled by Turks, it has exploded in population (from 680,000 in 1927 to 1,000,000 around 1950 to 13,000,000 or so today) as waves of first Ottoman refugees and then poor Turks flooded the city seeking safety and economic opportunity.
Each of these rulers have left their fingerprints on the city; most obvious are the great monuments left by each. More subtle are the neighbourhoods. This is not really a city proper, but a series of mini-cities.
There’s modern and hip Begolyu; Muslim women sip wine in restaurants, head scarves are rare and the boutiques all have well labeled prices. There’s a modern art gallery with world class pieces. Movies are filmed. But don’t think it’s all Western decadence – in the alleys off Istiklal you’re as likely to find people playing backgammon, drinking tea and smoking a hookah as you are to find people drinking beer and cavorting.
In ancient Fatih, the crowded, narrow medieval streets are packed with open-faced stores hawking everything (negotiate furiously!), businesses shut for an hour at midday when the mosques overflow and nary a woman isn’t wearing a head scarf.
And then there’s the entire Asian shore, where well planned neighbourhoods abound with people simply living their lives and trying to create a better life for their children; the glass-walled buildings of multinationals border its many highways.
The city proper is incredibly colourful, bursting with it:
Curiously though, the locals seem to only wear dark colours. You can observe this as, on the weekend, you can conceivably walk the many kilometers from the Grand Bazaar down to the Galata Bridge via the Spice Market and then over to Istiklal and eventually Taksim square and spend the entire time in a crowd of thousands:
Perhaps the dark clothes reflect the huzzun (melancholy) that Orhan Pamuk believes hangs over this city (his book, Istanbul, is required reading before visiting the city).
Interestingly, none of the photos above capture the feel of this city. This is a city of interfaces and thresholds. The joy of the city is walking the streets and, in the string of a few hundred meters, finding yourself careening from the lighting to hardware to clothing to outdoor equipment to banking districts. Along the way the streets buzz with deliverymen lugging hundred of pounds of goods and runners delivering tea or food. Men loiter smoking furiously. And when you turn corners you never know what you’re going to see: wild dogs and cats, laundry hanging from a second floor window, an old woman or man teleported from the 1700s disappearing into a closing door or the sudden appearance of a mosque or hammam or cobblestoned alley. You have a constant feeling that things are happening that you cannot understand and all of it is ruled by some sort on unknown code.
2.
The past 90 years have been confusing for Istanbul. The empire collapsed and the city was ignored and began to decay. Then it’s population grew faster than anyone could imagine. The net result is that the city is undergoing massive change. The city used to be almost entirely wooden; you can still see this in some of the older neighbourhoods like Fatih. It can feel like going back in time:
Many of these buildings were torched in the 1950s in a spree that would have brought a tear to the eye of a 1970′s Bronx slumlord. However, you can still find many that have been restored:
The burgeoning population meant that an incredible number of new buildings needed to be built. The older parts of the city went from two storeys to six overnight and the one-horse-wide streets are now clogged with some of the worst traffic in the world; if you hate horns, beware where you walk.
Also, many of these were built on the cheap and are now being torn down. Scenes like this are everywhere:
The city is reinventing itself in six to eight storey standards of glass, steel, plaster and terra cotta.
3.
But no dispatch on Istanbul would be complete without a few comments on its monuments. The sultan used Topkapi Palace to make it clear that Istanbul was an Ottoman city and there were no more Romans or Byzantines to be found.
And the Hagia Sophia stands as a testament to Roman engineering combined with the clash of cultures:
The Grand Bazaar is literally a city within a city, with every store beneath a covered arch. You can wonder aimlessly and quickly lose your sense of direction as there are no ways to see way to see any of the city’s landmarks:
And then there are the ubiquitous mosques. They are everywhere, piercing the sky with their minarets while their stones plays tricks with the setting sun.
The sound of the call to prayer in Istanbul is haunting. Within minutes of each other, dozens (hundred? thousands?) of cries start to ululate over the sky. And within a few minutes it is all gone and it as if it never happened.
You could spend a month visiting the monuments of Istanbul (aqueducts, old city walls, fortresses…) but one additional one that should be on every visitor’s list is the cistern. If it looks vaguely familiar, it may be because Sean Connery rowed across it in From Russia With Love.
4.
For mild hapnophobes (fear of being touched) like myself, Istanbul can present some surprising issues. My first situation occurred when I went to get my hair cut. The actual hair cutting part was fine – no different from what I’m used to everywhere else I’ve had my hair cut. However, I learned that in Istanbul your haircut isn’t done simply because your hair is cut.
The barbershop consisted of two men. A young artiste who cut hair and an older man whose sole purpose seemed to be to make tea (it’s everywhere here and the national drink). However, his real job became obvious once the last strand was cut.
Through a series of grunts and gestures he directed me to lean over into a wash basin where steaming water had been surreptitiously running. He was soon lathering up my hair and running his firm old man hands across my scalp. Then down my face. A gentle poke in the eyes. A rub of the temples and cheeks. This was getting very awkward.
He then dried me off, but we were not done. My entire head – not just my scalp – was massaged. Then he worked his way down my neck and into the shoulders. Most people would enjoy this; I was trying not to squirm in my seat.
Still not done! He found time to slather me in first moisturizer, then aftershave and finally hair gel.
My hair was cut. I smelled nice. And my worst fears have been realized.
The other scenario I faced was going for a hammam: a Turkish bath. I found out that it basically involves you lying prostate, face down on a slab in a co-ed room with a piece of towel wedged between your butt cheeks while a man sits on the back of your knees and pounds your flesh. Not my idea of fun so I settled for a nice steam in the sauna instead.
5.
Turks are insanely patriotic people (or at least, their government is). Everywhere you go it is flags, flags, flags – and pictures of Attaturk.
In fact, you if you sit in a hotel that overlooks the city, you can pass your time trying to count all the massive Turkish flags that dot the skyline; they’re those massive flags that are normally only found in North America on car dealership lots at the edge of the city or next to a highway. They’re second only to the mosque minarets in defining the skyline. And they flap beautifully in the morning air.
6.
The Turks love al fresco dining so cafes and open air restaurants abound. If you wander enough, you’ll eventually find a place where grape vines have been strung across a cobblestone street and tables and chairs brought out.
But if unsurpassed quality is your goal, you will need to hunt a little further. One suggestion (thanks Jascha!) is Develi. The sign above the door says “Kebabs & Baklava” and they do not disappoint. They’re also set in one of the cutest locations possible: a square surrounded by wooden houses and fishmongers.
And no visit would be complete without a visit to Ciya Sofrasi. The New Yorker did a 10,000 word article on them in the 2009 food issue; at the time I thought it bordered on hagiography but having eaten there, I now understand it was not.
The experience is incredible. The restaurant is on the Asian side of the city, so you need to take a ferry to Kadikoy. From there, you need to wander the poorly marked pedestrian streets (one of the few grievances you can lodge against this city), through food and fish markets and past deceptively similarly named restaurants until you find it.
You then serve yourself a vegetable plate. Normally, self service is inversely proportional to the quality of the food, but it’s the opposite here. This mezze plate is one of the best things I’ve ever had, and it was all vegetarian:
To order a main, you walk up to a chef who is keeping a dozen pots of various home-style dishes cooking. You order what you want (Icli Kofte – Turkish stuffed meatball, falafel, and lamb meatballs in a mint and pomegranate sauce for us) and it is brought to your table a few minutes later.
This was easily one of the five best meals I’ve had on our travels and it came with the added benefit of being incredibly cheap for Istanbul. Don’t go to Istanbul – and you need to come here – without a visit.
RSS
Recent Comments