Trip to Germany

12th December 0600 we set off from Salisbury to Heathrow airport to catch our plane to Munich! The Lufthansa flight we took was pleasant enough, but quite full, we all got some sleep, but the flight was not long, 2 hours travel time.

Our accommodation in Munich was OK, we managed to find a Mecure hotel which was reasonably priced and not too far out of the city. We mastered the train system in Munich fairly quickly and were travelling around easily. We went into the heart of Munich to visit a number of the Christmas Markets. They are totally awesome, it is true to say that the Germans do Christmas really well! The Christmas

markets are an array of little shops that open up in town squares. The shops themselves are well built little store-fronts, each a different design at each market. They sell all sorts of things, including food (crepes with nutella and banana, all sorts of bratwurst and sausage, cheese dishes, pizza, other types of fermented meats, chocolates, beer, Gluehwein (spiced warm red wine - yum!!!)), different types of beautiful Christmas decorations, glassworks, metalwork, woollen scarfs and gloves and heaps more stuff - very kewl. They also have awesome light displays.

On our second day in Munich we visited the old Olympic Park, still quite a sight to see. The main stadium is now largely used for soccer, athletics, and concerts but still an impressive facility. We also visited the BMW museum, which also included Mini and Rolls Royce. Some totally awesome cars, worth a lot of dollars!! Also a cute little three wheeler BMW, which had a single door at the front of the vehicle, and

could seat three if you're lucky! Took two shots of BMW's new electric cars, one is very sporty, the other is a compact style car.

We visited the Christmas Market at Marianplatz, which was very extensive, and extremely crowded. They even had an ice rink associated with a bar and food, so was very kewl! We walked along one of the main malls in Munich, the buildings were incredibly decorated with lights, was very spectacular, have never seen anything like this in Australia!

Next morning we jumped on the train system via an ICE train to Cologne. The train trip was good, boys behaved and generally enjoyed the ride. The inter-city trains are high speed, reaching in excess of 300km per hour, so the train ride was around 4.5 hours. We arrived in Cologne at about 4.10pm and were greeted by Gertrude (a friend we'd previously met in Australia who lives in Cologne).

Gertrude took us to our accommodation and then headed home.

Our accommodation in Cologne was cosy, but workable, a single room with bathroom which was approximately the same size as 4 queen size beds arranged in a square. The owner's name was Viktor, a pleasant enough bloke, who on our arrival promptly disappeared and then reappeared with a number of bags of sugar-laden food. Viktor said that, this is a B&B, but I'll give you the food now, so you can eat when you want (logical, but very much his style - minimal effort!!). However the location of our accommodation was great, in walking distance from a number of Christmas markets and Roman ruins. Once settled in we then set out to visit the closest Christmas Market at Neumarkt, grabbed some dinner and more gluehwein!

The next day we set out to visit the cathedral in Cologne, quite a very impressive structure, incredible detail, and unlike the cathedral in

Salisbury, not as extravagant. Interesting history about the cathedral during World War II, most of the surrounding buildings were levelled, and the cathedral was one of the only buildings that remained. The reason that the cathedral survived was due to the fact that the Allied bombers used the cathedral as a land mark, so thus it was easily identified from the sky, and not a defined target.

Just outside the cathedral we found some more Roman ruins, what seemed to be an archway, was actually the side portal for the Roman north gate of the original city walls, which dated back to 50AD!! There was yet another Christmas Market next door to the Cathedral, so naturally we had to visit! Tried more crepes, bratwurst and pommes (German for hot chips). We then retired back to the hotel for a bit of rest.

In the evening we set out again in our quest for Christmas Markets,

and we targeted the "Home of the Elves" Christmas Market, which had the backdrop of the town hall. This Christmas market was spectacular, especially at night, and with a large ice skating rink. We ventured out on the ice; Robbie and Erik needed a support sleigh each to stay upright. Flo took a couple of hefty tumbles, blaming the boys, and was sporting some reasonable bruises for a couple of days. Was a lot of fun and the boys loved it! They also had a number of curling courts, which were illuminated brilliantly. The gluehwein was great, and we also sampled the crepes and bratwurst as well.

The next day we set out to visit a couple more Christmas markets and to take in some of the sights of Cologne. We yet again sampled the gluehwein, bratwurst and crepes, and the boys enjoyed themselves. We caught up with Gertrude and Werner (Flo's friends) and had a nice dinner at Vapiano (Gertrude's favourite restaurant).

The next morning we packed up our gear and set off for the Cologne train station to catch our train to Berlin. The train trip was between 3 - 4 hours but was a pleasant way of viewing the countryside. We finally arrived in Berlin and made our way to our accommodation, which was a hotel called Motel One.

After settling into our room we then set off to find the closest Christmas market, and we didn't have to go far at all! On our way to the Christmas market we saw a few more examples of how German's celebrate Christmas, huge light figure of both Santa and Rudolf, and well as Berlin spelt out in lights.

We made it to the Christmas market and enjoyed more gluewein, bratwurst and crepe. They had a different gluewein, which involved the usual mulled wine, except this one came with a sugar cube

balanced on small metal tongs. The sugar cube is dipped in brandy, balanced on the tongs and then set on fire. The sugar melts and gradually falls into the wine, plus the brandy - tastes really good!!

One the way back to the hotel we walked past a Lego shop! Was very kewl, and Robbie and Erik loved it! In addition to all the different types of Lego you can buy, there were also tables of lego for kids to play and build. Needless to say we had to drag the boys away, as it was getting quite late.

December 18th once we'd demolished another breakfast, we set off again to explore Berlin. We set off for the Berlin Wall and Check Point Charlie. We visited a couple of the few remaining section of the Berlin Wall still standing, it was very interesting to think how a city could be divided in half, being able to see buildings on the other side

of the wall but not being able to visit. Many of the paintings on the wall are symbolic of the events, ideology and emotions of 1989 when the wall came down.

Next we visited Check Point Charlie, which was the main key crossing point between East and West Germany. The check point is still physically there, but there is also an extensive museum, which contains information, authentic displays and video footage from around the time when the wall went up, right up until it came down. The information is very powerful, many stories of people who tried to escape, those that helped people escape, and numerous other stories. There were displays of vehicles that were used to smuggle people over the boarder, flight over in balloons or even sail around it. We could have spend quite a few hours at the museum and still not seen everything.

That evening we visited another Christmas market near Alexander Plaz to meet up with Luke, a friend of Flo. After a few wrong turns and a misjudgement of street numbers we found Luke and the market. Was quite different to other markets, it had a lot of food, and a live band playing, but like most was very well attended. We downed quite a few glueweins and more bratwursts, and we were even able to find some wedges for the boys (couldn't find hot chips! - called pommes in Germany). As the market called last drinks we said our goodbyes with Luke and headed back to the hotel.

We had an interesting room number!! Thankfully did not live up to its reputation!!

20th December, our final day in Berlin, we ventured out to the city centre. We visited the Brandenburg Gates, a very impressive structure with significant Roman influence. We also visited the

Reichstag, which is the site of German government, and equally impressive building.

We next visited a really interesting section of the Berlin Wall, good portions were simulated wall represented by steel posts. This section of the wall was the sight of numerous escape attempts, due to the relative soft nature of the soil. There were illustrations marked out where tunnels were dug, and the numbers of people who escaped, or were discovered trying to escape. There was equally a great deal of detail on the history of the wall and what happened to the people and the buildings which were in existence around the wall when it was constructed. Was a very powerful and moving experience.

With time running out we made our way to Berlin Airport, was quite easy trip as we found an express shuttle very close to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel we walked past Dr Muller's shop, pretty

sure he had it going on in there!! We then boarded our British Airways flight back to Heathrow Airport.