We flew into Frankfurt from Athens after a wonderful time in Greece, but very much looking forward to having a long held dream to visit Germany fulfilled. Having studied High School German I have had a fascination, not only with the language, but also with the geography, the culture and the people. My late older brother, Malcolm, also studied German at school, but unlike me, became fluent as he lived and worked in Germany for several years. My nephew, Mark, has also married a beautiful German lady, so I have felt various connections over the years. Our decision to stay in Wiesbaden came about basically because the accommodation prices in Frankfurt were very inflated due to an Automechanika Fair being held on the exact dates we were in the area. Wiesbaden, being about 30 km from Frankfurt seemed a viable alternative. And then we found out that my niece-in-law was actually born in Wiesbaden!
WIESBADEN
Well, to not leave any doubt, we could not have made a better decision! We have absolutely fallen in love with Wiesbaden. It is a truly beautiful city. The choice of hotel was very central, being right in the hub of the pedestrian malls and arcades of the main part of town. We walked and walked and for the four days we were there our opinion of the place only grew. Every corner brings a new architectural surprise. From the Market Church, the various boutique hotels, the theatres, the government buildings, Lutheran churches, Catholic churches, even an Anglican Church built especially for the British people who came to Wiesbaden to take the spas.
Wiesbaden is a town built on the natural resource of the hot springs which are all over the area. The local fountains with taps pouring out hot water are dotted throughout the city and the steam emerging is a wonderful sight. We had a wonderfully uplifting few days with so much walking. The parks are extensive and beautiful. Our fitness levels definitely got a great workout as our kilometre count got higher and higher. The one afternoon we did relinquish and catch a bus to return to the city was after a 6km walk to get to the Rhine River a little south of central Wiesbaden, at Beibrich. We felt ok about that though, as we’d walked about 8km on each of the previous 3 days, and had already done a 5km walk that morning! Schloßpark Beibrich was a delightful place to walk and see a grand residence of the past for the Dukes of Nassau. The surrounding gardens and parks were magnificent, and now serve as a public park, and the building itself is a lovely cafe and is used for concerts, as well as having some office use.
![Wiesbaden Aquis Matticus [now a Casino]](https://i0.wp.com/chrislyndajohnson.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/p1150842.jpeg?ssl=1 "P1150842")
FRANKFURT
We spent one day in Frankfurt, catching the train into the beautiful city on the River Main. The clear highlight of that day was climbing the 328 steps up the bell tower of the St Bartholomew’s Roman Catholic Church. It gave us 360o views of the city and the sight down the river was beautiful. We crossed the river on the Eiserner pedestrian bridge and saw the thousands of padlocks placed by love-struck couples, no doubt many of them being the place of a proposal. We saw the Goethe Monument and Goethe’s house, the Guternberg monument and the Eschenheimer Tower, now with a cafe. Walking through the pedestrian mall was just great, with so much to stimulate all the senses!
The very interesting thing we noted though, having been in Turkey so recently, is that the number of Turks in Wiesbaden now outnumber the people of German descent. We had been told in Turkey that the number of Turks migrating to Germany is huge, but to see the extent of it for ourselves was amazing. So many restaurants were Turkish, and the number of women with headscarfs and full burkhas was telling. At least we knew some Turkish greetings as well as German, so we felt comfortable.
Our time in Germany was certainly off to a great start!
As an aside … we had thought we’d like to spend some time in Frankfurt visiting the ‘Motor Show’ which caused the accommodation prices to be so high. With Germany a leader in car manufacture, and Frankfurt leading the way in Germany it seemed like a great idea. However, we found out that the ‘Automechanika Fair’ was not the motor show as we know it, but a show for mechanics [duh] … exhibiting spare parts for vehicles and all other associated delights! We decided not to go.
WIEMAR
The drive from Frankfurt to Berlin was a long one, and basically took all day. The weather varied from sun, to cloud, to rain, to absolute downpour, to sun again. Travelling up the autobahn was great, and the lack of speed limit meant that there were plenty of high powered Audis or BMWs flying past at breakneck speed. There may not be a speed limit, but if there’s an accident and it was proven the driver was going faster than 130kph, then there’ll be no insurance cover.
We travelled through Eisenach and Weimar, beautiful towns with rich history and famous people – Bach, Luther, Goethe, Schiller, Liszt to name a few.
We had a little time to walk around Wiemar and found some real historical and cultural gems. Just walking in this town made me feel cultured, and yet insignificant at the same time, as the history and grandeur surrounded me.
BERLIN
On Monday the whole day was spent exploring Berlin, such a beautiful city with such a chequered history. It’s difficult to describe our emotions as we heard the stories, saw the consequences, and experienced the results of tragedy, pain, war, persecution, oppression, struggle, relief and rebuilding. The permanent damage is still there, as we saw the scars of decades of fascist rule followed by decades of communism.
So much of the pain of this history is so recent, that to see how far this city has come in 25 years is quite remarkable. We felt very privileged as we saw how the former East Berlin has been and is still being remade, and how the past is being remembered. We saw pictures and models of how things used to be before the Nazi regime, and the rubble left after WWII. We saw the new buildings that have replaced so many, and the renovations that are currently being done. There are so many cranes on the Berlin skyline, which served to us as testimony to a determined city. We saw building still standing but racked with bullet holes and significant damage. We saw statues with sections blown off, we saw churches ruined and left, and new ones beside as if rising out of the ashes. We heard how after WWII most of the men of the city had died, so it was the women who pulled together and cleared up the rubble, as the majority of the city was in ruins. They pulled tons and tons of the ruined buildings into huge mounds across the city to enable clearing to take place. It was estimated that at least one of those rubble mounds was 33 metres high.
We calculated that we walked at least 15 km today as we explored the Victory Tower, and walked the 285 steps to the top, the Brandenburg Gate, now serving as a monument to a united Berlin, and a united Germany. We saw the Parliament Building, so close to the Brandenburg Gate but once separated from it by the Berlin Wall. We walked through the magnificent Tiergarten, acres and acres of forest in the middle of this vast city, and we visited the Berliner Dom, a truly awe-inspiring Lutheran Cathedral, built as a testimony to a Christian country. It has gone through many transformations in its long history, being first constructed in the 1740s but finally being completed in 1905. After being bombed in WWII, it was closed until 1993, and then underwent various renovations until 2006. This magnificent monument to protestant Lutheranism has statues of Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin. As if the nave isn’t impressive enough, we also climbed to the gallery, then continued up to the dome gallery, then even further up to the external viewing platform looking out across all Berlin. We then descended and visited the crypt, with an impressive collection of sarcophagi mainly of German royalty, including several children and babies. The great thing was that the crypt also has some great testimonies with carvings of Jesus being taken off the cross, and the angel at the empty tomb declaring ‘He is not here, he has risen.’ A great sign of eternal life, but also we felt, symbolic of Berlin generally.
Several times during the day as we wandered through this city, my mind went to my brother, and his love for this country. In 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down, so many times in the intervening 25 years, and today, I was sad that his untimely death, in just the month before that historical event, prevented him from seeing a united Germany. I was glad and especially privileged to be seeing it for him.
An emotionally harrowing day in so many ways, but also a day of thankful reflection that good does overcome evil.
![Berliner Dom [Cathedral]](https://i0.wp.com/chrislyndajohnson.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/p1160487.jpeg?ssl=1 "P1160487")
Chris and Lynda Johnson 