Kerry H had a desire to see the remnant of the Berlin Wall that had been turned into a story board by local artists. Once again using our Berlin pass and shoe leather we found the monument. I was completely disgusted by the rubbish that had been splashed onto this landmark. It appeared that none of the artists (and I query that term) had respected the opportunity afforded them to enrich the history of the city. I have provided photos of the rubbish and what I consider the only serious attempt I could find to say something of the Wall and its impact on the city.
With some more shoe leather and another train ride we returned to our apartment via our favourite pub Bistro Kneipe. This time I grabbed a photo of the schnitzels that we enjoyed so much.
Each day we had travelled on the buses we passed the Berlin Victory column. The featured image at the top of this blog is the Angel of Victory atop the column. This time we stopped for a closer look. The column is in the centre of a large roundabout with tunnels accessing the monument from the edges of the roundabout. The Victory Column is a monument to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, but by the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria and its German allies in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue a new purpose. Inside the tower is a history of the tower and other monuments around Germany and the development of Germany through these wars. Remember until unification Germany was made up of various principalities called Electorates (Hanover, Prussia, Saxony by way of example). So it should not surprise that looking on from the Teirgarten are Bismarck, Roon and Moltreg the architects of unification. One of the other monuments picutured is Kaiser Wilhelm (I think) at the intersection of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers at Koblenz which we visited whilst living in the UK.
glendon1954 