Train SpotPadding

After my Berlin escapades with Megan, I endured a solitary eight-hour train trip back to the Hague. Too tired to read, I whiled away the hours playing with Jeff's SpotPad smartphone application. (You'll remember SpotPad from my pintxos-mapping adventures in San Sebastian.) The end result: a stream-of-consciousness map of my train ride!

OK, I do not delude myself that anyone else will find my random thoughts diverting - but I think the final map looks cool. If you are curious about the stream-of-consciousness part, the map is easier to manipulate if you click through to Google Maps. If that seems too strenuous, I have pasted my comments below, after the jump.

View From East to West: My eight-hour train ride from Berlin in a larger map

Berlin is free

I love it when new experiences come free (see, for example, my notes on London). Don't get me wrong, I am more than happy to shell out for awesome museums or tickets to the ballet - but it's like shopping a sale: you love that cashmere sweater all the more when you know you got it for a song.

Berliner Dom

Berlin is like the Filene's Basement of new experiences.

Munich and the Biergarten Time Warp

Thinking about Munich makes me hungry. I suspect this is because all I did with my three days in Munich was eat (and drink).

Sausage. Pretzels. Beer. Repeat. Oh, Munich! How I miss you!

Virtualeinmarkt in August

Trust me, it could happen to you. You think you're going to explore Munich's old town, tour a palace or two - but you never make it past the Viktualeinmarkt. It's a warm August afternoon, the communal tables under the chestnut trees are packed with ruddy-faced men in lederhosen and friends catching up over a shared pretzel, the cold beer makes time slow down and imparts an instant nostalgic glow: next thing you know, it's dusk.

In the midst of the English Garden

You think you're just going to check out Munich's giant English Garden (think Central Park), with its naked sunbathers and babbling brooks, but instead you wile away another afternoon at one of the park's renowned beer gardens. August midday, the famous Chinesischer Turm seems painfully hot and dusty; much more pleasant is the Seehaus, with shaded tables directly on the shore of the Kleinhesseloher See. 

You have every intent of taking a day trip from Munich, but on your way to the train station, you're side-tracked by Augustiner, the largest beer garden in Munich. 

In the courtyard of the Ratshaus

You plan to watch the daily dance of the glockenspiel at the Neues Rathaus (the "new" town hall), but the sea of packed tourists in the Marienplatz rattles you - and instead you veer left, into the courtyard of the town hall for a beer at the Ratskellar. 

You mean to step inside the giant red Frauenkirche cathedral, but the terrace seating of Andechser am Dom is just too dreamy. 

(OK, so these last two are not technically beer gardens - you can't opt to bring in your own food, and it's not self-serve - but MAN. We liked Andescher am Dom so much, we had dinner there twice. Plus I really like Andechs beer.)

Yes, there are museums and palaces in Munich that one might visit. We did spend a morning in the neighborhood just east of the river, poking through shops on Sedanstrasse - but my memory of this is pretty hazy, probably due to sausage-and-pretzel withdrawal. 

Yet despite my unbalanced approach to site-seeing in Munich, I do not think I went wrong. Beer gardens have it all: superior people watching; quality beer; self-serve sausages, sauerkraut, and big doughy pretzels; some sun, some shade, some gentle communing with nature; and absolutely no pretension. What's not to love?

(I recently came across this site, a wiki of Munich beer gardens, which seems worthy of a plug. So many gartens, so little time.)

Why the Rhine Valley Rocked

Over the course of August and September, I ended up in Germany for three different trips - to Berlin, to Munich, and to the Rhine Valley (I know, life is hard, but bear with me). Of the three, I most want to go back to Berlin - but I have to admit, contrary to my expectations, that of the three, the Rhine Valley made the best trip.

Specifically, I'm talking about the stretch of the Rhine between Cologne and Mainz, with the addition of Baden Baden at the southern end.  Perhaps it was just the change of pace from our typical city destinations, perhaps it was just the sheer variety of experiences to be had, but this is the trip I'd recommend for other first-time visitors to Germany.  Our own perfect Rhine Valley itinerary went something like this:

Step 1: Lunch at a beer hall in Cologne.  Excellent German food, excellent local Kolsch.  We also revisited Cologne's massive cathedral.

Step 2: Castles.  The hills of the Rhine Valley are covered with them, like the rocky ruins of the massive Rheinfels castle perched above St. Goar. Our favorite, though, was on the nearby Mosel River: Burg Eltz, a fairytale castle nestled in a green valley in excellent (still inhabitable) condition - although unfortunately covered in scaffolding, and therefore temporarily unphotogenic.  

Schloss Rheinfels

Step 3: Vertical diversity. Coming from the flatness of the Netherlands, the rolling ridges of the Rhine Valley are breathtaking (like a green version of the Columbia River Gorge).  Doesn't hurt that every ridge is topped with a castle, and every hollow is home to a miniature village of half-timbered houses.  Which brings us to...

Step 4: Half-timbered houses.  I didn't think places like this existed outside of Epcot Center. We stayed in Bacharach, a tiny town of narrow cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses tilting slightly with age, window boxes full of geraniums, and vineyards stretching up the hillsides.  Perhaps because the weather was not fantastic, the town was surprisingly empty - except for the national petanque tournament down along the riverfront. 

Love Lock: A Story in Pictures

Once upon a time, in a land far far away (Cambridge, Massachusetts), a girl met a boy in a bar.  The fates were not aligned: He had sworn he would never date a lawyer, anyone affiliated with Harvard, or anyone under 30.  She was out celebrating her 27th birthday with her Harvard roommates before hunkering down to study for the bar, while working full-time.  

The night of their first date, Boston was shut down by a blizzard.  The night of their second date, twenty-four hours of "wintry mix" had turned the poorly drained streets around Harvard Square into ankle-deep lakes of icy slush.  For the first two months, she spent every weekend and most nights with her BarBri books.  Then she moved to DC for work.  But they persevered, through tough corporate jobs and multiple relocations. 

Last March he asked her to marry him.  This summer they decided to settle down in Portland come the fall. Before leaving Europe, they thought, wouldn't it be nice to commemorate their fortunate love?  

Enter stage left, the train bridge next to the cathedral in Cologne.

The rest of the story, in pictures, after the jump.

World Heritage in Context

(This post was originally intended to be published the week of February 14.)

So why did Jeff and I go to Cologne? To see the Cathedral, of course.

The Dom of Koln is not a difficult site to see: Cologne's main train station is located immediately next to the Cathedral, so even a thirty-minute lay over provides enough time for a Chevy Chase-style "uh huh, uh huh" surveillance of the site. But with a full weekend in Cologne, Jeff and I studied the Cathedral from every angle: we toured it, climbed it, photographed it, prayed in it, inspected its art, and admired it at night. What interested me most, however, is the Cathedral's historical and political context.*

Here's how UNESCO pitches the Cathedral:

"Begun in 1248, the construction of this Gothic masterpiece took place in several stages and was not completed until 1880. Over seven centuries, successive builders were inspired by the same faith and a spirit of absolute fidelity to the original plans. Apart from its exceptional intrinsic value and the artistic masterpieces it contains, Cologne Cathedral testifies to the enduring strength of European Christianity."

Here is my version: Construction of the Cathedral began in 1248, but pilgrims' donations dried up by the 1500s and construction halted for three centuries. Then, in 1815, Cologne came under the rule of Prussia, and the unfinished Cathedral was seen as an opportunity to demonstrate the strength and majesty of a newly unifying German state. (Recall that Germany as we know it did not exist until 1871.) The new German State funded much of the construction, which was completed in 1880: thus the Cologne Cathedral of today is as much about German nationalism as it is about medieval religious fervor.

View looking west from the Dom towers, over the rest of the Dom,
the train bridge, and where the "eyesores" would have been.

In what seems like a rather arbitrary crisis to me, UNESCO put the Cathedral on its "World Heritage in Danger" list between 2004 and 2006 because of plans to construct high-rise buildings on the other side of the Rhine. The dispute was resolved after a new buffer zone including the west bank was designated (I love that the German word is "Pufferzone"), which restricts what can be constructed in a large swath of central Cologne.

There is an obvious tension between conservation and the natural evolution of a community - I personally disfavor the inclusion of cities or towns as such on the World Heritage list because the result is often a Disney-fication as buildings are "restored", long-time residents are displaced, and cultural evolution is halted. UNESCO has a 2005 memorandum that tries to address this issue, but it is nearly impossible to understand. I think the memo agrees with me that "historic" places must still be allowed to change over time. I like, for example, this passage:

"[U]rban planning, contemporary architecture and preservation of the historic urban landscape should avoid all forms of pseudo-historical design, as they constitute a denial of both the historical and the contemporary alike. [Eat it, Epcot Center.] One historical view should not supplant others, as history must remain readable [no idea what that means], while continuity of culture through quality interventions [meaning new construction projects must be pretty?] is the ultimate goal."

UNESCO didn't follow this advice in 2009, however, when it actually delisted another site in Germany, the Dresden Elbe Valley, because of a four-lane bridge that Dresden built across the Elbe river smack in the middle of the protected "cultural landscape". It is one of only two World Heritage sites ever delisted. I find this amusing because UNESCO largely based its original inscription of the site on the area's functional structures dating from the Industrial Revolution, including a steel bridge, a funicular, and a shipyard. And I quote, "The Dresden Elbe Valley contains exceptional testimonies of [...] industrial heritage representing European urban development into the modern industrial era." Today's "modern industrial era" required a new bridge - but under the UNESCO regime (as implemented), there was no room for new industrial history that might displace old industrial history. (I guess it was a really ugly bridge.)

On the train bridge leading straight to the Dom.

These are difficult issues, and I don't know enough about the Cologne controversy to have a strong opinion on it. But it does interest me that the site was inscribed despite the location of a massive (and busy) train station and train bridge right next door, the construction of which was controversial back in the 1850s but which today greatly benefit the nine million annual visitors to the Cathedral and are so often included in pictures of the Cathedral that they have become part of the iconic image. If we stop all construction in the broad vicinity of a historic site, do we miss out on changes that could improve our visual or practical enjoyment of what we thought was so worth preserving and sharing in the first place?

When do developments evolve from "recent" (meaning "bad") to "historic" (meaning "better")? Would it really have ruined the Cologne Cathedral if some buildings were constructed across the river from it? More broadly, how do we decide which moments of an ever-evolving cultural landscape to freeze in time?

* (When I was a history student in college, a teaching fellow pointed out that we are all prone to viewing the world through the lens of our favorite speciality: I see the world as a historian does - an engineer or an artist or a physicist would conceivably have taken away very different lessons from the Cologne Cathedral.)

Bonn, c'est bon.

I feel kind of sorry for Bonn. One day, you're the capital of a major global power, backed by a booming economy and the moral righteousness of upholding democracy in the face of totalitarian evil; the next you're just another sleepy little town hardly worth a pit stop on Rick Steves' itinerary.

But not us: we are egalitarian travelers, willing to spread our attention even to the humblest of former world capitals. Also, Bonn is just 20 minutes by train from Cologne, and we had some time to kill.

How to spend half a day in Bonn? Four suggestions:

Blue Beethoven at Bonn's TI

1. Beethoven: 

Bonn is the home of Ludwig van Beethoven - and it does not let you forget it. Every house claims that Beethoven slept there; every church claims that Beethoven played there. The (very helpful) Tourist Information office in Bonn gives out free Beethoven walking tour brochures so you, too, can retrace every step Beethoven ever took in this city. We dutifully walked past Beethoven's childhood home, but I generally have a short attention span for the "a famous person slept here" sort of touring.

2. "The Path of Democracy": 

This walking tour, also available from the TI, leads you around the cluster of unremarkable mid-century buildings slightly south of downtown that were once the home of German democracy. We skipped this tour, however, when even the guy giving us the brochure at the TI suggested it would not be worth the time and trouble - which made me feel very sad for Bonn-the-capital, used and discarded by the West Germans like a starter wife.

Not actually part of the Path of Democracy tour, but I thought it was a cool picture.

Getting hands on at the Arithmeum

3. Museums: 

Bonn seems to have a large number of them, probably thanks to its former capital glory. We, however, visited a less traditional museum: the Arithmeum, attached to a research institute for discrete mathematics. (What can I say, I date an engineer.) I for one really needed to see the "bizarre cogwheel mechanisms in mechanical calculating machines" as advertised, and I was not disappointed. The museum traces the history of adding, from the abacus through some rather ingenious renaissance and enlightenment contraptions to the explosion of (really complicated) adding machines before the advent of computers. Being a child of the '80s, it shocked me to see there was life before God invented the handheld calculator.

4. The Good Life: 

What Bonn does well is calm and pretty: pedestrianized streets and squares, parks, cafes, palatial buildings from the 1700s and 1800s (which Cologne severely lacks). The historic center of town, alongside the Rhine, is free of cars and has several squares and some nice winding streets. One could mellow here - which is perhaps the best way to spend an afternoon in Bonn.

All photo credits go to Jeff - thanks, Jeff!

Germany Redux

(This post was originally intended to be published the week of February 14)

If you had asked my last year if I had ever been to Germany, I would have responded dismissively, "yeah [as in "duh"], of course I have - I mean, I've like done Germany." But upon further reflection, I realized I really hadn't. My only experience in Germany heretofore were two nights we spent at a family friend's house outside of Munich (the day in between we spent in Austria), and a long drive down the autobahn back to the Netherlands. My only memories are of my amusement over the spelling of "Munchen" on the road signs, and how a coffee machine at a gas station had an option for "extra hell". Seeing as I was twelve at the time, beer didn't really hold much interest for me.

As a result, our 36-hour trip last weekend to Koln (Cologne) and Bonn was spectacular because it all felt much more new than I had anticipated. To wit:

• German beer halls are awesome. Which raises the question why we have we not yet achieved their full importation into the U.S. (cf. taquerias and pinkberry)
• Relatedly, bars are much more fun when everyone is drinking the same thing.
• Cheesy movie stereotypes aside, German people are remarkably nice.
• German does not sound like Dutch (though it often looks like it).
• Whatever. You had me at sausage.

From the above list, it will be obvious that we spent about 40% of our time in eating establishments. I can now report that, up to this point in my life, I have seriously underestimated German beer halls.

First, you have communal tables in a cozy environment, which is - when mixed with lots and lots of beer - a recipe for conviviality. American efforts to reconstruct German beer halls typically fail at this fundamental level: they are cavernous rooms that always feel cold and impersonal, not human-scale spaces with low ceilings and colored glass windows and sawdust on the floor. The latter is much more conducive to dancing between the tables, or swaying with your arm over your neighbor's shoulder while singing a song you might or might not know.

Second, you get to assume everyone only wants to drink one thing (in Koln, this would be Kolsch). This allows the waiters to walk around with trays full of beers, handing them out to whoever wants one and marking the tally on your coaster - which in turn makes paying a heck of a lot easier. The efficiency is stellar: dirty glasses (kolsch glasses are skinny and small, holding about a third of a pint) are dunked into sudsy water, rinsed in running water, and fitted back into circular trays, which are then spun under taps of kolsch that are pretty much always running before being handed back to the waiters rushing by.

The rest seems less important: the sausage and egg and potato laden menus (easy to make fun of, but actually quite delicious); the jovial German manly men waiters always dressed in blue shirts and long blue aprons; the quick tallying of your bill at your table with the waiter ready to settle it on the spot (none of this waiting for the change nonsense). No, you marketers out there, take it from me: the recipe for an awesome German beer hall is (1) communal tables, (2) a small and cozy space, (3) only one beer on tap, (4) but very good beer, and (5) a snazzy yet efficient way to serve it.

In fact, I liked Germany so much that I would now not say I had "done" Germany - not (at the very least) until I have seen the beer halls of Munich and Berlin, too.

Anyone up for Oktoberfest?

(If you happen to find yourself in Koln and looking for a good beer hall, we very much enjoyed Paffgen (Friesenstrasse 64-66) and Schreckenskammer (Ursulagartenstrasse 11-15).)