We started the morning at Klein Backstube, a bakery near our hotel. We had a puddingbrezel and a cheese Börek. The puddingbrezel was really good, with a light dusting of sugar. We met the woman who owns the shop. She does all of the baking herself.
From there, we walked through Tiergarten again toward the Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement. The Victory Column was on our way, so we hadn’t really planned on seeing it. However, we stopped and walked around it, reading a little bit about its history. It’s impressive, and I didn’t realize it wasn’t its original location. While we were reading about it, we started to learn how the French wanted to destroy it after World War II. I mean, so much of the pain of World War II can be traced to how the victors punishing Germany after World War I. Clearly, the Allies had beaten the Nazis. Why rub their face in it after the war? It’s just such a silly approach. So I’m glad it survived French’s punitive hopes and happy the other allies agreed to leave it standing.
From there, we walked across the river to see the Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement. This is to honor Magnus Hirschfeld, a sexologist and researcher from the 1920s. He’s a person I didn’t know anything about until I was in college. It was then that a friend and activist in my gay group, the Rainbow Alliance at the University of Pittsburgh, decided to put together a history newsletter on gay history. One of his first articles was about Magnus Hirschfeld. That’s where I learned about him. He really is this sort of incredible, he was functionally an out gay guy in the 1920s who approached the defense of our people through research. I walked up to the memorial—it is not towering or anything. It’s relatively small. But from the other side of the river, it’s actually very nice to see. It’s these beautiful, colored statues that look like calla lilies.
From the monument, we planned to walk to one of the boats for a Spree River cruise, but we couldn’t find the one we wanted. We were beat from taking a very long walk, and that’s how we found ourselves at Refinery High End Coffee, which was a great coffee shop. The vibe was cool, their flat white was delicious, and it was warm—a great retreat from a chilly and wet morning.
The Reichstag is entirely free, but you have to register long before you get there. I had handled that for our group, and we all met up outside. You put on the audio guide, and as you walk up the ramp in the dome, it starts playing. It was a fantastic history lesson on the building and the major historical milestones Germany experienced after World War II that led to the creation of this dome. The mirrored cone in the center of the dome captures light and directs it down into the chamber. This visit is a great way to get a bird’s-eye view of the city and to point out all the different things happening there. It’s a great free tour, and everybody should do it if they can.
From there, we walked over to the Berlin Cathedral, which I did not think was worth €10. I’ve seen a lot of cathedrals, and maybe I’m over seeing cathedrals. It’s an impressive piece of architecture, but there was nothing in it that jumped out as anything special. I don’t know. Nothing great.
Samer and I got on the Spree River tour on the Oranje Nassau. This was great. You get on, you have a beer, it’s a recorded tour, and you just sort of float down the river, seeing a lot of the different buildings we’d already seen from land—but now from the water. One of the buildings that jumped out to me the most was the Chancellery complex. It’s kind of the polar opposite of the White House; it’s an interesting modern piece of architecture that looks more like a campus than just an old, boring mansion in the middle of a modern city.
That evening we had dinner at Restaurant Bieberbau. On all of these trips, we try to go to one pretty fancy restaurant. This was the Michelin-star restaurant we decided to go to. It was indeed excellent. What I would say is this: there were often interesting servings in between courses that were really good and relatively small. There was a blue cheese on a savory meringue that we had with champagne. There was another—it was this sort of pudding with a green, herbaceous oil on top —and the pudding was delicious. Great bread. All in all, exceptional.
However, two really odd things happened at this Michelin-starred place. One of our friends did not receive the bowl of soup he had ordered. It was really strange. We kept wondering when it would come, and then it didn’t. By the time he mentioned it, they offered to bring it, but we had kind of moved past that part of the course. So kind of a serious flub.
I had olive oil poached cod with fresh heirloom tomatoes for my main dish—just exceptional. Others ordered the pork, and it looked dry and not that interesting. This is a good restaurant, and I would recommend it, but there were a few errors that didn’t quite make sense given the restaurant’s quality. It’s the antithesis of hip. It’s styled with white tablecloths and feels quite old-fashioned. I need to check the pictures of the reviews and make sure none of them have a white tablecloth.
We were all a bit drunk from too much wine. One of the kiosks in front of our hotel was called Smash. We foolishly grabbed a bowl of fries to split before we went home for the night. They were fine and unnecessary, but it was just some salty ketchup nonsense to have before we all fell asleep for the night.
Next: Germany – Day 4