Travelog for: Herlinde

Hi there,
today I met my new Mummy. I came here with Fimbo_Fimble all the way from England. I was born in 14th century, travelling so far still makes a little bit nervous.

At our new home Katja and Squirt gave us a warm welcome.



In the afternoon we took a short walk to see our new home town.

I am living now in a district with lots of old houses.





This seems to be a nice place.

Herlinde

Today we continued exploring our new home country. We went taking a walk with a friend of Katja, Squirt, Fimbo_Fimble, Tochi and me. The whole city is surrounded by valleys and forests.





From an outlook pavilion I had a great overview across the valley of the river Wupper. This bridge is Muengsten Bridge, Germany's highest railway bridge. It is made of steel, 107 m high, overspanning the valley of the river Wupper and connecting the cities of Remscheid and Solingen.



I found something really great - a "puddle-oracle"!



I tried to ask a question to the oracle, but it was frozen. Maybe I should come back and try again when there is a real puddle.

We visited a park underneath Muengsten Bridge.



We had coffee and zwieback -a German sweet delicacy - at a kiosk. I know zwieback - it was known already in medieval times. It is a kind of bread which is baked a second time to make it more durable.



Later we had to cross the river again to get back to the car.



There were even remains of ice. Katja told me that they had snow for almost six weeks.



Herlinde

Katja often takes a walk with her brother-in-law and his dog on Sundays, so today. We went with her.

We drove to a district called Hohenhagen. In the distance you can see the city centre on its hill.



We walked over large open ranges, in the background the suburbs of the neighbour city Wuppertal are visible.





It is really cold today, about -5°, brrrrr....



Herlinde

Hey mum,

today I arrived at my new host Fabi. She was all excited when she unpacked me. She says I should say a big Thank you to you for the chocolate and the gummy bears. She loves all of them and will share with me, when she eats it.





She loves the postcard as well.

I got to know all the other Voyagers who are here. Fabi said three of them will leave us before we will go on a travel. So it won’t be that full in the bag on our travel.



I am all excited what is waiting here for me. I will let you know.

Love,
Herlinde

Mummy, I am all excited. Fabi said I will meet another dragon today. Do you believe that? But I am not sure if it is my life mission, but take a look at the pictures and let Fabi know, so she can make the life mission complete if it is okay for you.

Oh, I am so excited. Fabi said she knows a place near her house where we can see a dragon. So we had a sit in the car and drove there.

And then I saw him. The other dragon.





We were walking on his back and had a look around.





And then I came closer to his face.









Oh mummy, I was so happy. Fabi told me that he is a bridge. But isn't he cool? Watching all the people who are walking over his back?

I guess I am a little bit in love.

Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

Today we visited castle Hugenpoet. It is a hotel and a restaurant. Fabi wasn’t able to go inside, as there was a big private party, but we had a look at it from the outside. It was really cool. But have a look at the photos.





It was a nice day and I hope we will visit a lot more nice places in the future.

Love,
Herlinde

Hello again,

Today there was good weather outside and Fabi was feeling good, so we decided to go out to the Gruga park. We saw a little playhouse which is closed at the moment, due to problems with the roof.



After that, we saw a house which was built for the parents of children, who have to stay at the hospital near the Gruga park. It is a Hundertwasser house. The parents are able to sleep there, when their children are in the university hospital of Essen. That is really nice, isn’t it?



Love,
Herlinde

Hello,

The next days will be separated in different updates. I mean, even if we visited 2 places on one day, we will make it to 2 updates, as it were two different places in this town. Both have an own history and being in one entry would mean that it would be so long. Fabi said we will separate it and we hope it is okay for you.

Today our holidays in Berlin started. It was a short flight from Düsseldorf to Berlin and that is the reason why there are no photos of it. When we arrived in Berlin, we went to the hotel and right after that we started with sight seeing.

Our first stop was Checkpoint Charlie. It is called like this, as they counted the Checkpoints with the alphabet. There was a Checkpoint Alpha, Checkpoint Beta and Checkpoint Charlie was the third Checkpoint. It is the most famous Checkpoint in Berlin.

Here a quote from wikipedia:

Quote:

Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.

For more infos, visit the wikipedia

And now I will show you my photos of Checkpoint Charlie. Hope you like them.









Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

before we visited the next stop of our tour, we saw this traffic light which I want to show you!



Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

after visiting the Checkpoint Charlie, we went to the Brandenburg Gate. It was already getting dark, so this was our last stop for today.

The Brandenburg Gate was a city gate long time ago. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which Berlin was once entered.



I think it looks really great. What do you think?

Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

today we met some famous persons. I was so excited. Fabi said we will go to Madame Tussauds and that there are a lot famous persons. We weren’t able to make much photos, as it was so crowded there, but we made two group pictures.

Here we go.

First we met Anne Frank. Her diary of the Second World War was published. Every child here in Germany reads it in school, normally. Did you read the book?



Later Fabi said she will be a politician now. We were all excited and asked to join her. So she allowed us and we did. We had a speech with Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany.





We met other famous German politicians as well. Like Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder. Have a look at the pictures.





It was really great there. I really wish I could have seen more.

Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

when we left Madame Tussauds we had a walk on the street in front of it. The street is called Unter den Linden. It is a boulevard and really nice. In the middle of the street is a centre strip with trees, little shops, places to sit and such. It is really cute. But we didn’t make photos of that. We walked a while until we arrived at interesting places.

First we found a statue of Frederick the Great.



Wikipedia tells us about Frederick:

Quote:

Frederick William (German: Friedrich Wilhelm) (16 February 1620 – 29 April 1688) was the Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Prussia ("Brandenburg-Prussia") from 1640 until his death. He was of the House of Hohenzollern and is popularly known as the Great Elector (Der Große Kurfürst) because of his military and political skill.

Then we saw the historical Museum of Berlin.



It is a great building, isn’t it? They started to build this house in 1695. So it is really old. It is the oldest building on “Unter den Linden”. When it was ready in 1730 it was used from the Prussian military for their armoury. In 1831 they opened it for the public and showed a collection of weapons in it. In 1952 until 1990 it was the Museum for German history. And in 1990 it became the Historical Museum of Berlin until now.

So much to know about these buildings, right?

The next photo is from the Berlin cathedral. The Berlin Cathedral had never been a cathedral in the actual sense of that term since it has never been the seat of a bishop.

Right from it you can see the “Alex”. The television tower of Berlin.



That was a long walk and a long day was over then. We were all tired when we came back to the hotel. So we slept really fast.

Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

Today we visited a lot places, so a lot updates will follow. First we went to the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens), but we didn’t make photos there, as they don’t like it a lot. Right next to the KaDeWe we found a fountain. It is called “Lebensalter” (age). It was made by 4 artists.



As you can see on the picture, the weather was really beautiful on that day. So we decided to make a big photo tour through Berlin. Visit all the places that Fabi still wanted to see in Berlin. But to be true: We didn’t even visit half of the list, as it was way too much for one day. But Fabi decided she will come back.

That was the first update for this day, more will follow.

Love,
Herlinde

Hey,

Our next stop on that day was at the Museum of Technology. But not to visit it. We were there to see the Raisin Bomber which is hanging at the entrance. Fabi wanted to see it and we wanted to make photos with it.

A Raisin Bomber was an airplane that brought food and other stuff to the western part of Berlin during the Berlin Blockade 1949. The name of the airplane came from the fact, that the pilots throw out candy, raisins and other sweet things of the airplane on little parachutes so that the children who were waiting for the airplane had some fun. In America these airplanes got the name Candy Bombers.

And here are the pictures:





On the second picture you can see a part of the Landwehrkanal.

Love,
Herlinde

Heyho,

After seeing the Raisin Bomber in front of the Museum, we walked (yeah, really…it was a long walk, but we did it) to the Topography of Terror Documentation Center. There are still parts of the Berlin wall. Between 1933 and 1945, the central institutions of Nazi persecution and terror were located on the grounds of the present-day “Topography of Terror”. Since 1987 the Topography of Terror has informed the public about this historic site. The new Documentation Center with parts of the Berlin wall and the redesigned historic grounds are now opened since May 2010. So it was really new. It is the longest standing part of the Berlin wall in Berlin itself.



Right next to it, we found old cars (called Trabis). We made a photo with one of it. It says “Volkspolizei” which was the police in the DDR (Deutsch Demokratische Republik – German Democratic Republic). So you see how small the cars for the police was there. Funny, or?



Love,
Herlinde