Just a month had elapsed since our wonderful trip up the Rhine to Switzerland and now we were all set to cruise another major European river, the Elbe. Unfortunately, however, just a few days before our departure we got the news that water levels on the Elbe had fallen so low that cruising that waterway would not be possible. However Viking Cruises had two ships on the river - one to the North and one to the South - and they proposed that we spend two or three nights on each of them, using their coaches to visit all the places that were on the itinerary. As an alternative option: this seemed quite acceptable to us, especially as Viking offered us a compensatory discount, and so we flew out to Berlin in accord with our original schedule.
We had a good flight to Berlin, but their border control system seemed designed to make life as difficult as possible for us UK residents. After scanning our passports electronically, posing for the image recognition machine, and presenting our fingerprints, we were finally given permission to join the queue to have our passports inspected and stamped manually - a queue which was at least 90 minutes long! We were extremely grateful that the Viking representatives waited to take us to the hotel. Our hotel was excellent, and although it had minimal dining facilities it was located near to some excellent restaurants.
The next day we had a sightseeing tour of Berlin. Much of the city's architecture (especially in the eastern half) was rebuilt after the war in a Brutalist concrete Russian style which we found rather uninteresting, but there were a great many other sights to see and we soon wished that we could spend a few more days in the city so that we could explore it properly. The main focus of much of the tour was the Berlin Wall, which from 1961 to 1989 existed to prevent East Germans from fleeing to the West.
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The original route of the Berlin Wall, wherever it no longer exists, is commemorated by bricks embedded into the paths and roadways |
The infamous 'Checkpoint Charlie' which was the primary American-controlled crossing-point across the wall from East to West |
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A section of the Wall in its original form (as seen from the coach when we passed it) |
Many of the remaining sections of the Wall have been covered in beautifully poignant, thought-provoking graffiti |
This doorway gave access to a riverside community who, it was reckoned, would not try to swim across the river to escape |
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Returning to the hotel after our city tour, we had a delicious lunch of traditional 'Berliner' sausage before spending a lovely afternoon strolling around the city nearby. Being in the Western part of the city, some of the restoration works were beautiful, and we were particularly impressed by the beauty of a nearby church which had been restored after being almost entirely demolished during the War.
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The ruined exterior of this church ... |
... hid the most incredible restoration work on its interior ... |
... with a fantastic pipe-organ ... |
... and incredible artwork on the walls and ceilings |
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We had an early start the next morning as we had to pack for our departure from Berlin. The coach that collected took us first to the infamous 'Bridge of Spies' (of course, we just had to walk across it) and then onwards to Potsdam and the Sanssouci Palace. Built by Frederick the Great to rival the Palace of Versailles, the Sanssouci is stunningly beautiful both inside and out, with a beautiful outlook across its own vineyards to the distant countryside.
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We walked across the famous 'Bridge of Spies' |
The elegant exterior of the Sanssouci Palace |
A beautiful gazebo beside the Palace |
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Every single room inside the Palace is absolutely breathtaking, as well as containing the most amazing decorations and artwork. I have only included here a few of the hundred or more photos that I took, to give you just a small taste of how wonderful it is..
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Inside the Palace are beautiful corridors ... |
... decorated with fabulous artwork ... |
... joining wonderfully decorated rooms ... |
... containing many priceless antiques |
Leaving Sansouci Palace, and after a relaxing outdoor lunch of locally made waffles in the pretty little town of Potsdam, we headed to Wittenburg where we joined our first ship, the Viking Astrild which was to be our floating, but stationary, hotel for 2 nights. It seemed strange being on board a ship but not cruising, and we could sense that some of the crew were rather frustrated by this fact - but despite this I must say that everything about the ship was absolutely excellent, from the arrangement of the cabin to the standard of service, including especially the quality of the food and the helpfulness of the crew,
Strictly speaking the town of Wittenberg, is now officially known as Lutherstadt-Wittenburg to honour its connection with Martin Luther, leader of the 16th Century Protestant Reformation. We learned a great deal more about the Reformation during the next day's walking tour of Wittenberg; our guide was absolutely excellent, being extremely knowledgeable yet also able to convey the information in a fascinating way that was also easy to understand. I was particularly interested in his explanation of why the Reformation took place - leading of course to the birth of Protestantism. Essentially the movement was a backlash against a growing practice within the Catholic Church of selling the forgiveness of sins for cash so that by paying the Church for a 'Papal Indulgence' as it was called, people could commit as many sins as they wished and yet still go to Heaven. Martin Luther re-wrote the rules to say that only religious belief could secure someone a place in Heaven; and his Protestant religion became so popular that they soon opened their own church just a short distance away from the original Castle church. Apart from basic Bible beliefs, one other feature that the two religions seemed to share was their hatred of the Jewish faith; they spread the wicked rumour, for example, that the reason Jews do not eat pork is that they keep pigs in order to perform sexual acts with them (and they even illustrated this with a sculpted scene on a corner of the church!) Oh yes, it was a most educational walk around the town!
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The Castle has a beautiful church ... |
... with a highly impressive interior .... |
... and wonderful stained glass |
Scene on the wall of the Protestant church |
Finally we returned to our ship, the Viking Astrild, for a lazy afternoon on deck in glorious sunshine before another excellent dinner followed by our second night on board. This would also be our last night on board, for the next day we would swap places with the passengers on Viking's other ship, the Beyla, which was moored at Dresden. The swapping process was very easy: we just left our cases packed when we joined the coach for the day's excursion, and then that afternoon the coach simply took us to the other ship where our cases were waiting for us in the equivalent cabin.
And so we proceeded by coach through beautiful countryside to Meissen and Dresden ...
All pictures on this site are © Allan Jones unless otherwise stated.
