Berlin – My even older Holiday Weblog

Day 7

After breakfast on Sunday, we were on our way.

Stephen and I had to fight over who would drive first but I pulled rank and said it was my car, so he could get lost. I hadn’t driven in Berlin yet and wanted to do so. The weather was still fine and the drive out was ok. We only had one hold-up, but saw a second incident.

It wasn’t clear what the original incident had been but one silly old duffer had run his car into something in front of us (we think that it was the central reservation, as no other car had stopped). Well, he just got out of his car and walked away (in search of a telephone I expect) and left the car there, in the fast lane – with his wife still sitting in it! Silly old sod. A little later on we saw a rescue helicopter in a field with all the services around it. Something must have happened earlier and was in the process of clearing up as we saw them lifting a stretcher into the chopper.

The first sign we saw that there had once been a split in the country was when we passed an old customs post which had once blocked the autobahn. I’m surprised that they hadn’t demolished it.

I had phoned France before we left the hotel in Berlin and had booked a room in the same Formula 1 we had stayed in on our first night. At least I think I had. The lady on the phone spoke no English and my French is poor to say the least. However, we struggled through. I wasn’t sure whether I had agreed to pay by Visa, if we didn’t turn up on time (which was the idea) or whether she just held the room until 19:00pm, which was company policy. However, when we got there after 20:00pm, we had a room and she had me on her list. We could have been there earlier, but for the French.

We had filled up in Germany, when we had only 1 – 2 gallons left. We could possibly have made the next petrol station but it wasn’t worth the risk. I estimated that we might JUST have enough to get us to the Shuttle (and therefore fill up in England, where petrol is cheaper). However, we were about 10 miles short of the hotel and maybe 30 miles short of the tunnel when I thought that perhaps we had only 1 – 2 gallons left in the tank again. We had done around 400 miles by this time too, so we thought it best that we fill up. We were a shade inside Boring Belgium and we had no cash, so I had to use my Visa and would therefore need to put at least half a tank in, to make it worthwhile. But that in itself wasn’t a problem. The problem was that we had to come off the motorway and drive into the nearest town. The French were just leaving this town in their millions, having just spent Sunday on the beach, in the hot sun. It took us almost two hours to get to the hotel, just ten miles away. Mind, that also include half an hour trying to find the hotel again. When we did find it, we realised that it was next to a massive hypermarket, something we had missed when we visited last week.

We ate that night in the barbecue place next door. A basic choice of food, all chargrilled, with chips and salad – the usual French fayre. It wasn’t too bad but we were spanked again for price. I actually complained in French again, that the bill included too many beers and the waiter understood, agreed and altered the bill. I’m getting good.

Day 8

In the morning, we took a look around the Carrefour Hypermarket and stocked up on beer and wine. I couldn’t find my favourite coffee, so had to do without. We then called at the Cité de Europe, the new Meadowhall type of place by the side of the Shuttle terminal. Here we found a small looking, but in fact quite large Tesco dedicated to beers, wines and spirits, nothing else. The prices were good too. It’s the only place in France that offers a full range of New World wines. We were able to buy Nottage Hill and Rosemount Aussie wines at about 25% less than at home in the UK. Lovely.

We then set off up the road toward England. We arrived at the Shuttle terminal and were told that the next train was boarding “now” and that we could get on it if we wished. We asked what time the next one would be and were told “half an hour” – so we selected that one as it gave us just enough time to go around the duty-free shop. So, we did this, then drove to the loading area. We were now told that there would be a delay of 20 minutes and that they would in fact begin loading at 13:30pm.

This was actually even better. It was almost 13:00 and we now had time to eat our lunch, purchased in the hypermarket, in the sunshine. So we set out the car’s picnic rug, disembowelled the car of all food (in bags, and cool boxes), knives and forks, cruet and drinks. We were sat there having a merry old time. The Spanish women sat on the bench next to us fair laughed when I went back for the second loaf of now droopy, baguette. The Germans behind us watched disdainfully, but we were ‘alright Jack’, the sun was out, the food was nice and we were going nowhere for half an hour. We then heard the announcement to say that boarding would commence immediately and knowing better (it was only 13:15pm), we carried on eating. Then the traffic began to move.

Well, you’ve never seen a car re-packed so quickly!

Up came the rug, with all its contents, to be dumped unceremoniously in the boot and everything else dumped in the back seat with Ben. I was still trying to finish my coke and get into the car as we drove off. I heard something drop even then, but couldn’t see what it was. As we drove towards the ramps, I noticed that the eye-piece for the video camera was missing and now knew exactly what had dropped under the car. I had Stephen reverse the car up the ramps and back the way we had come – to where we had stopped for lunch. A bit of arm waving, pointing and all known languages persuaded the troops to let me back into the waiting area where I found, the now much run-over, eye-piece. It cost me £25 to replace.

We had a little snackette on the only piece of grass available at Watford Gap service station and managed to arrive back in Mirfield about 18:00pm. Ben and I washed the car on our way back to Linthwaite and that was that.

Our adventure was over. Thank you for staying with us.

Day 5 (cont)

We eventually found a hotel right opposite the Berlin Opera House, The Hotel An Der Opera, and although it was more expensive that we’d hoped, it was the only hotel we had seen – so we took it. [24 years on, it now appears to be an Ibis Style hotel]

We settled in, licked the last of our whisky out of the bottle and set about the cheap vodka. Washed and changed, we were able to pop downstairs to one of the two Italian restaurants which share the building with the hotel. We were on Bismarkstraße which runs straight down towards the Brandenburg Gate and back towards what was West Germany.

Everything about the restaurant was strange. They employed THE most sarcastic waiters I have (had)¹ ever come across and they must have thought we dropped in there out of a banana tree. We asked if they had ‘this’ or ‘that’ in our best German² or French for one of the Italians who could not speak German. Yet, that waiter got cross because he ‘hadn’t come to Germany to speak French’, only German – and he wasn’t very good at it. AND, they only had Italian wines and got quite airy when asked if they had others (a nice German wine was what we were looking for, as we were in Germany). “What do you expect in an Italian Restaurant?” the head waiter asked and we were too polite to tell him that he and his staff had provided all the rudeness we expected – in buckets. Our main concern was to get some food inside Ben and to stop him tummy rumbling – he’d already been on the phone to his mum and told her that we were not feeding him (despite him not wanting anything to eat in Meissen). Stephen also took his time ordering, which got plenty of sarky stares and comments from the staff.

I had minestrone soup, the like of which I had never had before. It was described as a vegetable soup and that is what it was, nice but not exactly what I expected. Stephen had questioned one of the starters and been told “yes, the mozzarella is fried and garnished” – he ordered that. I asked him, innocently, when he was half way through, how the cheese was fried (as it didn’t look fried) and he said he didn’t know. So, he asked the head waiter who said “it isn’t, he forgot to fry it” and whisked the half-eaten plate away. They had already forgotten to leave us any bread, had presented the wrong cutlery and so – for them (and us) it wasn’t a good night. At an arm and a leg, it was too expensive for an Italian. We didn’t go there again and we didn’t leave a tip.

That night we were SO hot, we must have lost gallons of sweat. The weather was really heavy, hot and sultry. Stephen said it was like this in Bangkok, but three times worse. We could have rung our pillows out in the morning. But then, there was a short thunderstorm, a little rain and the heaviness passed for a while. Not for long though.

Day 6 (full day)

Breakfast here was wonderful. Lots of different breads (although a little restricted on the Sunday because the bakeries were closed) and lots of different meats; the selection changed each morning, with various cheeses, jams and juices plus tea or coffee – lovely. However, still not much luck with boiled eggs on this trip; overcooked the first day and re-heated the second.

We went and bought one of the dearer subway tickets and travelled back to Unter Den Linden before walking back through the Brandenburg Gate. The tickets are split-price, the cheaper one being for pre-1989 residents. We explored the immediate area. There is absolutely no sign that there was ever a wall, which we thought was quite remarkable. We walked then for the rest of the day, through the Tiergarten, over to the Soviet Memorial, back though the park, down and round by the Zoologischer Garten and on to the main ‘West’ Berlin thoroughfare, Kurfürstendamm and Kantstraße. We found lots of hotels, bars and people! Bands were playing, singers singing, and dancers dancing – the whole place was a hive of activity, and – you couldn’t walk two minutes without tripping over hotels and guest houses!

There was an English language version of the Berlin tourist guide in the foyer of the hotel and the front-page article was headed ‘Berlin beer! Swell or Swill?’. We can confirm that it is swill. Quite the most disgusting beer we have ever tasted. They have to put a wedge of lemon in it just to make the head stay a while. This is not true of Czech beer or any other German beers we had tasted hitherto. We learned to avoid the Berlin types. Today it was my turn to carry the full rucksack. It had thundered in the morning and showed signs of rain, so we had to be prepared. As it turned out, it just got hot again.

We went home to change and then went out just wandering aimlessly, looking for food that we fancied. We walked down the same area we had been in that afternoon and eventually found an acceptable, small restaurant down a side street. I had Berlin Potato Soup, which was very nice and then some pot-roast pork (I think) – with sauerkraut and potato dumplings. Ben had a thick, almost raw steak, which he devoured with some gusto. I cannot recall what Stephen had.

That morning, as we made our way to the Metro station we came across a market just behind the hotel. It was only one stall deep and surrounded the church there. The produce of sale was superb, with every conceivable type of lettuce, mushroom, tomatoes etc. Many better than we’ve seen on the markets in Provence. A good day altogether.

And that was Saturday (22nd July 1995).

1 – I cannot tolerate bad or supercilious service. I don’t put up with it anymore. They are ‘told’ or I leave.

2 – Ben had just finished his ‘A’ level German, Stephen had worked in Germany for a while and I had passed my Institute of Linguists preliminary German exam a few years prior to departure. We all spoke v. basic French too: Ben had ‘GCSE’ level and both Stephen and I have superb ‘kitchen’ French.