Our New Year holiday is booked! After quite a bit of discussion(a few months to be exact) we have decided on Munich. I can't wait to spend a week in the crisp Bavarian city, where I shall learn to drink beer, wrap up warm, and explore the many sights that Munich has to offer. Last year I spent New Year in Berlin, so it will be my second New Year spent in Germany in a row. I have been told that the two cities are very different.
Berlin, I loved. I'm sure the constant blue skies and fresh and frosty air helped, I do love to get all wrapped up and head out into the cold. And cold it was. It averaged around minus 6 degrees each day, and I think this was warm for Berlin at that time of year.
My brother knows the city well, so he was in effect my tour guide for the week. My first request was an obvious one, but me being me, I of course wanted to visit a food market. There were quite a few to choose from, and in fact we visited quite a few over the week. Most had amazingly fresh street food, of all different nationalities. Where ever we went, there were gorgeous smelling pastries, including Borek, deliciously crisp, hot filo parcels with spinach, feta, pinenuts and warming spices - perfect remedy for frozen fingers.
Look at that exceptionally Germanic sweetie table. No sugary pinks in sight! I'm not a fan of liquorice so I didn't take my chances here.
Berlin is like a living canvas, graffiti is very much a part of the character of the city. No building is free of it, and it seemed to be embraced by those living there, more so than it is in London. Art critic Emilie Trice has called Berlin "the graffitti Mecca of the urban art world." Graffiti tours are popular. From the authority's point of view, if Graffiti brings in tourism, they will turn a blind eye - with tourism comes money, and Berlin is a city steeped in debt.
In stark contrast to the urban city scape depicted above, there were also lots of pockets of natural beauty. Sometimes you'd forget you were in the middle of Germany's capital city.
Oh, and look, we found ourselves at another food market. This one in particular was a traditional German market, the type we get a lot in England at Christmas. Beer, of course was flowing in abundance, but I am not much a beer drinker, so I stuck to the Gluwein - delicious and deadly, it's a hint stronger than our typical mulled wine!
One of the most iconic sights in Berlin is the Brandenburg Gate. We visited at dusk, and it looked quite spectacular. It was here that scenes of celebration took place when the Berlin wall came down, and the gate itself had to be repaired. 23 years on and the scenes were very different, many a tourist, street performer and the odd stag do were there, thrown in for good measure.
Next on my list was the Jewish Museum. The newest part of the museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, was haunting. It's striking architecture was designed to represent different elements of Jewish history, the zig zag building is cut through with an axial route, which leads to a dead end, the Holocaust Void, which cannot be entered.
The only void that can be accessed by visitors at the Jewish Museum is the void of Memories. Here lie ten thousand metal faces, representing not only the Jews, but all of those who lost their lives in war. You are invited to walk out into the void, stepping on the faces, listening to the sounds of the metal sheets as they clang together. I found this quite haunting, and felt uncomfortable walking on the metal faces, which I suppose was all part of the design.
One charming element of the museum was the wish tree, which you could climb up inside on the spiral stair case and hang a wish from the branches. It was lovely to stand amongst the leaves and read everyone's messages of hope. I'm a bit hazy on what I wished for, but I have a feeling it came true.
Now, look at this for a beautiful building. Hauptbahnhof is Berlin's main station - its hard to gauge the scale of this from a picture.
From here, we hopped back on the train and paid a visit to Berliner Dom, an absolutely stunning cathedral. The grounds around it were also beautiful - I can imagine in the Summer that the grass would be flooded with tourists soaking up the sun and the views, but since it was pretty freezing, we didn't hang around too long. Long enough for the afternoon to turn to dusk.
The good thing about exploring a city in the freezing cold weather is the excuse to stop in lots of cafes to warm yourself up. Here we drank coffees, teas, chai lattes, ate cake, played childish games and took silly photos. Can you work out what we were doing? I was there and I haven't a clue!
New Year itself was spent drinking very potent Gluwein and watching the fireworks from top of our block of flats where we were staying in Kreuzberg. Fireworks in Berlin go off everyday in the week leading up to New Year. Mostly set off in the street by joe public, you have to watch you don't get in the way when they're going off. More and more get set off as the week continues and by NYE afternoon, it sounds like a battlefield on the streets. From the top of our block of flats, we had a 360 degree view of Berlin, and a 360 degree firework display. I have never seen anything like it, it lasted all night. And I mean all night. In fact, fireworks continued into the next day.
So, 2013 started well. It was great being away with my brother, last time we were on holiday together was probably almost 10 years ago. Let's hope 2014 has an equally good beginning :).
