Thursday, March 01, 2007

Berlin: Where's The Wall?

I was surprised to see how little of the Berlin Wall is still standing in it's original position. There are a few sections with historical info at Potsdamer Platz (Please note Devil-TBF popping out of my shoulder trying to convince me to buy tickets for Blue Man Group!), there's one fairly long section that we saw on Sunday from the hop-on-hop-off tour bus, and then there is the random wall section here and there (i.e. entryways to department stores, etc.) on display throughout the city. Often, there is just a little path of brick pavers embedded in the street that shows where The Wall used to be.

I can understand that one can't stop the march of progress, and that a big wall zigzagging through the center of a city of a few million people might cause a few traffic snarls, but...couldn't the Berlin planners have constructed a Wall memorial with a little more visual impact? I mean...come on!

Here's some visual impact for you...

As we were walking back toward Pariser Platz, we noticed this big area of gray slabs of concrete. We had no idea what it was (since we hadn't done any research before this trip), and we couldn't find a sign anywhere. We found out later that it is the rather controversial, impressive, and haunting Berlin Holocaust Memorial. Here's more info...

We saw The Memorial on a clear and sunny afternoon. I can only imagine the impact when viewing it under a rainy, gray sky.

2 comments:

CanadianSwiss said...

Must be a strange feeling to walk through the stone slabs. Gives me the shudders, somehow.

The Sour Kraut said...

Holocaust Schmaulocaust...I want to talk about something important...Mrs. TBFs fashionable look.

You look so great in your beret that I'm going to suggest you crop the first picture in close and use it for your new blogger photo.

LOVE IT!!!