Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Wittenberg, Berlin and Poland - Part 1 of 3

I'm finally caught up with the old posts, so now I can post about our most recent trip. The Mister came back from his two month business trip on a Sunday, and on Tuesday - we were off on our own trip to Berlin! I bought a LivingSocial deal (you all know my love affair with travel deals) for a Berlin hotel, and it was going to expire on Dec. 31st. So, we had to hurry up and go! We did this trip the week before Christmas - we knew it wasn't going to be *perfect* weather, but that's never stopped us before.

The LivingSocial deal included three nights at Hotel Gat Point Charlie, a welcome bottle of wine & plate of fruit, free breakfast every morning, and a free drink at their bar. It also included 15% off bicycle rentals, but...who are we kidding, like we're going to use those, in winter, in a big city. Especially not after the Great Vagina Torture in Salzburg. The whole package cost us $400. A little pricy for us, but the hotel was in a GREAT location (just off Friedrichstrasse, a block or so away from Checkpoint Charlie), and it has 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor. Worth it.

We chose to drive to Berlin - a lot of people will fly or take the train. I prefer road trips, at least when we're staying in or near Germany. For one thing - we get American gas prices when driving thru Germany. Also, I grew up doing road trips. I know how to do them right. We bring a case of water (the big bottles - we don't waste room on little bottles), a box of wine or bottle of liquor (WAY cheaper than going out for drinks), an ice chest full of food, and a bag full of games. Not to mention a roll or two of toilet paper, just in case. Josh is terrified of getting his feet wet, so he always brings eleventy pairs of shoes. This time we didn't bring the ice chest - we were both in the mood for pb&js, so we didn't bother with bringing it (normally we load it up with meat & cheese).

Zeus help us when we have kids...we're going to have to buy one of those Chester Molester vans to pack it all in.

Anywho, we packed the car, and headed out at the buttcrack of dawn (5:20am for those of you who don't know the temporal equivalency of "buttcrack"). Our plan was to leave at 5am, but I think we did pretty damn good by leaving at 5:20.

The trip from our house to Berlin takes 6.5 hours, according to Google Maps. We almost never make the Google-estimated time. I have the bladder the size of a walnut. We also decided to make a stop in Wittenberg, Germany. Wittenberg was the home of Martin Luther, and where he nailed his 95 theses to the church door.

Yes, I know, we're not religious. But, we're history buffs, so we still wanted to see the place.

Wittenberg is only about an hour and a half from Berlin, so we had quite a drive to get there. It went by really quickly, though, and we didn't run into ANY traffic (which is practically unheard of in Germany). We only stopped twice on the way. For those of you Americans who live over here - there is an Esso station in Gotha, Germany. It's pretty much at the halfway point between Ramstein & Berlin. (We have to use Esso stations to get our American prices on gas.)

We made it to Wittenberg before noon. And, we were hungry! It was cold outside, and a little snowy, so we had a car picnic.

Finding parking wasn't the easiest thing in the world We parked in a really tiny lot, but I don't think it's the one that was listed in Rick Steves' book. So, if you go, make sure you do a little parking research. But, the lot we parked in was still really near Martin Luther's house.

So, Martin Luther...he started out as a law student, had a near death experience, then chose to become a monk. After he became a monk, he decided that the Catholic church was too corrupt, so he left. He married a former nun & they lived in what USED to be the Augustinian friary.

SO - the house that we went to was his house, which was also where he became a monk.

The Luther House was actually done up *very* nicely. The beginning section was converted into a museum, then you could go thru his house as it looked when he lived there (at least the main living quarters). There was also an official library, a display of Lutheran artwork, and you could go outside and see the former cellar & moat walls.

I know we had to pay to get in, but I can't remember how much exactly - it was something nominal like €4 each (give or take). Now, I was in the restroom (naturally) when Josh bought the tickets. So, I didn't notice the big sign behind the register that said, "No Photos". Well, Josh didn't see it, either. There was also NO ONE else in the museum that we saw (other than the people working the register - and a group of tourists that came in when we were leaving), so no one was there to tell us to cut it out.

So, you are about to see illicit photos of the inside of the Martin Luther home. Get excited.

One of the many many many many books on display.

Martin Luther's pulpit

We did get to see Luther's original robes, which was pretty cool.
Woohoo.

The Luther family and all of his scholarly friends used to hang out in one main room of the house. This main room looks the same today as it did then, including the original stove & a signature of Peter the Great on the wall. (well, Peter the Great came much later, obvs)



At this point, we're starting to get a little bored with the place. I would have been happy with one large Luther Room, instead of a whole house-full. But, we marched on.

The library was awesome, I must admit.


Some of the statues were pretty fun, too.

But really, we just got tired of it. We went thru every room (that was open to the public, anyway), and every exhibit. Outside, you can go thru the original cellar where they have displays of what life was like back then.

Honestly, the cellar gave me the creeps. The exhibits were nicely done down there, but it was the type of place where I didn't want to turn around because I was for sure going to see a ghost staring at me. I even made Josh go into the different rooms before me. Normally I can handle the heebie-jeebies, but here - I just wanted out.

As we were leaving the Luther house, we noticed the "no photo" sign. Oops.

Even though we were almost Luther'd out, we still wanted to see the Luther Oak & the Church where he nailed his theses.

The Luther Oak is where he burned his 'papal bull'. However, we didn't really want to stop just to take a picture of the tree, so we went around the traffic circle a few times until I got a good-enough photo.


As I was trying to find a link to attach to 'The Luther Oak' on the last paragraph, I read something that makes me feel like a mo-ran. Apparently the Oak isn't original. It was cut down in 1813, and replanted in 1830. And, now it's dying.

:|

Anywho...we still had to go see the church. You could totally walk to the church from his house, but we were running out of time & just wanted to get to Berlin - so we drove & parked at the Welcome Center by the church.

The Castle Church in Wittenberg is where Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door - basically pooping on the Catholic church & starting Protestantism in the process.

The door is, of course, not original. It burned down during the Seven Years War, and was replaced with a bronze replica in the 19th century. There is controversy over whether or not Luther actually nailed anything to the door, though.

But, truth or not, it's still an impressive church.




It really is a cute town, too.

Rick Steves laid out a nice walking tour of the town in his book. It would have been nice to do, but like I said earlier - we were just running out of time & wanted to get to Berlin. It was starting to get dark at this point, too.

So - would we recommend Wittenberg? Sure! But, with a warning:

Josh and I are non-Christian history buffs. The town was cute, the museum was too much & got a little boring. But, for €4, you can be bored for an hour.
If you are Christian - you will get a lot more out of it than we did. If you are Protestant, you will probably *really* like coming here. If you are a devout Lutheran...well, I can only imagine you may pee yourself a little at seeing these sites. And I say that with all due respect, seriously.

I do have a slight warning for some of you who may choose to visit Wittenberg. One thing I did NOT know about Martin Luther until this trip....he was an extreme Anti-Semite, and wrote horribly nasty things about Jewish people. The Nazis loved to quote Luther's works.

Even though he wrote his works hundreds of years ago, this newly learned fact still really bothers me. :/ Make of it what you will, though.

We left around 4pm or so, and it was foggy & getting dark. The drive wasn't the most fun, but we only had an hour and a half til Berlin. No traffic until we get to the very edge of the city. Ugh, it took forever to get to our hotel - which was on the opposite side of Berlin from where we were. Then, it started to drizzle. And, it was completely dark by this point.

Berlin isn't a fun place to drive. Well, it's not fun when you first arrive, in the dark & in the rain. Josh gets SUPER stressed out when driving in a new city. And then I turn into an awful backseat driver. Then we yell.

But, it's short lived. We made it to the hotel without hitting anyone or anything. And, without killing each other.

The hotel was..."trendy" for lack of a better word. Or maybe "hip". Typing that just made me feel about 75 years old. But it was really nice. Our LivingSocial deal gave us a "superior" room instead of a standard one. The room was small, and I think the only thing that made it "superior" was the fact that it had a view of the street, and not the inner courtyard.



We rested for a little while, and drank some wine the hotel gave us. Then - it was off to explore! Berlin loves Christmas markets. I love Christmas markets. There was a Christmas market 900m from our hotel. My love affair with Berlin was starting off strong.

The Christmas market near our hotel was the Gendermenmarkt Christmas Market. This is the only Christmas market I have ever had to pay to get into - but at €1 per person, who the heck cares? The entire market was located in the Gendermenmarkt square, so it got pretty packed in there after awhile. But, it was gorgeous. I just love Christmas markets - the smells, the decorations, the glühwein, the food. It's all awesome.





We walked around for a little while, then decided to eat somewhere in the market. This is the only Christmas market I've been to where they set up actual temporary restaurants - complete with walls, tables, chairs, waiters, kitchens, etc. Normally, it's just food stands. There was an Italian restaurant that I really wanted to eat at, so we sat down inside. But, really, the prices were kind of expensive. We decided to just get pizzas - but they were HUGE. I didn't want to have to carry around a bunch of leftovers while we were still in the market - and there was no fridge in the hotel (another reason we normally bring an ice chest when we go on vacation). SOOOO, we just got up & grabbed a slice of pizza from their to-go counter, instead of sitting in their restaurant. It was €4 for a HUGE slice (like, a quarter of the pizza) and it was sooooooo goooooooood. We stood in the crowd & people watched while we shoveled it in. Mine was just a plain cheese & tomato pizza with a little fresh basil...but there was just something about standing outside in the cold, at night, in a Christmas market that made it taste like the world's best pizza.

And then, of course - GLÜHWEIN!!! We HAD to get some glühwein - hot, mulled wine. Christmas markets also all have their own 'glass', typically listing the location & the year, so you could definitely become a collector. I did keep my mug (of course it wasn't til we got back to the hotel that I noticed the mug said, "Gendarmenmarkt 2010" on it...I later fixed it with a sharpie). Glühwein is so awesome to drink outside in the cold.

But, after a glass or two, we were ready to go back to the hotel. We were just soooo exhausted. It had been a long day, and it was time for a good night's sleep. We walked back thru the deserted streets of Berlin (we always felt safe, btw), and back to our hotel.



It was a good day.

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