Berlin

What a magnificent city! From the ruins and rubble of WW2 and the East/West division of the "Cold War", Berlin has evolved into a vibrant, green, dynamic city full of history, culture and life.

Our overnight flight from Hong Kong went quite smoothly and again we were thankful for the upgraded seats. Frankfurt is a large, sprawling business centre and a transport hub. After some initial difficulties with the sat nav, we eventually found our way out into the country areas and headed for Eisenach, an old medieval town where Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin, supposedly in the Wartburg Castle.

Unfortunately time was against us. It was our first day and it took a little longer than I had exepected to orient ourselves and come to terms with navigating in a foreign language so we didn't see as much as we would have liked....but enough to be impressed!


We stayed the night in a lodge, which, to be frank was not quite what was portrayed on line but turned put to be quite OK with very helpful owners and a beautiful location. The owner brews his own beer and has his own "bier" garten" which seems to be very well patronised.
The next day we happened upon a really interesting museum of the area which gave an insight into The Degenhardts. As it turns out, they were miners in Germany and came to Australia in the gold rush times.
Our stay in Altenau was brief but really interesting and reinforced for us that having a theme can take you to areas that tourists rarely visit.









We visited the main icons including Check Point Charlie and the remnants of the wall and something I wasn't expecting.......a Christmas shop!



The next day we headed out to Potsdam which was an important city for the Prussians. Frederick the Great had his summer palace here.....the equivalent of our Wooli house....only a bit bigger!

It is called the Schloss Sanssouci and the size of the place is staggering, and the gardens, fountains and woodlands are just amazing. We couldn't imagine how much work goes into maintaining such a huge estate in pristine order. Very tidy!



On Sunday we headed out to Tangermunde to follow the Pieper side of the family that also come out in the 1840s. It is about two hours away through beautiful open country, forests, lanes, tiny villages and hamlets.
We were amazed at just how much the Germans are into renewable energy. Solar panels on many houses and buildings, huge arrays of solar panels in paddocks near villages and these incredible wind farms were so common we didn't notice them after a while. In some parts, the horizon was just covered in windmills! It seems to us we could learn a fair bit from the Germans.

When we finally arrived we were amazed at what we saw. A truly medieval, walled town complete with castle, churches and higgeldy, piggeldy streets lined with tiny houses all from the 1600s when it was rebuilt after a fire. (They burnt the culprit at the stake...but I'm not sure what sort of trial she got!)

We found the church, St Stephens ( not hard given it is one of the largest buildings in the town) that the Piepers and Salaus were members of. It was very impressive and represented the wealth of the town in the 15th Century. The family had responsibility for maintaining the huge church organ.


This picture is of the gate in the wall you go through to get in to the town and the one below is of Wendy checking out one of the old houses. The one she is looking at dates from 1619 as you can see on the quite exotic carvings.
The town is really well preserved as it wasn't affected very much by the war and is still a thriving community today.

We even followed up a lead from Wendy's cousin, Ian, regarding Pieper relatives still living in the town. We were only one cobbled street away so we decided to knock on their door and were't they surprised to see us, all the way from Australia.....unannounced!
Wolfgang and his wife brought us in to their home and then got their children and grandchild to come and translate. They showed us an impressive family tree and some very old photo albums. There seems to be quite a few of these Piepers!




Anyway, we are off to Edinburgh today after a very interesting visit to Germany. Our "genealogical" theme to date has certainly taken us off the beaten track with surprisingly welcome experiences.