Travel Like a Local

Category: Europe

  • Berlin Dark History

    Before visiting Berlin I accidentally came across a number of documentaries that ended up defining the aim of my visit. Starting with “the Life of Others“, I continued with more material on the infamous Stasi and the Nazis until I came to a very simple conclusion. Something obvious I never noticed: for nearly 60 years in a row Berlin has been the epicentre of the most ruthless dictatorships of Europe’s modern history. Left, Right, Black and Red, the flags changed and so did the methods, but not the level of oppression people in Berlin have been victim of.

    Stasi stays for Ministerium für Staatsicherheit, the Ministry for State Security (in most of English leaflets it will be mentioned as MfS), and was the “Sword and Shield of the Party”. The party being the SED, the socialist party that coordinated directly from Moscow. An incredible efficient and oppressive secret police that terrorised the whole East Germany – and probably more than that – for about 40 years, going from physical torture to a perfected system of psychological, way more subtle and damaging, torture. Their infrastructure was massive: they employed more full time agents than the Nazis have ever had and, most importantly, a widespread network of informant. It is said that one every 6 citizens were secret informers. Try to apply this statistic to your coworkers, friends, family, and you will understand the gravity of the situation.

    I was particularly interested in knowing more about the Stasi, this is where I mainly focused my research, and this is what I want to talk about. It scares me that, while the Nazis belong to my grandfather’s youth and have been thoroughly covered to make sure that nothing like that will – hopefully- never happen again, the Stasi belongs to my lifetime, I clearly remember when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but little is known and said about them. And consequently, are those agents still around? Are they still in positions of power?

    I don’t mean to give any history lesson, or write a document of any scientific relevance, but I want to raise the attention of this bit of history that is being slowly and quietly wiped under the carpet, and helping you find the most interest spots and museums in Berlin where you can get to know more.

    If you want to know more here is some material you might be interested to:

    The Lives of Others (The movie I mentioned before)

    Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall(Brilliant book by Anna Funder) (Kindle edition)

    The File (A book of a man who’s lived in Berlin in 1978 for research purposes, and went back 15 years later to find his own Stasi file)

    Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police (Book by John Koehler who had his hands deep in the secret information jar)

    The picture in this article has been taken from the beautiful photogallery on the Denver Post.

  • A few things to know before going to Iceland

    Weather in Iceland and What to Wear

    Obviously the main concern is “how will the weather be”? All we can say is: be prepared and flexible. Generally in summer temperatures don’t go above 15°C but can also drop and fluctuate very quickly. I spent most of the time in t-shirt and hiking gilet (like this, very useful!) but I also had to wear my winter jacket at times and Martina made good use of her Icelandic woollen sweater.
    Layers are fundamental to quickly adapt to the temperature variations and, considering the amount of rain, an external waterproof layer and waterproof shoes (or at the very least water resistant) are mandatory.
    There is a say that goes “if you don’t like the weather in Iceland wait 5 minutes” which, according to our experience, is true only if you don’t like the sun. However when it comes out can be quite strong so a sun cream is advised, especially if you too come from a sun-deprived country.
    Check the official weather website for precipitation and wind conditions.

    Prices: is Iceland so Expensive?

    Nevermind the obnoxious food, the wild animals the hair-rising roads and the extreme weather, the aspect that scares most people of Iceland is its prices. But is Iceland really so expensive?
    Sadly the answer is yes. Car rental and accommodation nearly bled us dry. Eating out is expensive but still less than drinking out. Supermarkets such as Bonus or Nettò have similar prices to the UK even if such products as meat, fish and diary, are incredibly expensive. A pack of 8 slices of cheese (£2.5 at Sainsburys) comes for £7.
    Only the gas price was acceptable (About 251 ISK which is close to £1.30) and so for the tickets for most attractions and pools which normally for £3-4.

    Currency and Credit Cards

    The currency here is the Icelandic Krona (pl. Kronur) which, at the time of writing, is roughly 200ISK for £1. Card payments here are widely accepted, in some remote gas stations it is the only way to pay for fuel, so you’d better have one handy.
    Remember that if you spend 4.000ISK or more in a “tax free” shop you can get tax back!

    Food: the Icelandic Cuisine

    The local cuisine has always an important role travels, both for the curiosity of tasting something different and for getting close to such a relevant aspect of the local culture.
    In Iceland we found it to be nearly non-existent. Most of restaurants are limited to a choice of pizza and hamburgers, and there is virtually no trace of the fish and seafood that they seem to be relentlessly fishing. This is why we are so glad we brought our food from home, even if we managed to find a couple of nice restaurants.
    And yes, we tried the hakarl, the rotten shark… and I liked it (even if Martina doesn’t quite agree).

    Booze in Iceland

    Maybe because I live in England but I was shocked by how expensive booze is and how scarcely available. You can’t even find it at the supermarket (no, those beer cans are alcohol-free).
    What do they do during those dark winter days? Or during those long sleepless summer nights? I don’t have an answer to this but for buying beers the best option is Vínbúðin, state-run stores that can usually be found in main shopping centres. The prices are OK, and you get the chance to try some local brew.
    Remember that there is a duty-free shop both in the arrivals and departures at the airport, where booze costs half price or less.

    Pools: not just Blue Lagoon

    We didn’t go to the blue lagoon, we just didn’t want to part with €35 per person for a luxury tourism attraction.

    Geothermal heated pools are found everywhere in the country and serve pretty much the purpose of the pubs in the UK: people go there to relax, chat and socialize. The only difference, and downside, is that they don’t get drunk.

    Almost every decent sized town has its pools and the entrance is usually between 400-600ISK. If you want something that looks like the blue lagoon there is a valid alternative near Mývatn.
    It’s important to always thoroughly shower, without costume, before entering the pools.

  • Iceland on the Road: Our Travel Tips

    Roads

    roads

    Gravel road to Dettifoss

    I’ve read so many fearsome accounts on the Icelandic roads that, as soon as we left the modern area of Reykjavik and its smooth streets we braced ourselves expecting some twisted bumpy tracks.
    Now, it might be because I learnt to drive on mountains and unpaved roads, but I didn’t find it too hard to drive around Iceland. Also we haven’t driven on daily basis for many years now so we can no longer consider ourselves experienced and skilled drivers. The ring road is not a proper motorway but it’s a slick ride, being unpaved only for a short section on the south-east, and the other secondary roads are even easier: they might be a bit more narrow and have some potholes more but you are likely to be there by yourself so… no pressure.
    The only road we quite struggled to drive through, and we blessed our 4WD, was the 862 connecting Asbyrgi and Dettifoss, on the west side of the river. Apparently it will be paved soon but the 864 on the other side is apparently much easier.

    Always check the official website for roads conditions.

    Dangers of Icelandic roads

    SIGNS: Eindreð Brù, Blindheað… even if you’re not that fluent in Icelandic you will soon get the meaning of the road signs, the most recurrent of which are: single-lane bridge, blind rise and gravel road, and are often combined in pairs to make your driving experience more exciting.

    ANIMALS: Sheep enjoy grazing at the side of the street, and sometimes relaxing in the middle of it. They will run away as soon as you approach but their reaction can be quite unpredictable. They always travel in trios so make sure that they are all three on the same side. Birds tend to show suicidal tendencies flying a bit too close to speeding cars and, although they won’t mess it up as much as a sheep could, they might cause you to dangerously brake or steer. Keep it cool and don’t speed.

    Cars

    We are not ashamed to admit that we chose our car just because it was the cheapest option for a 4WD and because we found it funny to drive a car called Jimmy (technically it’s Jimny but for us it will always be Jimmy). That’s the extent of our automotive expertise.

    Although very reliable on gravel road and dirt tracks, Jimmy struggled on open, paved road, especially uphill. And tarmac made it incredibly thirsty.

    Jimmy

    Our beloved and noisy “Jimmy”

    Froads

    Now we know what “impassable” means

    Unless the infamous F-roads are a feature of your travel plan I don’t think a 4WD is strictly necessary. We had it easy on the few kms of unpaved road but most of the trip was on tarmac, where I wished I had a more performing and fuel-efficient car.
    Out of curiosity we checked the option of a small camper. A proper one will cost from £250 per day, while a Ford Transit like the one from Happy Campers is much cheaper, but still more expensive than the combined cost of our car and accommodation. If you didn’t book your accommodation in advance and you want maximum freedom and flexibility that could still be a good choice. However you will still have to find a solution for showering (you can use the local pools for that) and cooking, unless you want to splash out lots of money in expensive hot dogs and greasy pizzas.

    Maps

    Forget about Google maps: a classic paper map will never let you down even in the middle of nowhere. A handy book map was way to expensive so we opted for a folding one. I opted for a German one, just few months old: precise, reliable. It was also tear- and water- proof. No wonder they won the world cup.
    However we almost drove an extra 120Km around a peninsula because the shorter cut-through was omitted, and also we would have liked to have more details in some areas.
    If you’re planning a thorough exploration of the country, you’d better opt for the area-specific maps. I’ve done a little research and these maps are the most praised.

    Music

    We have a pile of 20 cds for our road trips, and I obviously let it home. We had to buy a second copy of the Sigur Ròs signature album and a less than remarkable collection of Icelandic Indie music (which still was way better than the radio).
    Such vast landscapes require an ethereal, dilated music reflecting the contrasting calm and violence of nature.
    Post rock bands, like Mogwai or Goodspeed you! Black Emperor, are the obvious choice, and Ágætis Byrjun seems to have been tailored around a trip on the Snæfellsnes peninsula.

  • Iceland: What’s the Best Travel Guide?

    Iceland: What’s the Best Travel Guide?

    Choosing a travel guide is never an easy task. The best would be to buy all of them or, at least, go to a library and go through the most of them, before deciding. For our trip to Iceland went for the Rough Guide, just for a change, as it served us well in Warsaw. Since we were driving a car we also needed to buy a detailed map.

    Our Iceland Road Map

    We were expecting to consult our map outdoor, under extreme weather conditions, the paper torn apart by strong gales and battered by icy rain. This never happened but we decided to buy a waterproof and tearproof map, one of the folding type. We would have preferred a book map, much easier to use inside the car, but the difference of price between the two models was high enough to influence the choice. I would now go for the book map, or for more detailed regional maps as details can be significative when you’re lost in the middle of nowhere with nobody to ask directions to. Check our article for more tips about maps and driving in Iceland.

    Rough Guide Iceland 2013

    Iceland Travel Guides

    Our Rough Guide let us down in few occasions. The Snaefellsnes peninsula was described as a collection of eventless towns, wooden churches and rocks, while our host in Grundarfjordur penned down for us an unforgettable one-day itinerary.

    In the Myvatn region we were massively disappointed as we missed out on this just because it wasn’t clearly described and it wasn’t on the map. Talking about guides with a couple, whose path we crossed a few times along the road, they had the same feedback about their Lonely Planet. Sure we might have got all the hints if we had read the guide thoroughly but I reckon guides should be thought for being consulted quickly on the go.

    They can be found at any tourist information centre of the country, I started collecting them even if we initially thought they were just an excuse to advertise local hotels and restaurants. As a matter of fact they turned out to be incredibly useful, rich of details on the area they cover, from the most popular destinations, to the best activities, to some precious info that wasn’t on our Rough guide. They’re for free and can also come with an extra folding maps which, even though is not quite as detailed, have been very helpful to us in several occasions.

    Self-drive tours

    Before planning the trip ourselves, we’ve contacted some companies organising self drive tours. They are pretty cool as they organise everything for you but they are not intrusive (which we hate) so, once you’re there, you’re on your own and you are completely free, either to stick to the plan or to go off route. Their offer includes: car rental, accommodation booking, maps, suggestions, GPS, assistance. Considering the costs in Iceland, what those guys charge is perfectly acceptable for a nicely planned trip and a safety net. However it was above our budget so we decided to do it on our own.
    The companies we contacted, that seemed professional and reliable, are the Reykjavik based Extreme Iceland and Discover the World.

    Car rental

    First thing we had to get the car sorted. After reading countless forums and blogs we picked Blue Car Rental as our company of choice. It appears to be one of the cheapest and one of the most reliable with smashing reviews. They also offer some older model for a cheaper price (like the guys at SADcars do) so we opted for a Jimmy. If you are not going to use the “difficult” roads, called F-roads, you really don’t need a 4×4 but, since this model costs only little more than small car we opted for a 4×4. And also we figured it’d be cool to drive a car called Jimmy. Different combinations of days – for pick up and drop off – and location – either Keflavik or Reykjavik – can change the final bill massively. Moreover those companies usually offer a transfer service so they will come pick you up wherever you are and they’ll take you where you need to go after you’ve given the car back.

    Booking Accommodation

    This has proven harder than we thought. With few properties, and far between, there’s no much choice in Iceland for a bed to sleep, especially if you’d rather choose for a lower budget. To make things worse the tour operators book, at the beginning of the season, as many rooms as they think they’ll need, leaving even fewer options for the independent traveller, especially in busy areas such as near the Skaftafell National Park. For this reason we recommend to book every night, largely in advance, unless you have a camping kit as a back up plan.
    We’ve booked a mix of rooms in hotels and guesthouses on Booking.com, and AirBnB. We’ll stay in a wooden cabin and in a vintage van parked in a back yard of a house overlooking a fjord… not sure whether to look forward to that or be scared.

    Given the nature of this country and the scarcity of accommodation I highly recommend to contact every property booked, asking for confirmation of availability and if the location is correct. A room booked on AirBnB turned out to be in Reykjavik, not near Akureyri as shown on their map. Luckily we found out before leaving and not once there, in the middle of nowhere.

  • The Scottish Highlands: Into the Wild

    Our idea was simple: get a car in Glasgow and head off north towards the Outer Hebrides improvising our route on the way.
    How naive.
    Since a couple of years the usual national tourism has been joined by even more visitors from Europe and North America, thus saturating the entire accommodation market of West Scotland. Our trip has been then decided on the basis of where was the next available room, which prevented us from reaching the Hebrides but gave us some surprises. The first of which is a small island called Easdale.

    Oban and surroundings

    A quick search during our first night in Glasgow was enough to present us with hard evidence: the Isle of Skye was already full to the brim with tourist, and the Isle of Mull was inaccessible as there was no way to find a combination of: available room, a ferry to the island and a ferry back from the island.
    We then decide to stop in Oban, the town famous for its whisky, gateway to the Highlands. It’s really worth a visit, a whisky tasting, a decent meal and an ice-cream before entering the terra incognita where you might find the only restaurant in miles closing at 5pm. Less than one hour drive from there there’s Ellenabeich, where we park the car to and take the ferry to cross the 100 metres strip of sea to Easdale Island. We sleep in a tiny coal shed ingenuously transformed in a en-suite bunkhouse, enjoying for a short while the life of an island so small it can be strolled around in one hour. What’s to see here? Nothing, and everything. If you’re after stunning landmarks you’re in the wrong place. Scotland’s charme works on its own time and has to be enjoyed without rash, taking in every moment of it.

    Loch Ness and the tourists of Scotland

    The northward road runs along that long strip of lakes that seems to cut Scotland diagonally in two. It starts in Fort Williams, base camp for Ben Nevis excursions and walks in the surrounding woods, and goes until Loch Ness. In Fort Augustus, the town at the southern tip of the famous lake, we get stuck. Tourists are clogging the only road, queuing to cross the rotating bridge or to decide which service station to go to. All of this made worst by the left-hand traffic and by the flock-of-sheep instincts that somehow take over even the sanest people when on holiday. Along the lake there’s people everywhere, in cars, camper vans and tour bus, stopping to take a photo, buying some taking souvenir or booking the unmissable cruise on the loch. Which is just a long narrow lake, like most of the other Scottish lochs, and not even the prettiest I’ve seen.
    I’m astonished by the amount of business created around an invented story, but then I think of places like Lourdes or Medjugorje and Nessie seems more innocuous.

    Ullapool and the Wild

    More than just innocuous, Nessie ends up being helpful. Thanks to it most of the people won’t venture further from the lake shores and we end up sharing the road with just few other tourists for the rest of our trip. We head towards Ullapool taking a scenic coastal route, which I highly recommend. As previously mentioned Scotland is not a place where you use your car to go from A to B, because for real here the travel matters more, or as much as, the destination. Along the way we found woods abundant with blueberries, a castle with a cattle of hairy coos in its garden and, in an all but deserted valley, we witnessed a solitary majestic deer crossing the road and stopping to look at us, looking at him. All you could hear was the stomping of his hoofs.

    Ullapool is a pretty coastal town, one of the few in the area offering more than a restaurant and even a big supermarket. From our B&B window we could enjoy a spectacular view on the ocean reaching inland like a fjord. Not far from there, driving north along the coast, you can follow for Rhue to enjoy a beautiful sunset by a lighthouse. And you’ll be most likely swarmed by midges.

    Lochinver and the North-West Beaches

    From the port of Ullapool you can take the ferry to Stornoway on the Outer Hebrides, unless you get there during the 4 days of Celtic Fest, like we did. The festival doubles the island population, and for its duration all ferries are fully booked. We then end up having more days than we expected to spend in a place we didn’t expect, so we invest our time exploring the coastal routes around Lochinver travelling, on an average, at walking speed. Without the luxury of time we would have missed a colony of seals, hiding in a bay visible only from a specific points along the road. We wouldn’t have taken all the deviations, some of which took us to unexpected white sand beaches with turquoise water, like tropics with Scottish weather. And mostly we wouldn’t have had time to spend with the locals, a people hardened by the weather but not disheartened by it. We were welcomed with warmth and friendliness that went way beyond our expectations.

  • Sunday Along the Wall

    Planning a normal Sunday out in Berlin doesn’t usually consider anything before lunch time. In a city where even during the week people start sipping their coffees never before 9am it’s safe to assume that Sunday morning doesn’t exist. It did though for me and my friend Totò who insanely booked a flight back home departing at noon. We hence woke up a few minutes after having laid down and headed to the Kaffeebar for a robust dose of caffeine, served in form of a flat white so good that put immediately this café in my favourite ones.

    Alltag in der DDR @ Kulturbrauerei

    Knaackstraße 97, Prenzlauer Berg

    After breakfast I saw my friend off to the U-Bahn station and plan to go to the Kulturbrauerei. In this remarkable building an exhibition has been recently opened, exactly one week after my last visit. It’s called Alltag in der DDR (Everyday life in the GDR), it’s free and offers a rich display of objects, footage and stories to paint an accurate picture of that life was in East Germany. It would have been a perfect warm up before my Wall-filled afternoon plan, but I decided to go back to bed and postpone the visit to the next day. Of course the museum is closed on Monday.
    On this page you can find the opening times and even a video.

    Currywurst at Konnopke Imbiss

    Currywurst under the rail tracks

    Lunch and bratwurst

    To get closer to the area I intended to visit in the afternoon I perfectly planned a lunch at the famous Konnopke Imbiss. I missed it at my first visit in Berlin, I couldn’t fail now. I’ve already gave it a first scan a few days earlier, peeping through the big windows and drooling on the pavement. That juicy currywurst (apparently the best in Berlin?) with a rich side of chips would have surely saved me from my hangover.
    But another disruption of my plans was on the way: two friends of mine invited me to a park to assist to the most important world competition of Fistball, which a sort of proto-volley where people in a field punch the hell out of a ball throwing it across a rather low net. I couldn’t miss such opportunity so I headed off to Wedding, mainly attracted by the prospective of cheap BBQ. It was really worth it: the grilled steak was juicy, the sport was really entertaining and I was surrounded by Germans, a rare occurrence in Berlin.

    Mauerpark

    A Sunday afternoon in Berlin would be wasted for me if I don’t go to the Mauerpark, and so we did after the exciting Fistball finals. If you followed to my plan and went to Konnopke Imbiss it would be a short walk to the Mauerpark. The park, a former rail interchange turned death strip now hosts a massive flea market selling everything from antiques to local art and cheap clothes, ideal for stocking up on souvenirs and postcards, while the other side of the park is dotted with live bands. One edge is still marked by a stretch of Wall, where graffiti constantly change. But the arena is where the main act happens: the Bearpit Karaoke, an event started only five years ago but became an institution attracting every Sunday thousands of people. The rules are simple: singers signs up, choosing a song and, one by one, are called to sing and humiliate themselves in front of a roaring crowd. Why so many people want to do that to themselves will always remain a mystery to me. We enjoyed most of it, the best ones are always those outstanding, either outstandingly good or crap, but all of them gave me the satisfying pleasure of sneering sarcastic comments. However here I learnt that the difference between public humiliation and crowd-pleasing triumph doesn’t necessarily depend on the vocal skills but, mostly, in the confidence in delivering the performance.

    Before entering the park we sensibly bought some cheap beer at the only Spätkauf in the area, just around the corner in Oderberger Str. Opposite to it there is the Bonanza coffee heroes where, in case you just woke up and skipped all of the above, you will be brought back to life by the skilled baristas with some of the highest quality I’ve ever tried.

    Wall memorial, Bernauer Strasse, Berlin

    The Wall memorial and the Sky above Berlin

    Bernauer straße Wall memorial

    Once the party was over I thought it would be wise to set back to that gloomy mood that’s very much appropriate to a Sunday evening. Walking east after leaving the park, I quickly reached the beginning of the Bernauerstraße memorial (or Gedenkstätte, which became one of my favourite German words), that reaches all the way to Nordbanhof, 1.5Km down the road.
    Part of the original Wall is preserved or, when not, it’s replaced by countless iron rods. As simple as it is, I found it the most dramatic testimonial of that era: with its intact and graffiti-less concrete slabs, and the death strip left empty as it was, it gives a very realistic idea of what it must have meant to have a wall running all along the road in front of your house. Or maybe not because I cannot even get close to thinking what it means to take the decision of leaving all your life behind and jump off the window of your house as the wall is being erected, to be safe on the other side.

    Jazz and cigarettes @ Manouche

    Grimmstraße 23
    Tue – Fri 17:00 – 00:00, Sat – Sun 15:30 – 00:00

    I abandoned the wall memorial as dusk was suitably settling like a thick silk blanket on Bernauer Straße and, with a head full of thoughts, I head back to Kreuzberg. My feet instinctively steered me towards the Manouche, a sweet little spot not far from the Landwehrkanal. Barely visible from the street, it’s a cosy basement bar with a vaguely French atmosphere, serving delicious crêpes and, generally, good mood. On most Sunday nights they have live jazz music in one of the two back rooms, in which case it gets very crowded and smoky.

  • Berlin Dark History: 2 Days with the Stasi

    Berlin Dark History: 2 Days with the Stasi

    The Stasi, the most efficient and merciless secret police service or our times, had been dominating East Germany in terror for 40 years.  However there is little coverage around it, and museums dedicated to its history are far from the city centre, kept away like a shameful secret. Here’s a list of places you could, and should visit, to learn more about how life was in the DDR.

    Day 1

    DDR Museum

    Address: Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 1, 10178 Berlin
    Opening Hours: Sun-Fri 10am – 8pm / Sat 10am – 10pm
    Phone: +49 30 847123731 / Website
    Tickets: €6 / €4

    Let’s have a light start here: after breakfast head to the DDR museum, located near the museum island, opposite the Cathedral. This is an interactive museum where you can learn and experience directly how was life in the DDR. There are photos, and videos, examples of real life jobs and salaries, there’s a kitchen and a living room where you can sit, watch the telly and use the phone. There are lots of drawers to open, things to move, games to do… some people will probably still remember queuing after those two guys for two hours while they unsuccessfully tried to write their name in Russian. They have a few sections dedicated to Stasi, providing the most important fact and offering a reproduction of an interrogation room and a prison cell. They also offer guided tours in 15 different languages.
    It’s conveniently located in the city centre, informative and safe for families. If you want to know more details and you’re not afraid of walking right where evil really happened, keep on with the tour!

    Stasi Ausstellung

    Address: Zimmerstraße 90, 10117 Berlin
    Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 10am – 6pm
    Phone: +49 30 232450 / Website (in german) / email
    Tickets: Free!

    A 30 minutes stroll from the DDR Museum, or a quick bus ride, and we’re in this sweet little exhibition which will educate us on everything about Stasi. Not to be confused with the proper Stasi Museum, it’s very neat and comprehensive, basically a 3D lecture on the infamous secret police. It’s quite hidden away, few steps away from Checkpoint Charlie and dangerously on the border of the tacky funfair the area is being turned into. Fence off the tourists, herded from their tour buses to the souvenir shops and the iconic selfie locations, pass by the other tourists sitting outside the Einstein café lost in their maps and travel guides and you’ll find the unassuming building hosting the Stasi Ausstellung to your right. The building itself, despite its modest looks, is rich of history: one of the most ancient trade building in town have seen the merchant replaced by Nazis first and Stasi agents later, and finally a museum. Which is a procedure apparently applied to most buildings in Berlin.
    Not only the entrance is free but you can also pick a free audio guide (available in several languages) providing a detailed explanation of the whole exhibition, and a nice booklet summarizing all of its content. You will need all of this if you cannot read German.
    The only other person visiting while I was there had the privilege of being personally escorted by a member of staff. He surely was a journalist or university professor, but next time I’ll give it a go and send them an email in advance.

    That’s all for the day, enough culture to get us ready for tomorrow’s action. Now it’s time to head back to some nice café to read the leaflets and let the information settle in your brain.

    Move on to the second day of our tour

    Yesterday we’ve learnt all we need to know about how life was in the DDR and how the Stasi operated, today it’s time to dip into the thick of it, visiting what were the neuralgic centres of the feared secret police. Once to blank spots on the Berlin map, now the former headquarters and police are open for visits. Despite their remoteness – for obvious secrecy reasons they’ve been set up in the desolate Lichtenberg – and they scarce advertisement they enjoy, they were bustling with visitors mainly school kids.

    Today schedule is pretty intense, physically and emotionally, and there is some travelling involved so an early start is recommended.

    Day 2

    Stasi Museum

    Address: Ruschestraße 103, 10365 Berlin
    Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 10am – 6pm / Sat-Sun 12am – 6pm
    Phone: +49 30 5536854 / Website / email
    Tickets: €5 / €4

    At my arrival I thought I’ve been victim of a bad joke, or that I wasn’t informed that the Stasi was back to their headquarters, fully operational. The museum and former offices occupy a whole block of a cube of concrete so big that makes your neck hurt, so grey it make you grasp for air. The enormous yard hidden inside this square of buildings, was the deserted with the exception of a man briskly walking and the occasional tumble weed, everything was quiet as if some very secret business is carried on. Probably what happened here was so tremendous that walls, windows and the ill-looking shrubs, preserve a sort of memory that is transmitted to the visitors in form of intimidation. I walked hesitantly through the door and I had a confirmation that my fears were real when the cold glare of the desk receptionist struck me like a laser icicle.
    The museum can be visited independently but the vastity of the exhibition and the signs written mostly only in German make a guided tour desirable. There’s no extra cost but tours are organised for groups of at least 10 people. I recommend writing them at least a couple of weeks earlier, so that they can set something up for you, perhaps joining a few lone travellers and small groups together. I emailed them only two days before and, after being told off in typical German fashion, I was said I could join a group at 10am. The group was in fact a class of teenage English students – as the austere receptionist pointed out – I was panting and perspiring (it’s a short walk from the U-Bahn unless you get directed to the opposite direction by an ill-willing citizen) and I sidled up to one of the teacher who jumped as I had attacked her on a dark rainy night in Brixton. Not a good start. For a while I stuck to them, mostly hiding behind corners or pretending to be looking elsewhere, receiving suspicious looks from teachers and students.

    The guy was passionate and competent, and I would have listened to him forever, but he was spending hours in each room and the situation was getting dangerously awkward, so I left them at the first floor, which was dedicated to the historic context, and moved upstairs to the perfectly preserved offices. This is where the higher ranks of the Stasi used to work, and it’s quite obvious that the aim – and possibly the results – of the interior designers were to make everyone feel an anonymous, grey, insignificant part of a bigger machine. The absence of colours is striking, everything is in every hue of grey: brownish-grey, dark green-grey, mustard-grey. And, of course, forget computers, posters and USB rocket launchers. Everything in those offices is simple and essential: a typing machine, a telephone, a box with some buttons. And lots of empty space. Even Erich Mielke’s office, despite being the Supreme Master of Evil, was identical to the others, except for the fact that it gives you the creeps thinking of the viciousness that dwelt here for four decades.

    The upper floor is more entertaining and if possible more crude. Here are displayed the advanced technologies used to spy the population’s everyday life and the smuggling techniques employed to counterfeit the terror.

    There are some weird things such as cameras hidden in bird boxes, or cameras in dust bins triggered by the pedal opening the lid, but also shockingly advanced pieces of tech:a camera hidden behind a coat button which is as old as me and as big as my mobile phone. All this courtesy of Siemens, and it comes natural to think that the technology behind the devices we carry in our pockets today came at cost of many lives. On the other hand carrying people out of the DDR or smuggling in books and other western goods was all a matter of creativity and little means. It’s like a battle between cunning, bold humans, and deadly robots from the future. Like Terminator.

    Stasi Prison: Hohenschönhausen

    Address: Genslerstraße 66, D-13055 Berlin
    Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 10am – 6pm
    Phone: +49 30 232450 / Website (in German) / email
    Tickets: €5 / €2.5

    Of all the stops in our “Stasi tour” this is one not to be missed. Try to pronounce the word “Hohenschonhausen“; if you get it right you might give yourself a cold shiver down the spine. This terrorizing prison can only be visited with a guide, and tours in English are run once a day at 14.30. If you understand German not only you can enjoy more flexibility but you are likely to get a former inmate as a guide and I’ve been ensured it’s pretty intense.

    The tour starts with a 30 minutes video delivering interesting facts and shocking figures. The next step is the infamous U-Boat, the submarine. Originally used by the Nazis as food storage it has been turned by the Soviets into a fearful underground jail, like those you might see in Rambo movies, where prisoners were kept for days in few inches of ice-cold water, or in a padded, dark and isolated room, without food or even a bucket. It’s quite gripping to know that someone here managed to be even more evil and sick than Hitler’s troops.
    Our tour leads next to the newly built prison block, despite being slowed down by a big Iranian man who stops at every cell looking around lost as if he was thinking of how to decorate it. The building is, in typical soviet fashion, grey and depressing. It reminds me the hostel where I stayed in Bratislava, except for the rooms which are way better here.

    The cells in fact look like single room, with a large bed (where the Iranian man sits with loud creakings, probably considering a nap), a basin and a cupboard, luxury. Someone points that out to our guide, which agrees and explains why. This was all a cunning psychological trick to make the inmates remember how it was to be alive: in fact they didn’t have any belongings to put in the cupboard, they couldn’t sit on the bed during the day, nor they could do any exercise if not standing, the window is bright but the thick glass impedes any sight of the outer world. And so on, down to details to clever and sick to make you doubt of the good nature of the human race. At the end of the tour we reach the “tiger cage”, where well behaved prisoners were taken for a glimpse of sky and fresh air and the Iranian man is invited to talk. He explain to us how he’s been through the same treatment and torture in his country, just 3 years ago before managing to escape to France. This made me think of how deeply these horrors belong to the human nature, wondering how many people are being tortured right now. It also explains the strange behaviour of this man in the cells and make me consider what a massive dick-head I’ve been judging him.

    This was a very intense day, I couldn’t leave the building without first smoking a cigarette next to two old guides, wishing I could speak enough German at least to express my sympathy. I also couldn’t leave Lichtenberg before finding my way back to the tram, which proved more difficult than I thought. Just remember to walk straight ahead as you leave the gates, in case you don’t have a map with you.

  • Food in Berlin… more than just Currywurst!

    Food in Berlin… more than just Currywurst!

    When travelling my favourite thing is try to learn how locals live and, even if for just a few days, try to live with them. Food is an important part of everyone’s life and bars, pubs and restaurants are those places where you can get a nice angle of the local lifestyle. Once you avoid the tourist traps with white table cloths and anodyne international menus.

    I have to admit that during our stay in Berlin we didn’t treat ourselves properly in terms of food. Walking all day and trying to see as much as possible, we ended up feeding mostly on kebabs and the magic combo pretzel+beer, but we’ve been lucky enough to score some good discovery.

    Currywurst

    We got to Berlin craving Currywurst, even though we weren’t sure of what that is we’ve heard so much about it that eating one was on top of our list. The first eye contact has been quite disappointing: three american guys walk out of a kebab shop holding a tray containing what looks like a depressed sliced wurstel drowned in ketchup. Technically a currywurst is nothing more than that, with a sprinkle of curry powder on top, and that pathetic version is pretty much what you get at most of the shops. However the real experience is to have a proper one. The most recommended currywurst can be found at the Konnopke Imbiss, next to the Eberswalder Straße station. Unfortunately, and I blame it on the less than exact directions on our guide book, we couldn’t find it, but we went instead to the butcher (metzgerei) next to the bahn station where we were served huge and tasty homemade currywurst. You can also have a sit and taste their other products.
    Anyway you can find the famous Konnopke Imbiss under the rail bridge just leaving the metro station and walking south along Schönhauser Allee. This is the google map, just in case.

    Restaurant: Aufsturz

    Oranienburg Strasse 67
    Tel: +49 30 28 04 74 07 Website: www.aufsturz.de
    Open everyday until midnight.

    Update 28/10/2013: I’ve been back to Aufsturz and unfortunately the menu drastically changed. No more hearty german food but more snack and pub grubs. Probably the Berliner Teller (cheese and salamis platter) is the option. However the place is always very nice, the staff is friendly and they have something like 100 beers to choose from.

    Too much words for a wurstel, let’s now talk about a real restaurant. This is the only one we visited, which gives us a 100% score on finding great places to eat! It’s called Aufsturz, in Oranienburger Straße, not far from the namesake S-Bahn station, and we spotted it passing by on one of the trams going to and from Alexander Platz. Lovely cozy place, it looks like a local favourite, crowded with Berliners, and I think we were the only tourist there. A good sign is that the menu is written only in German and the friendly waiters didn’t seem used to speaking english to their customers. Thanks to my unsuspected linguistic skills we manage somehow to order a gulash with red kraut and knodeln, and spätzle (like think noodles) topped with cheese and crispy onions. This scrumptious dinner was washed down with 4 large beers and closed off with a dessert (keiserschmarrn con zwetschgenroster) that alone could have been a satisfying meal, all for little more than €30 for two which, to me, sounds like a real bargain.

    The walls were all adorned with paintings to give it an artsy-but-not-pretentious look and, at one end of the restaurant next to the toilets there’s the entrance to the club. But we were too replete to even think of going in.

    Café am Kamin

    Falckensteinstrasse 18
    Wi-Fi: €1/h

    Update 28/10/2013: Back to the Kamin, I was a little disappointed. Perhaps because this doesn’t keep up the competition with the other brilliant cafés in Kreuzberg, but the coffee was just about alright and the muffin was stale. Still a good place in winter as they have lovely soup.

    Another random encounter was with Café am Kamin on our first day of visit, right outside the Görlitzer Park in Kreuzberg, and we fell in love with it. It’s on Falckensteinstrasse, which goes from the park all the way to the famous and enormous Blu’s graffitis in Cuvrystrasse. It’s ideal for coffee and cake, but also for a warm soup (the potato soup is delicious). It’s a small cozy place, with a fireplace that will make it very difficult to leave during a cold winter day.

    Chocolate

    Surely everyone is familiar with the perfectly square shape of a Ritter sport chocolate bar, but did you know that the Headquarters are based in Berlin? We didn’t, and it’s been a great surprise when we’ve been led in the official store, in 24 Französische Straße (there’s a U-Bahn station nearby). Not only it’s a colourful chocolatey Ritter heaven, but you can get a customised chocolate bar! You choose the chocolate and the other ingredients and they melt it and create it right in front of you, which is really cool. You’ll have to wait half an hour for the chocolate to cool down before you can put your hand on it, so you’ve got plenty of time to buy more of the super-cheap chocolate in store. No pictures are available for this place because the photographer was out of control.

    Another great place for chocolate lovers is Fassbender & Rausch in 60 Charlottenstrasse, majestic shop. It’s like a chocolate sanctuary, in fact you’ll see proper chocolate sculpture and even a fountain. Hint: it’s not water that comes out of it. Hard to resist…

  • Iceland Day 3: Snaefellsnes Peninsula

    Iceland Day 3: Snaefellsnes Peninsula

    The day started gloriously with the view of Kirkjufell, the iconic mountain dominating the bay. After a healthy breakfast in the well arranged kitchen of the Old Post guesthouse and we drove to the gas station, to personally witness the cost of grocery. Some items are quite acceptably priced: a big bottle of juice was just 400ISK – but the milk costs double than in the UK and the cheese costs like sirloin at my local butcher. It’s gonna be a difficult fortnight.
    Adhering to Magnus’s instructions we started driving along the coast, westbound, following the road south through the National Park and around Snæfellsjökull to the glacier, to finish the day off in an outdoor warm pool.

    Ágætis byrjun, a good start

    Magnus was right, from the first miles of our drive west of Grundarfjordur we immediately recognized the classic Iceland of the documentaries, its breathtaking beauty surrounding us, without the filter of a camera. The squeaky radio played Svefn-g-Englar, which was been probably written as a soundtrack for driving through exactly that scenery.
    The first stop was Öndverdarnes, to admire the two orange lighthouses and the vertiginous cliffs, home to hundreds of noisy birds. On the way there there are a few beaches patterned with yellow and black sand, one is big and signalled with a parking space, but before that we found another one. Only accessible via a relatively easy climb down big rocks, this beach was little and pristine, not one footprint on the sand and secluded by black rocks which are also quite fun to climb on.

    Geology rocks!

    Back on the 574 we aimed at Saxholar, which we just managed to spot because it’s a huge volcano in a vast green flatland. Don’t expect signs to clearly indicate you every point of interest: be always on the look and be ready to u-turn and drive back.
    It’s possible to climb the volcano, a modest ascent of 5 minutes, and from the top you can see both the bowl where once was the crater, and the land around for miles and miles. We also spent the better part of a hour browsing through the astonishing variety of stones: some spongy, some like hardened blobs, some black, some brown with green and purple reflections. We could have spent hours there but we had so many things to do, so we took a couple of rocky souvenirs and left.

    The glacier disappeared

    Our frequent stops made us run behind schedule so we decided to skip the Vatnshellir caves and the Djupalonssandur – we’ve seen enough sand for a day – and head to the glacier.
    Past the Arnarstapi lighthouse the roads split, and the F570 climbs the side of the mountains to the thick clouds and Snæfellsjökull. We kept going for 6/7 kms and our Jimmy was struggling to cope with the bumpy road and the challenge with other bigger, newer 4WDs. On the map it looked easy: drive around the mountain until you reach the glacier; but the clouds were down low and we weren’t quite sure whether we reached the glacier and, if we did, we probably wouldn’t have noticed.

    Muddy waters

    After a brief but vicious snowball fight we were back in the car, hurling it down the same bumpy road at top speed. Destination: the warm waters of Lysuholl pool.
    It’s barely signalled and the sign can only be seen 20 meters before the turn, which is a bit too late. To avoid slamming on brakes, or u-turning after the missed junction, follow the signs to Kast Guesthouse.
    Lysuholl doesn’t really account as a village to our standards, is more like a few houses scattered within 100m from each other. For this we easily found the pool, spotted by the unusual amount of cars (four) in the parking lot. The building is a simple wooden hut, with a strong DIY feel; the facility is basic but very clean. Nothing fancy: one small pool where to swim and two circular tubs for relaxing, and it was only populated by local families. The water is warm and smelly: the unmistakable sign that it’s geo-thermally heated, and it’s a great way to end a day, taking the fatigue off, the muscles melting in the warm embrace of nature.
    The entrance is quite cheap (650ISK), and remember to shower thoroughly, without swimsuit, before entering the pool.

  • Citybike Wien: Vienna’s bike rental scheme

    Vienna’s own citybike is an ideal way to explore the city: it’s cheaper than the public transport and, given the reduced size of the city, a very fast way to move around. It takes little more than 30 minutes to go from Museum Quarter to the Prater, and a ride along the canal, admiring the graffiti all the way to Hundertwasser’s waste incineration plant, is highly recommended.

    A wise choice

    The best thing to do is to sign up in advance online. You’ll have to register on their website, providing your credit/debit card details. Once you’ve done that you’ll have an account number and a password (pro tip: choose a short password!).

    If you don’t do that you can always register at any Citybike Terminal, but you’ll still need a card.

    How to use Citybike Wien

    Citybike Vienna logoTo pick up a bike you’ll have to insert your card in the terminal, select one of the bikes available and digit the password. To return it you’ll simply have to put the bike back in an empty slot, until the light on the bikebox is steady green.

    Although the service is great, the stations are not exactly around every other corner and not always have enough bikes or empty slots. If the station is empty (or it’s full and you’re trying to return your bike) you can check on the terminal the nearest stations available.

    How much is for the bike rental?

    The registration fee is just 1 euro and the 1st hour of every ride is free of charge. In order to “reset” your free hour you’ll have to wait 15 minutes after depositing the bike. If you keep a bike for longer than that you will be charged a hourly rate:

     

    (rates might vary, double check the official site first: www.citybikewien.at)

    Other options

    If you don’t want to hop from one Citybike station to another or simply want to use a different bike, there are plenty of private bike rental options in Vienna.
    We suggest you to get in touch with the guys at Brillantengrund: a great hotel, a Filipino restaurant and also bike rental.