76-Second Travel Show: 'Who Is Dean Reed?'

Dean Reed, who died 25 years ago today in East Berlin, is my vote for one of the most fascinating people of all time. He outran a mule, picked up a random hitch-hiker with a Capitol Records contact that led to his recording contract, got huge in Uruguay, had dinner dates with Che Guevara, was the first rock star to appear in the USSR, and made movies with Yul Brynner, and eventually one billion people -- per some estimates -- knew who he was. About ten of which were Americans.

For free MP3s, see this German site.

Berlin – the rest of the story

Berlin, you will not be surprised to hear, is about more than just amazing street art. So whilst the street art was certainly a highlight of my trip, it wasn’t the whole thing. Here therefore is the tale of the rest of my time in this fascinating city.

Berlin is a great city for exploring. As well as a cheap and ubiquitous public transport system, there is an excellent network of cycle paths, plus the walking options aren’t too shabby either. I opted largely to explore by foot, hopping on and off the public transport if time was short or the distance was particularly long.

I started off with a visit to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, which is both a huge installation of sombre grey blocks that you can wander throughout, and a factual information centre, which is located underneath the grey blocks. This is not a cheerful visit. It details, with seriously graphic photography, the workings of the engine that the Nazi’s put in place which resulted in the deaths of an estimated six million people. This was incredibly sobering stuff. There were stories of individuals, glimpses of lives that were ripped apart, told through diary entries and photos. It was incredibly moving stuff. If there is only one thing you do on a trip to Berlin, it should be to visit this place, and wonder as to the sheer horror that occurred such a short span of time ago.

Next, I visited the Brandenburg gate, once one of Berlin’s city gates, and perhaps it’s most recognisable landmark. It was used by the Nazi’s as a symbol during their time in power, and later on it became one of the crossing points between East and West Berlin. When I visited, of course, all of this was in the past, and it was easy to walk from one side to the other. As I happened to be visiting during the celebration of 20 years of Berlin being re-unified, there was a band playing, a fairground was happening, and I was able to obtain some of Berlin’s most famous food, that being currywurst, which I washed down with an excellent pitcher of beer.

Just near the Brandenburg gate is the Reichstag, a magnificent building built to hold the parliament of the German Empire. After various wars and damage, the building was restored to it’s former glory, and it is still used today as the place where the German parliament meets. It’s a fabulously pretty building, and whilst you can go inside and up to the top of a giant dome for amazing views of the city, the queues were very long and I had many other things I wanted to see, so I skipped the internal tour. I hear it is excellent though.

From the Brandeburg Gate you can walk up the Unter der Linden, a giant boulevard, similar to that of the Champs Elysees in Paris. This tree lined street houses many shops and museums. In the distance the ever present radio mast that towers over Berlin is visible, situated in Alexanderplatz. Before you get to Alexanderplatz though, there is the Berliner Dom, or Cathedral.

This is absolutely worth a visit, even if you have to pay a small fee to get in. The main reason for this, in my book at least, is that you can climb to the top of the building and enjoy fabulous unobstructed views of the city. Climbable buildings always make my shortlist of sights to visit, and in this case, it was totally worth it. I happened to visit it on an evening as the sun was setting across the city, so the light and shadows were just incredible.

As well as the view from the top, the Dom also has a crypt which houses some seriously impressive coffins. These are the resting places of over eighty Prussian royals. Whilst the guide book suggests that non-enthusiasts may not find them overly thrilling, I challenge anyone not to be at least be dumb struck by the sheer opulence and size of these things.

I also took a bit of a trip out from the centre of town and headed to the western parts of the city, taking in the splendid ruin that is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was damaged by bombing in 1943. All that really remains is the spire, around which a modern new church has been built. It’s a pretty impressive bit of architecture, and the broken spire is a really eye catching piece.

From there I popped up to the Charlottenburg Palace, the largest palace in Berlin and one of the homes of the Prussian Royal family. Whilst only two stories high, the palace stretches for quite some way in a wonderful baroque style.

Finally, my tour of Berlin took me to two fascinating places, the Topography of Terror and the former site of Checkpoint Charlie, perhaps the most infamous wall crossing point of them all.

The Topography of Terror is a large outdoor museum set on the former site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters. From 1961 to 1989 the Berlin Wall ran along this site, and this is now the only place in Berlin where the original wall still stands. It is fenced off, to stop people taking chunks of it, and a fascinating display details the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi party, as well as life in Berlin before and during the war itself. This was well worth the visit, and I’d absolutely recommend it to anyone heading to Berlin.

So. Two days in Berlin was not an awfully long amount of time, but I did manage to squeeze a fair bit in. It’s a fascinating city with a lot of history, and there is a lot more I could have explored, from the museums, to the clubs, to the rest of the art scene. Still, this was a great little trip, and I’m pleased I had time to do it. If you liked the photos in the article, you can see more from my trip to Berlin on the site’s facebook page. Enjoy :)

Berlin Vacations

An alternative tour of Berlin

There is a chap, I am told, who wanders around Berlin by bicycle painting the number six everywhere he can. He has been doing this for a very long time. When questioned, at length, and the layers of slight madness are peeled back, a reason for his number painting is given. It is, apparently, to improve the working of the internet.

This was just one of the facts I learnt on the tour I took on my first full day in Berlin, which promised to show me the alternative parts of the city. Some would suggest that I should see the non-alternative parts of the city first before moving on to artists squats and bombed out train stations, but there we are.

Anyway. The day dawned fabulously, one of those clear and cold autumnal days where you can see your breath and the colours are almost forcing themselves into the back of your eyeballs against a staggeringly blue sky. The sort of day you would hope to have when wandering a new city.

I met my guide, and fellow guidees, underneath the giant radio tower which can be seen from pretty much everywhere in the city. Given that it is the tallest structure in Germany, this is not a huge surprise. I am not really one who usually does tours - normally I prefer to just wander a city by myself with a guide book at my own pace, taking shots as I go, and not feeling hurried along or as if I am missing things. I am absolutely delighted I didn’t follow this policy for my alternative tour of Berlin.

The tour started promisingly. Our dreadlocked Kiwi guide Ben had lived in the city for three years, and had a serious passion for street art. Add this to the fact that there were only six of us on the tour, and the whole thing felt like we were a group of friends out for a wander in a new city where one of us happened to be more knowledgeable than the rest.

Our tour took us from Alexanderplatz and out towards the North of the city, to a small alleyway called the Hoff. Sadly no imagery of the man himself appeared to be present. Along the way our guide talked to us about the various street artists and “crews” who worked the city. I haven’t mentioned this before, but street art (or graffiti, the line is blurry), is a big thing in Germany. It is literally everywhere, ranging from the basic tags through to highly detailed and complex murals. And Berlin, it turns out, is the epicentre of this art form.

The Hoff was a small, fairly dark alley, lined from wall to wall with pretty amazing art. Our guide explained the different techniques that were used, from stencils to pasting, and then let us goggle for a while.

There was plenty to goggle at. I am far from an expert on art, how art is defined, and the various skill levels involved, however I’m pretty sure nearly everything we were looking at was pretty amazing. Which was good.

After the Hoff we headed on, past the new Synagogue and to a giant, seemingly derelict building called Tacheles. Contrary to appearance, this building is alive and well, housing a number of artists within it’s colourfully painted walls.

There is an outdoor beach bar (Berlin seems big on beach bars despite not being near the sea) as well as five floors of art. Every square inch of wall space is covered in paint. It would take forever to look at all the imagery. Sadly we didn’t have forever, so after a while wandering around, mouths still largely agape, we moved on.

Our tour then took us through parts of Berlin that even a decade ago would have been seriously dangerous. We were shown the positive effects of street art, with one high rise building complex featuring an art project with over fifty faces painted around it’s base area. This, we were informed, had really helped turn a dodgy area around, and now it was as safe to wander as the rest of Berlin. Impressive stuff. Almost as impressive as the faces that were drawn. One in particular stood out, of an Asian boy. His eyes literally drilled out of the brickwork and into my soul. Haunting stuff.

Again, we moved on. We caught one of Berlin’s overground trains, which took us past massive murals which covered the entire sides of buildings. One of an astronaut, done to look like a stencil, particularly stood out.

When we got off the train, in the eastern end of the city, we were led to an old train depot and station. This had been a point of critical wartime importance and as a result had been largely bombed into nothing by the allies. What remains now are the hollowed out shells of buildings.

Amazingly, instead of just a giant derelict lot, this space has again been transformed by the community. Originally the site of illegal dance parties, where the only access was through a trapdoor of the toilets in the nearby kebab house, it now hosts a huge skatepark, art spaces, a climbing wall, bars and clubs. Quite wonderful stuff, with amazing street art all around again.

Our last part of the tour took us to the worlds only sticker museum, where we were given  free tea, and the tour ended. I thanked, and tipped (the tour is free, tips are optional and are how the guide makes his money) Ben, our wonderful guide, gawked at the immense sticker collection for a while, before heading back into Berlin for a general wander, including a look at the East Side Gallery, the site of a part of the former Berlin Wall, now given over to, you guessed it, street art.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to look at the rest of the posts from my trip to Berlin, where I take in the classic sites, including the Brandenberg Gate and the Holocaust memorial.

Also, If you liked the photos in this post, take a look at the Facebook page, where I you will find many more shots of the street art I saw on the tour, as well as more general shots from around Berlin. Enjoy!

Finally, if you want to be kept up to date with the site, and more posts and photos like this, why not subscribe to the RSS feed, either in your favourite reader or via e-mail? Enjoy!

Berlin Vacations

47 or so Dumb Things I've Done Traveling

Twenty years ago, I was a quarter way through my first Eurail check-the-country-off-the-list trip across Europe -- London to Rome in 20 days. I don't regret it, but sometimes I think twice about how I spent that July 14 -- the 200th anniversary of Paris' Bastille Day. I was time-killing a day a few hours north in Bruges, leisurely walking by canals, sitting in quaint parks, getting ice cream in waffle cones from heart-melting blondes with long eyelashes and no apparent knee-jerk distaste for Americans, then boarding a train for Amsterdam, shrugging off Paris for future trips.

A regret? Or just plain dumb?*

Here are a few more that just might qualify for my list of things I might have done differently given a second chance:

1. Not accepting the invitation from the Hungarian film crew to camp at a gulag eight hours north of Magadan, Russia.
2. Living a year-and-a-half in London and taking all my trips (on budget airlines) to Germany and Italy, never seeing things like my namesake's birthplace, Scotland.
3. In 1989, skipping Berlin. 'Two cities in one? Big deal.' A few months later the wall came tumbling down like a John Cougar Mellencamp song.**
4. After James Brown died, there was a huge celebration of JB's life outside the Apollo Theater in Harlem, a 30-minute subway ride away. I watched it on TV.
5. Worn out in Bulgaria, I spent the airline's $200 change fee to fly back one day early. Really?
6. I trusted the 'where you from?' from a grisly guy with a huge fake smile in a Guadalajara bus station. While I answered cheerfully, his pal took a backpack from under my feet behind me. They didn't get much: just my camera, $200 and my passport.
7. Putting my passport in a backpack in Guadalajara.
8. Five years of living in San Francisco = not once going onto the bay. Not Alcatraz, not a ferry to Sausalito, where Chevy Chase lived in the immortal film Foul Play.***



9. On a study trip to Russia in 1992, yelling at the lady tour guide on a night St Petersburg bus tour to 'put the Stones tape in' after my unsuccessful debut with vodka. (I was successful getting the Stones tape in though.) Sorry Natasha!
10. Speaking of St Petersburg, I spent six weeks there. Time spent in the Hermitage? About 45 minutes.
11. In other museum underachievements, after 11 years or so living in New York City, total time in the Met? About 80 minutes.
12. Never going to Laos.
13. Or Cuba.
14. After driving purposely way out of my way to see Manitoba, spending only four wakeful hours in Winnipeg. (Though managing to see Louis Riel's grave -- and eat some bad Italian food.)
15. Not getting a photo with the Detroit Red Wings staying in the same hotel in Pittsburgh (while competing for the Stanley Cup) in June 2009.
16. Not spending longer than 10 minutes at a sprawling gypsy horse fair outside Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania.
17. Spending a week in Punjab, India, and visited the Sikh's Golden Palace in Armitsar -- a short bus ride from Lahore, but never even considering going crossing into Pakistan. May not have that chance again.
18. Not going up the CN Tower in Toronto because it IS too expensive (from C$22). (See it apparently get hit by a rebuking lightning a couple times, following.)

19. Eating one too many street barbecue beef skewers on a stick in Yangon, and spending two days vomiting.
20. Turning down the offer to stay a night on a floating house outside Chau Doc, Vietnam.
21. Driving into a thunderstorm during a tornado warning because I really didn't want to wait another day for my first glimpse of Nebraska. Had plenty of time to mull that one over, parked under a dentist's car park down-wind, while watching half the town pouring into a Wal Mart to huddle in sales sections away from windows.
22. Letting the film development shop in Tulsa throw away my photos from a trip to Rome after I complained (rightfully) that they didn't do a good job.
23. Turning down an invitation to hang with Civil War re-enactors camping by a basketball court at a forgotten battle event in southeastern Iowa. (See photo at top of post of completely different re-enactment.)
24. Skipping Mesa Verde during a five-day trip to Durango, Colorado.
25. Going whale-watching on an August trip to touristy Bar Harbor, Maine. Didn't see a minnow.
26. Going to Bar Harbor, Maine -- at least in August.
27. Obeying my parents who wouldn't let me, at age 16, to drive on a school night nine hours to Memphis with a free backstage pass for a REM show. (On the Fables tour!)
28. Not traveling more in Eastern Europe from 1989 to 1992, especially.
29. Only driving through Albuquerque. (At least AC/DC's 'TNT' was on the radio.)
30. Summer 1991: Too much time in Vienna, not enough time in Czechoslovakia.
31. Having laundry done in places like Khabarovsk, Russia, where dry-cleaning-prices-plus cost more than buying new clothes.
32. Driving across Western Kansas and skipping Mt Sunflower. Children, don't do what I've done!


33. Russia 1991 study trip: throwing vegetables at trams from our hotel window, tossing penny soccer games out of skyscrapers. Mostly it was Pete the minor league baseball player's fault.
34. Not keeping much of a journal while living 18 months in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in the mid '90s.
35. Not spending the night, or more time, much much more time, in Kavarna, Bulgaria - the heavy metal capital of the world.
36. Another Bulgaria burp (there are many): Not climbing through the smashed ground-level windows of this building to see the towering commie mosaics inside:

Admittedly the place, with its front steps smeared in a LOT of cow dung, freaked me out.

37. Not going to Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, when I had a chance in 1991, a few months before the war broke out.
38. Never going to Spain or Ireland, particularly when they were cheap.
39. After my trip, only once calling the lovely Grewals, the Sikh family who hosted a week-long stay in Chandigargh, India in 1997. Then losing their contact info.
40. Leaving my passport in my $8 room in Valladolid, Mexico, having to get off the bus on the highway, hitch-hike back to retrieve it.
41. Losing my photograph with Chris Jagger -- brother of Mick -- who wore a Tibetan hat after a regrettably bad cajun gig. (Watching live cajun/zydeco music by unfamous British brothers of famous British rock stars is another huge regret of mine. I can't seem to help myself.)
42. Losing my photographs of a great great day riding on the back of a local's bike and getting an airbrushed sign made in Batambang, Cambodia.
43. Staying with a Mexico City family in 1990, I bought some fake feces at Chapultepec and played a trick on kids way too young for the humor (maybe two years old?). Lesson: Save the fake feces for pranks back home.
44. A few hours to spare in touristy Deadwood, South Dakota with my dad, talked about dressing up as 19th-century gold prospectors for a hokey photo, but not doing it. This is easily outweighed by having my only just-dad-and-me trip and hearing his unguarded 'oh!' at first glimpse of Mt Rushmore, less than a year before he died. But I do have a photo with him at the taco truck outside Lonely Planet's Oakland offices:

45. On a two-date 'Indiana tour' (both in Greencastle) while playing guitar for the 'parted hair hardcore' band Tall Tales in college, we couldn't convince Mitch to call in sick and stop in at Six Flags Mid America in St Louis. Big-time regret, here.
46. Wetting my pants at my debut visit of Tulsa's legendary Woodland Hills Mall. Not sure if it was excitement or just plain nerves. Either way, my baseball uniform? Soaked from the waist down.
47. Not sending more post cards.

--> Feel free to share your dumb moments here, or at a new Lonely Planet 'Dumb Travel Moments' group I just started up.

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* Actually I think skipping a huge event like that isn't always a bad idea. Missing a walled-up Berlin is another matter.
** Please make the time to rewatch the John Cougar Mellencamp video to help me answer two key questions: At 2:32 mark is that really him sliding down tall ladder? And, at 2:48 mark, is that Mellencamper doing the moonwalk?
*** Anyone remember when Chevy Chase was funny? Vacation is to blame for the decline. It's good, but didn't play to his strengths. In Vacation, Chevy was clumsy and dumb. He's at his best, particularly in Fletch, when he's clumsy and smart. Probably his agent's fault.