London, England

Cleverly, we'd timed our arrival in London to coincide with another major sporting event: Wimbledon. Thus, hotels were scarce, but before too long we were ensconced in the Hotel Oliver, near the Earl's Court Tube station. We dropped our bags in the tiny room, then headed back out to the Imperial War Museum.

Navigating the Tube proved to be an experience (and it wasn't even rush hour yet) but eventually we did make it to the museum. Among the typical war museum exhibits (tanks, guns, planes, etc.), two stood out: the Trench Experience and the Blitz Experience. The Trench Experience was a walk-through reconstruction of a World War I trench at night. Realistic touches like the sounds of gunshots and tapes of soldiers speaking to one another made it feel authentic. Even smells were added, of gunpowder and meals cooking. Thankfully, the designers omitted the squish of mud underfoot.

The Blitz Experience was even more elaborate. Our group of about twenty visitors was first ushered into a bomb shelter, which shook with an explosion as we "survived" a German raid. Exiting the shelter, we emerged into smoke and confusion as the warden guided us past bombed out shops and homes, dust and debris scattered all around.

From the museum we walked to Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames to meet up with a walking tour. This tour was right up our alley: the "Along the Thames Pub Walk" from London Walks. Since it was a Friday evening, the pubs tended to be crowded, but we were still well able to enjoy the ambiance and the pints. Our tour took us backward in time, stopping first at a relatively modern bar right on the river with a great view of the city's skyline. Next we came to an 18th century labyrinth of a pub called The Anchor, not far from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Lastly, the George was renovated in the 17th century and has remained essentially unchanged since then. We had our dinner there, then, tired and sleepy, took the Tube back to our hotel.

The next morning we struck out intending to visit both the Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. We decided to save St. Paul's for another day as the Tower was too fascinating to leave any of it unexplored. We spent the whole day there, beginning with a guided walk by one of the Yeoman Warders, the military guardians of the Tower. The tour led from the main gate, past the Traitor's Gate (where prisoners were brought into the fortress), under the Bloody Tower and all through the complex. The guide's script was very entertaining and contained a great deal of humor, but it was mostly made up of stories of barbaric torture and imprisonment and executions, executions, executions.

That tour finished in time for us to catch another entitled "Attack the Tower." This tour was by reservation to a limited group, so only nine of us got led around the Tower complex to examine its defenses. We saw the walls, both inner and outer and from inside and outside, the arrow loops, the murder holes and the two remaining portcullises. (Or is that portculli?).

We also saw the Tower's Armoury and its collection of weapons and armour as well as a demonstration of how a medieval knight's armour was worn. The poor chap who had to wear it was sweating buckets from the weight and the heat, but he still gave an entertainingly humorous spiel. Of course, we stood in line to see the Crown Jewels and all the Coronation regalia, but the most enjoyable part of that display was the video of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation shown to the line of people waiting to get in. All of the rituals with their attendant artifacts were depicted, the Sword of Offering, the Royal Orb, and so on. Elizabeth looked like she was ready for a long nap by the time it was all done. By the time we were done with the Tower, we, too, were ready for a long nap.

The next morning we partook of another London Walks offering, the "Old Westminster" walk. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey; all the London highlights were on this tour. We heard many interesting stories, including coronation debacles: crowns put on backward, lords falling down drunk, parts of the ceremony skipped over, new monarch nodding off, etc. Then through St. James's Park for a look at Buckingham Palace, albeit only from the outside. Our timing coincided with the Changing of the Guard, so we watched as the band came down The Mall. Our tour continued through Trafalgar Square, home of Nelson's Column and several thousand pigeons. We finished up at Covent Garden with a pleasant lunch.

We had been fortunate enough the day before to purchase tickets to see "A Comedy of Errors" at Shakespeare's Globe. Seats had been sold out long ago, but standing room spots in the pit in front of the stage were available. The play was a delight, proof that Shakespeare shouldn't be just read, but seen. Since we were "groundlings," standing in the pit, sometimes the action took place all around us as the actors made their way on and off the stage. It was a pleasure to take in some local culture while still having it in our own language. (Well, almost.)

Our last full day of vacation took us to St. Paul's Cathedral, our last church of the trip. We climbed (and climbed and climbed) to the top of the dome for striking, yet overcast, views of the city. Back on ground level, we toured the inside of the church and saw monuments to various British notables from history, most (all?) of whom are buried in the crypt below. Down in the crypt, we saw the actual tombs of those memorialized above, such as Admiral Lord Nelson, Christopher Wren, and many others.

After lunch (mmm, pub food!), we took our last London Walks tour, this one in the British Museum, a thoroughly incredible place. It seems as though everything famous is here. There are friezes from the Parthenon, mummies from Egypt, rooms full of artifacts from civilizations throughout history, even the Rosetta Stone. Our guide told us that there is so much in the museum that if one was to read every exhibit label, allowing ten seconds each, it would take 38 years to see the entire collection. Using those numbers, we calculated that in our two and a half hours we saw 0.00002% of the museum. It is simply staggering. If we lived in London, I'd be there every day.

Another pub dinner, this one at the Orange Brewery, a 200 year old pub, followed by a farewell pint at the Rat & Parrot near our hotel, and we were back in our room to pack. We awoke the next morning both happy to be going home and sad to be finished with this grand vacation. At Heathrow, we boarded our plane for home.

Harwich, England

Our ferry ride from Hoek van Holland to Harwich was not as much fun as the other boat rides we'd taken on this trip. (All right, nothing compares to a Venetian gondola, but I was also referring to the Stadt Bern and the Peter Wessel.) Rather, we spent 15 Fl. for the dubious privilege of sitting in the "Panorama Room" watching the ship's wake through salt-encrusted windows. At least it was non-smoking. The ferry had movie theaters, slot machines, blackjack tables, bars, and a McDonald's. There was also a frenzy of duty-free shopping as that service was only a few days from being suspended. From all of this we abstained, and we found that the one redeeming feature of the ship was its speed; at one point the captain announced our speed at 44 knots.

Awaiting us in Harwich was our train to London.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

We came to Rotterdam in order to find a ferry to take us to England, so our first order of business upon arrival was to make our departure arrangements. With that accomplished, we had the rest of the afternoon free to explore the city.

Our first stop was the Kijk-Kubus, a fascinating condominium building by the architect Piet Blom. Each module of the complex is a private home in the shape of a cube; the tricky part is that each cube stands on one of its points, and none of the outside walls are vertical. We toured the one public unit in the complex and found it intriguing. The living space is on three levels; from the bottom up there's an entry and kitchen, then a sleeping area, then a loft/attic/lounge. It's a very clever, and obviously distinctive, design.

Our lunch in Rotterdam merits a mention as an educational experience. "Hamburger" in Dutch evidently means a ground ham patty with ketchup and onions on top, no bun. "Special hamburger" means the same, but add a slice of cheese and a fried egg between the patty and the onions. Tasty, but not what we'd had in mind.

Since it was bombed flat not once but twice during World War II, Rotterdam has become a modern architectural proving ground. The Nederlands Architectuurinstituut has exhibits on the history of local architecture as well as its future. We saw an exhibit titled "Two Centuries of Dutch Architecture" and one on underground architecture. (Literally underground, not just out of the mainstream.)

Outside the Architectuurinstituut, we got a special treat. We saw a common tern dive repeatedly into the institute's surrounding pool until it came up with a fish. The bird was so engrossed in feeding that it didn't seem to mind that we were only ten feet away.

Our architectural tour of Rotterdam then took us to the Euromast, a 185 meter tower overlooking the world's busiest harbor. This example from the because-we-can school of architecture afforded us a grand view of the city, as well as giving us a very clear impression of just how flat this country is.

While sipping beers (Heineken, of course) atop the Euromast, we decided it was time for dinner. We'd read that Delfshaven was the place to go for restaurants and bars and such, so that's where we went. Once we got there we thought, "This can't be it!" and so set off on foot, walking for over an hour before concluding that the one canalside street with a half-dozen restaurants really was "It." As it turned out, we did have a nice meal, capped off with a yoghurt, custard and fruit syrup dessert called flip. Yum.

We got up early the next morning so we could catch a train to the ferry port at Hoek van Holland and then the ferry to Harwich, England.

Arnhem, The Netherlands

Arnhem was another city we visited based on word-of-mouth from people we'd met along the way, and, like Antwerp, it proved to be a very pleasant and enjoyable place. We arrived in the early evening and took a stroll around the city, stopping for dinner at a pleasant café. During our stroll we noticed that many of the businesses in Arnhem close up as early as seven p.m., but that didn't bother us as we were in need of an early night.

The next morning we visited the Hoge Veluwe National Park, the place that had so piqued our interest that we decided to come to Arnhem. The park is the largest national park in the Netherlands, and like the rest of the country, it is almost entirely flat. This lack of topographical impediments makes the hundreds of free-access bicycles in the park even more attractive.

Admission to the park includes use of a bike; just pick one out of the many racks around the park and leave it in a rack when you're done with it. Very civilized. The bikes are simple affairs with coaster brakes and one gear, but that's fine in a place like this. We cruised around the northern end of the park, surprised to find a landscape that looked downright coastal: sand dunes anchored by grasses, scattered pines establishing themselves here and there. Later on, in the visitor's center, we learned that this landscape is partially the result of soil depletion from generations of farming and grazing. Eventually it became a unique ecosystem deserving of protection in its own right, so now this former wasteland is a national park.

The park also contains the Kröller-Müller Museum, home to a large collection of Van Goghs as well as more modern painting and sculpture, and the Museonder, a science museum devoted to the underground world. The Museonder is itself underground, and in its central gallery hang the roots of an enormous beech tree on the surface. Another prominent feature of the park is the St. Hubertus hunting lodge, itself a museum of art deco architecture.

Our bus from the park brought us back to downtown Arnhem, where we first went for another walk to admire the city's architecture. After that, we found Arnhem's nightlife, a zone of restaurants and bars arrayed around a church square. After dinner and ice cream, we visited a few pubs before calling it a night. The next day we were off to Rotterdam.

Fredericia, Denmark

Fredericia is more of a railroad hub than a tourist attraction, so we picked it only for its convenience as a place to spend the night. We rolled into town after most of the restaurants had already closed, but we found a pizza and kebab place that was still open. After dinner it was still very light out, so we walked around the town and discovered that Fredericia is a very quiet place. Ah well, all we really needed was a place to spend the night. In the morning, we'd be on our way again, first to Hamburg to change trains, then on to Arnhem in the Netherlands.

Billund (Legoland), Denmark

Billund is the home of the Lego company and the site of the first Legoland theme park. We're such fans of Lego that we had to make this slight detour to see its birthplace. The bus from Vejle deposited us not far from the main entrance, and upon walking through the gates, we were surrounded by Lego reconstructions of many of the famous sights we had already seen on our tour. Miniland, as this part of the park is named, featured not just static reproductions of landmarks, but animated layouts of whole regions. The buildings were accurate and to the proper scale, but the really amazing parts were the moving vehicles. We saw cars and buses, trucks and boats, even canals with locks and drawbridges, all in motion and perfectly synchronized.


We walked around the park and saw the other areas, like Pirateland and Castleland, but those had rides for smaller kids (not big kids like us!) and less actual Lego, so they were less of a draw for us. Instead, we took some seats in the Mindstorms Pavilion and built a walking robot-dinosaur from a set of plans that were provided, and then we improvised a motorized car. Later, we saw on display some kits for cars that had such amenities as a four-speed transmission!
Thoroughly impressed with Danish imaginative genius, we boarded the bus for a return trip to Vejle, and then a train to Fredericia.

Fredrikhavn, Denmark

We slept through the ship's P.A. announcement of our arrival back in Denmark and, once docked, hastily showered and packed in order to disembark. Once off the ferry, we discovered that the train station wasn't all that close to the pier. Hoisting our packs onto our shoulders, we hustled as fast as we could to the train station, where we boarded our train to the town of Vejle with less than a minute to spare. Phew!

After a quick lunch in Vejle, we got on a bus to Billund.

Oslo, Norway

Once we had made it into Oslo Station, we performed our usual routine of getting local currency and checking train schedules before getting back on a commuter train. We were heading south down the Oslo Fjord toward Holmestrand, the home of my Aunt Vibecke and Uncle Bob. An hour from Oslo, Bob was waiting at the station to pick us up.

Before getting to their house we stopped at the stables where their horses, Manhattan and Saffron, are kept. Vibecke and cousin Frederick were there, riding and tending the horses. We said our hellos and admired the animals before continuing on to the Homan household. We sat and chatted, filling our hosts in on our travels so far, all the while not noticing that it was getting past midnight. It was easy to not notice this because it wasn't even close to getting dark. Mid-June in these latitudes means only about an hour of true darkness each night.

Needless to say, we didn't get up at dawn the next morning. On his way into work, Bob dropped us off at the train station and we commuted back into Oslo. We walked around the heart of Oslo for a while, in the vicinity of the Nationaltheatret Metro stop, before finding a tourist office where we could obtain maps and info.

We decided to make the most of the beautiful weather and immediately go to the Holmenkollen, the ski jump used in the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. There's a ski museum at its base, where we saw, among other things, Roald Amundsen's skis and lead sled dog (stuffed), ancient skiing equipment, and many photos of the Norwegian Royal Family on skis. The museum leads to an elevator, which in turn leads to stairs to the top of the jump. From that height, one can see all of Oslo and the surrounding forests and fjords. One can also see that ski jumpers must be crazy to willingly jump from that height!

I had been to Norway before and I wanted Hannah to see the Gustav Vigeland sculpture garden at Frogner Park, so that became our next stop. We were both impressed with his work, which consists mainly of stone sculptures representing people at various stages of life. What impressed us most was how expressive the figures were, even though they had rather little in the way of facial features. Somehow, with minimal detail, Vigeland makes it clear what is on the mind of each of his subjects. The centerpiece af the garden is a roughly 20 meter obelisk of human forms representing the entire human life cycle. Again, we were struck by the clear understanding we could gain of each individual even without obvious gestures or features.

From there we crossed town to Akershus Slott, an castle from the 13th century that protected Oslo back when it was called Christiania. We'd come back to it later and see the rest of the castle; all we saw on our first visit was the Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum, a museum detailing the Nazi occupation of Norway from 1940-1945. The museum holds artifacts, dioramas, maps and newspapers which tell the story of the Norwegian resistance and eventual triumph.

Our next day was spent dodging raindrops on the Bygdøy peninsula. We took a city ferry from the Oslo waterfront across the fjord to see the four museums established on this side. First was the Norsk Folkemuseum, a collection of historic and representative buildings from Norway's past. Some were reconstructions, but others had been moved from their original locations and reassembled on site here. The buildings spanned the 13th century to the early 20th, and several were open for exploration. We visited a viking stave church bedecked with a mix of Norse and Christian symbolism, a medieval house with a fire going right in the center of the floor, and we had some delicious flatbread made fresh in one of the kitchen houses.

Moving further back in time, we came to the Vikingskipmuseet. This museum holds the remnants of three Viking burial ships from the 9th century. The ships had been looted centuries before, but the framing and some of the artifacts were still intact, and we saw wood, leather and fabric items that had been pulled from the same clay that preserved the ships.

Fast-forward to the 20th century: the Kon-Tiki Museum holds Thor Heyerdahl's reed boat of the same name, as well as the Ra II. Heyerdahl used these boats to illustrate his theories of human migration, sailing the Kon-Tiki across the Pacific and Ra II across the Atlantic. The museum showed films of the expeditions and their supporting evidence for Heyerdahl's theories.

Next door to that was the Fram-museet, named for the research vessel used by Nansen and Amundsen for their polar explorations. The whole ship is inside the museum, and the gallery walls are lined on two levels with artifacts and photos. The ship is open and can be explored, but it's rather cramped below decks. I can't imaging spending any amount of time confined down there, so it's astounding to realize that this small ship has reached more than 80° latitude both north and south. What journeys those must have been!

Just in case we'd somehow missed that Norway is a seafaring nation, our last stop on Bygdøy was the Sjøfartsmuseet. This was a general maritime museum with an extensive collection of ship models and exhibits on technological advances in navigation and shipbuilding. The highlight of this museum was a panoramic movie of Norway's coastal scenery. We decided on the spot that we needed to come back to Norway on a coastal cruise. Norway may be the most beautiful country on Earth.

We spent some time outside the museum watching the harbor and the birds before taking the ferry back over to the city. There we met cousin Christopher and his girlfriend Marit for diner. We walked around the Aker Brygge, a renovated waterfront area of shops and restaurants not unlike Nyhavn in Copenhagen. It took us a while to find a place to eat, as most of the restaurants were packed and incredibly expensive. Oslo, we'd been told, is the second-most expensive city in the world (after Tokyo) and we believe it.

After dinner (Cajun food, of all things) and coffee and tea at a nearby café, Christopher took us to NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting, the national television and radio broadcasters) Studios, where he works. He showed us studios (one made up for a cooking show) and control centers and the carpentry shop and some digital video editing suites. Christopher is working as a production manager on promotional spots for NRK's broadcasts. Sometimes he even does voice-overs, which his parents can hear on TV at home.

Taking a break from tourism, we spent the next day at an equestrian competition. Frederick was competing in two jumping events, 1.1 and 1.2 meters, which were being contested at the national level. Out of 88 riders, Frederick finished 17th in the first event, not so highly in the second. It was fun to watch the horses jump (or not jump, it's their choice), and we had Bob nearby to explain what we were watching. Probably the best part of the day was that we spent it sitting in the sun. As such, we were a bit pink, but well rested.

Uncle Bob was gracious enough to play tour guide on our last full day in Norway. With cousin Alexander riding shotgun, we drove around the vicinity of Holmestrand, south along the Oslofjord. Our fist stop was a Viking burial site, the location from which the ships we'd seen at the Vikingskipsmuseet had been taken. There were many burial mounds left, remaining undisturbed. We walked around for a bit and enjoyed the cool air.

We then visited the H. family's summer cottage. It's in Hvasser, a town on an island in the fjord, the last island in a series of four connected by bridges to the mainland. The rocky shoreline scenery here was spectacular, but the high wind made it difficult to stand and admire it for long. The wind did provide excellent propulsion for a windsurfer out on the chilly water.

From there, we went to Tønsberg, the oldest town in Norway. The oldest structures are on top of a hill with an excellent view, but the buildings themselves are little more than foundations. This shouldn't be a huge surprise, since the town was settled 1100 years ago.

On our departure day we woke up to a downpour. Our luck with the weather had to run out sometime. We lazed around the house until the rain showed signs of letting up, then we went back into Oslo to see the Nasjonalgalleriet. Due to the strike at the Louvre and the closure (due to remodeling) of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, this was the first art museum we'd been to since Italy. In addition to Norwegian artists like Edvard Munch, the museum also holds a large collection of European art, so we were able to see works by Gaugin, Monet, Manet, Degas, Cezanne, Rodin and Van Gogh. (Ha! Who needs the Louvre, anyway?!) Many of the paintings were realist landscapes, so even though it was gray and dreary outside, we could still see beautiful Norwegian scenery.

We took advantage of a break in the rain to go back to Akershus Slott and see the rest of the castle, which we toured from dungeon to banquet hall. The interior layout of the rooms was very interesting; rooms had floors that dropped away to become stairs that could the be covered with bulkheads that had stairs on them leading up to provide a split-level effect. Even in such a big castle, not an inch of space was wasted.

We left Oslo to go back to Holmestrand for dinner and farewells, then Bob drove us south to the port of Larvik, where we boarded the M/S Peter Wessel. Somehow, on this ten deck behemoth of a ferry, we found the bar. We ordered a couple of beers while we sat and listened to the most clichéd lounge band of all time (sample repertoire: "Feelings" and "You Were Always on My Mind") with a singer who sounded like a cross between Bob Dylan and Speedy Gonzales. We tolerated the band as long as we had to to watch Norway recede in the distance, then, finally, when it was out of sight, we headed to our cabin. We settled in and prepared to wake up in Frederikshavn, Denmark.

Sweden

Our entry to Sweden was uneventful, as all our border crossings tended to be. We simply walked past some Swedish customs officials who presumably would have stopped suspicious-looking people, had there been any. We boarded a train to Göteborg, where we changed to an Oslo-bound train. Looking out the windows of the train, we could see that Sweden is a very pretty country, but our schedule (and our finances) couldn't support even a brief stop. As we traveled through the greenery, with forests and lakes all around, the conductor announced over the P.A. that we had just crossed into Norway.

Copenhagen, Denmark

We arrived in Copenhagen in the early evening after a long train (and boat) ride, but it's summertime, and it doesn't get dark here until midnight. So, after checking in at our hotel we visited the nearby Tivoli Gardens. First, we had dinner at a Viking themed place called Valhal, where the portions come in two sizes: Ladyviking and Man Viking. (Really. I guess political correctness hasn't hit Denmark yet.) We were pleased to have been mistaken for Danes by our waiter, but that impression didn't last long once he started asking us questions. We couldn't keep up the illusion, but it was nice not to be immediately pegged as tourists.


Tivoli Gardens is a small amusement park, but it has a wide variety of rides from "Door No. 13," a medically themed house of horrors, to "The Golden Tower," a 63 meter free fall. Secured in roller-coaster type seats (the kind with the over-the-shoulder restraints), we were winched up to the top of the ride for an ominous pause followed by an earthward plummet, finishing with a slow series of bounces. It was so thrilling we did it twice. We ended the evening by watching the fireworks display over the lake at the center of the park.


Having developed a liking for walking tours, we took another one the next morning. Our guide, an expatriate New Yorker, led us from city hall to the university, through churches and past a castle, the Rosenborg Slot. He was an entertaining fellow with a good sense of humor, and he ended the tour by acting out the story of "The Little Mermaid" for us in front of a statue of Hans Christian Andersen. Along the way we passed the practice grounds for a Danish military band. There they were, dressed in camouflage, playing such martial tunes as "Carmen" and "Heigh-Ho." Our lunch that day came at our guide's recommendation: smørrebrød from a local shop.

Our next must-see attraction was the Carlsberg Brewery. We were getting pretty familiar with the normal mash tun to fermentation tank to tasting room route, but here we also got to see the bottling line. Knowing the fundamentals of beer production as we do, brewery tours provide us with other amusement. For instance, the guide here made quite a point of telling us that Carlsberg's signature horses, the Danish Jutland breed, were the strongest and most powerful horses in the world. We got the distinct impression a comparison was being made, but she never mentioned Clydesdales. Also housed here is the world's largest collection of beer bottles; room after room, the display holds over 10,000 bottles, all different.

We also saw the legacy of an unfortunate marketing decision. Before Hitler was even born, J. C. Jacobsen adopted the swastika as the logo for his new brand of beer. This logo was understandably dropped in 1940, but the displays at the visitor center still show some examples. We didn't see any swastikas anywhere in Germany, and then we came to a Danish brewery...

We had dinner at Nyhavn, a restored waterfront area along a canal. It used to be the red light district, but they've cleaned it up and turned it into a pedestrian area with shops and restaurants. It took us a while to find a restaurant that met our budgetary needs, but once we did we were quite happy with the meal, and we were again mistaken for Danes. After dinner we climbed the ramp to the top of the Rundetaarn, the oldest functioning observatory in Europe. From the top of the tower, we could see the bridge being built from Denmark to Sweden.

We knew we couldn't leave Copenhagen without seeing the statue of the Little Mermaid, so after dinner we trekked off to find it. This proved to be more of a challenge than we had anticipated, as the statue is located far from downtown. Also, the signs were misleading and our freebie map from the tourist office had a few inaccuracies. At one point, we wandered into some Danish military installation, only to wander immediately back out with a wary and armed Dane following us.

Eventually, we found her. She's perched on a rock just off the shore in the harbor. There are no special lights or other fanfare; she just sits there, looking forlornly at the passing ships. By the time we got there, it was dark, so we didn't stay long before heading back to our hotel. The next morning, we caught an early train to Helsingør, where we got on a ferry across the straits to Helsingborg, Sweden.

The North Sea

The distances spread out considerably in this part of Europe. From Berlin, we spent 10 hours on a train to get to Copenhagen. We passed through Hamburg on our way to the coast, where our train crossed the North Sea. No bridge involved: the train got on a ferry, and then on the other side, it rolled off. In the interim we were able to get out of the train and go up on deck to take in the clean air. We were also welcome to make use of the restaurant, video games and slot machines on board, but having run out of Deutschmarks and not yet being in possession of Kroner, we had to pass. We enjoyed the crossing just the same, and soon we were back on land, on rails, and on our way to Copenhagen.

Berlin, Germany

Finally, on our fourth stop in Germany, my German started to resurrect itself. This was good, because we soon found ourselves in a lodging crisis due to a big soccer game scheduled for the same weekend. The tourist office at the Ostbahnhof was unable to help us, as was the main tourist office near Zoo Station. That left us one alternative: the phone. I dialed all of the hotels in the guidebook and, using my fractured German, managed to secure a room at the last place on the list. While not quite as run-down as our room in Barçelona, it was no great value, either, and there was no mystery as to why this was the last room available in the city.

Being well rested from our overnight train ride, we immediately hit the streets on a walking tour. "Insider Tours" boasts native English speakers for guides, and our Australian leader took us on a march over what seemed to be the entire city. We met near Zoo Station (Zoologischer Garten) and trekked through the Tiergarten, past the zoo, and on to the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, Museumsinsel, and finally to a conclusion at Marx-Engels-Platz where our guide gave us a very evocative account of the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent reunification of the city. Our tour, initially listed at three hours, had gone to over four and a half, but we were never bored. Tired and footsore, but not bored.

After a post-tour nap and laundry at the hotel we were back out to find dinner. This we accomplished at Zur Letzten Instanz, in the former East Berlin. Established in 1621, Berlin's oldest restaurant serves hearty foods and delicious beer to locals. The place is definitely off the tourist track, but the staff and fellow patrons were friendly and helpful, and we had a delicious meal.

From dinner we walked off to the Fernsehturm, a television broadcast tower with an observation deck high above Alexanderplatz. Over 400 meters high, it's the tallest thing in Berlin, and it used to be in the East. It was built as monumental proof of the superiority of communism, but eventually it was found out that the design was Swedish and the funding came from foreign aid money. The view from the top was a bit disappointing, due in part to the weather but also to the absence of lights in that part of town.

The next morning we got up early to visit the zoo, which holds the world's largest collection at over 11,000 animals. The weather was pleasantly cool and we ambled about the place, but we didn't say too long. After all, we can go to a zoo anywhere, but how often do we get to go shopping at KaDeWe? Berlin's largest department store had the supplies we needed, and also a Bayern München shirt for me.

We revisited Checkpoint Charlie, which we'd passed through on our walking tour the day before. The Museum-Haus am Checkpoint Charlie held lots of interesting exhibits, but the place is rather jumbled. There are displays on escape attempts and devices, the history of Soviet expansion after World War II, the fall of communism, and non-violent movements of this century, but they aren't arranged in any coherent order. Still, we did our best and muddled through the displays, mostly marveling at the ingenuity and desperation of some of the escape devices.

From there we walked through the Brandenburg Gate. It was staggering to realize that for 28 years no one walked through that imposing gate, and as recently as ten years earlier we could have been shot for trying. Now the only risk is the traffic; Beemers and Benzes, not a Trabant in sight. The Brandenburger Tor is now a central spot in the city for public performances, and as we passed a concert was being staged, so unfortunately for us, the gate was mostly hidden behind scaffolding and rigging. We understand that it's now very common to not get a good look at the gate on a visit to Berlin.

Our last stop in Berlin was the newly renovated Reichstag building. An imposing masonry building, it now sports a glass dome at the top. A spiral ramp leads to the top of the dome for a view of the city. It's a lower angle of view than the Fernsehturm, and that allowed us to see the symbol of 1990's Berlin silhouetted against the darkening sky: the construction crane. Our tour guide had told us the day before that 80% of the construction cranes in Europe were in use in Berlin, over 1200 of them. From the dome, we could see hundreds. It will be interesting to see in a few years how much this city has changed.

No time to wait around now, though. The next morning, we were off to Copenhagen.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

As we departed Antwerp by train, we anticipated our arrival in Amsterdam amidst a chaotic sea of backpackers and tourists. On our arrival, it was obvious to us that we had left the peace and tranquility of Antwerp behind, but Amsterdam seemed well able to handle the influx. Although the volume of travelers was large, the system hadn't been stretched beyond its capacity as it had been in Barçelona and Paris. There were lines to wait in as we booked our departure and our hotel room, but they were handled efficiently and soon enough we were aboard a streetcar heading from the Centraal Station to our hotel.

Our first stop after checking in was the Anne Frankhuis, possibly the most famous building in Amsterdam. Even though I have never read her book, the sight of those small rooms in which Anne and her family hid from the Nazis was deeply moving. Other than the removal of the furniture by the Nazis, the hidden rooms are still exactly as they were when occupied by the Frank family. In those surroundings I tried to imagine myself in the same circumstance, as surely everyone who visits does, and found myself wondering how long I could stand it. The fear must have been overwhelming, and the confinement stifling. The exhibit also continues the story of the Franks from the time they were captured through the discovery and publication of Anne's diary.

From our quiet little hotel near the Leidseplein we walked to a delicious rijstafel meal at a nearby Indonesian restaurant. This was a splendid little colonial era holdover; we had asked for "local" cuisine recommendations at our hotel, and been told that Indonesian was the best food in Amsterdam. After dinner we walked downtown for a look at Amsterdam's notorious Red Light District. The district comprises rows of houses on both sides of a canal, and is indeed lit up in red. We watched as groups of men goaded each other into approaching the "ladies," who were displaying their charms in the doorways and windows of their individual flats. Most of them looked quite bored. We quickly grew bored as well and made our way back to the hotel, passing one of Amsterdam's many "coffee shops" along the way. This one had several large cannabis plants on display in its front window, just in case we hadn't remembered that in Amsterdam, "coffee shop" is synonymous with "marijuana bar." In any case, while we were in Amsterdam, where marijuana use is not legal but is also not prosecuted, we didn't see much in the way of overindulgence. Then again, maybe that's because we were in bed before things really got going.

The next morning, we toured the Heineken brewery, which was also not far from our hotel. The tour is very inexpensive, only two Guilders (about US $1), so it fills up quickly. The Heineken building was built in 1867 and served as a brewery for 120 years, but it is no longer a working brewery. The fermentation tanks have been turned into walk-through multimedia presentation chambers with displays, videos, lights and all the bells and whistles. There was an interesting contrast between this tour and the Pilsner Urquell tour we'd taken previously. Here, the emphasis was not solely on the brewing process but on marketing, packaging and distribution as well. (Is the difference attributable to East vs. West, or Quality vs. Quantity? Hmmm.) The conclusion of the tour took us to a bar inside the building where we were welcome to taste the product. In fact, we were welcome to taste as much of the product as we wanted in half an hour.
Slightly tipsy, we wandered off to the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands' main historical and art museum. The historical part of the museum displayed a multitude of ship models and artifacts from the East India Company, as well as exhibits on the settling and cultural development of the Netherlands. The art gallery's most famous piece is Rembrandt's Nightwatch, but many other Dutch artists are also represented. The museum tied together the history and the art in such a way as to give a unique perspective and a better overall presentation than could be found at an exclusively art or history museum.

Amsterdam actually has more canals than Venice, so we decided to explore them from a glass-topped cruiser. The canals of Amsterdam are laid out concentrically, unlike the canals of Venice, but it remains a subject for debate which city's waterways are the more confusing. In Venice, the canals wander haphazardly about the city and each is unique; in Amsterdam, the straight, tree-lined canals all look exactly alike from the water level, so one must know the city very well to navigate.

Our last stop in Amsterdam was (I'm almost embarrassed to say) the Sexmuseum Venustempel. In the interests of keeping the internet a family-friendly place, I won't describe what was inside the museum. Use your imagination, but whatever you thought of, there's something more extreme inside. After a quick bite to eat we took our leave of Amsterdam and boarded our overnight train to Berlin.