Lutherstadt-Wittenberg and Berlin

Our first stop yesterday was Lutherstadt-Wittenberg. Now for those of you who know anything or nothing about church history, this is the home of Martin Luther, the 16th century monk who stood up against the Roman Catholic Church's practise of taking indulgence money in return for "absolving" people of their sin (which of course can't happen I should add!) One man in a tiny German outpost that stood up for what he believed to be true, and did not waver. It was inspiring! We toured the Lutherhaus, his former monastery-turned-home after he was ex-communicated as a monk and married an ex-nun! We saw the door of the Castle Church (the original wooden one burnt down) where he nailed his 95 thesis. The bronze one is etched with his writings in Latin apparently. Unfortunately for us though many of the buildings were covered with scaffolding and fencing as they are doing major work to get these iconic places fully renovated for the 500 year anniversary in 2017. I did my best to nuzzle my lens between the wires though!

 

We then moved onto Berlin and wow, what a fascinating place! We are brushing up on Cold War history and especially the era of the Wall. It's unbelievable what pain and heartache this structure (and what it stood for) created for people during that time. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, toured the Wall Museum and read stories of successful and unsuccessful escape attempts. There is a row of bricks, showing where the wall used to be and there are still remnants of the wall to be found, including a section made into a long contemporary art installation and a Berlin version of the Chewing Gum wall (especially for Ainz and Jamie!) 

There is a minimalist but very effective Holocaust Memorial, made up of over 2000 concrete slabs of varying heights with undulating ground that people wander through. Makes for a stunning photo if you can catch a section without heads popping up suddenly! Many of the buildings are incredibly drab, especially in the old East Berlin section and almost everywhere you look there is construction work going on. A handful are beautiful (see below with some lovely autumn trees) but they are rare due to 90% of Berlin being destroyed during WWII.

Despite that we really loved it here.