Our first trip after our December holiday home was to a destination we'd often considered but passed over many times for various reasons. Yup, you guessed it - The Harz. We picked out a weekend when we hoped it would be in decent snow so we could see the region in white, booked our nights accommodation in Wernigerode and planned out how we were going to get there and what we might do there. It all came together fairly easily - we just needed the snow part to co-operate. So that Saturday morning, we headed to the Alexanderplatz Station to catch our train to Wernigerode. It was a train run by a special private company, and the tickets for it could only be bought on board. The tickets were a bargain I thought - for a return trip over the weekend, it would cost €29 for the two of us and the train would take us to Wernigerode without having to change. It did take 3 hours in each direction, but this was neither here nor there as far as we were concerned and there was quite a lot of snow landscape to watch go by as the sun rose over the land. The snow was getting thicker, and then after Magdeburg it started getting thinner - to the point when we got to Halberstadt, about 20mins from Wernigerode there was no snow on the ground anymore. The snow returned in that last 20 minutes and we could see there was snow on the hills. We were planning to go into the hills anyway so we'd at least get snow that way. The train was slightly late and a lot of people piled off and rushed to go catch the Harz narrow-gauge Steam Train at the nearby platform before it departed. We were going to ride the train, but a bit later - we decided to visit the station and get our tickets now though. There was a sign on the door in German which we had to translate but it said trains were not running beyond Shierke to Brocken due to weather, which seemed to disappoint most people but for us that was fine as we weren't planning on going any further than Shierke anyway. Apart from the fact it cost over double to travel the extra distance from Shierke to Brocken at the top of the hill, I'd been keeping an eye on the webcams and weather at the Brocken, and it had looked appalling white-out conditions all the previous week. I've been up the Brocken in bad weather and I certainly am not looking for a repeat (to be honest with it being so exposed, having good weather up there seems a bit rare). We got our tickets, then wandered around the main streets of Wernigerode for a while and even visited the same shop where Dion got his socks from the last time I was there. They had some choice clothing sale specials on and Sasha and I bought one or two items each before heading back to the station, where we caught the train. The train took us through Wernigerode and up to Drei Annen Hohne, and while I expected the scenery to look pretty in the snow I didn't anticipate how pretty it might look especially with white hills highlighted with blue skies behind. Sasha and I spent longer out on the platforms than either of us intended getting photos! We knew at Drei Annen Hohne we'd have to change trains as our train would go on to Nordhausen instead. So we get off at Drei Annen Hohne and instead of 3 trains, there is only 2. The other train that was not ours looked set to head back to Wernigerode, so where was the train that we needed? had it not come yet? our train soon took off with no-one on it, but then parked the carriages up in a different platform and the engine then went off by itself. What on earth is going on? I went into the station and asked about our train - luckily the lady spoke a little English, and said the train we wanted to catch wasn't running but there was another one to Shierke in an hour. We hadn't planned on being at Drei Annen Hohne for much time, let alone an hour so we got some lunch from a nearby stand at the station and wandered to another areas of stands and got some Glühwein. Eventually our train showed up, we hopped on and rode up to Shierke where there was a large crowd at the platform, who looked like they were waiting to hop on the train and ride it back downhill. We anticipated that this would be the case also and beyond taking a few photos, didn't move much from the train. Only when I noticed that the carriages were all empty and that crowd had vanished somewhere, did I go ask the ticket office lady what time the next train was. Turns out we were going to be at Shierke for 90 minutes, which was longer than we anticipated or imagined. However we made the most of it by wandering up a snow driving path where some were using sleds, and Sasha fell in the snow about 4 times as she'd lose footing in the deeper parts! we also sampled some of the Schnapps of all sorts of different varieties that we'd acquired also, before eventually boarding the train and heading back down to Drei Annen Hohne where we had to change to yet another train in order to return to Wernigerode. Our plan was to go back to the clothing store upon our return to Wernigerode and see if there was anything else that we wanted to buy (loads actually, but we only bought a few more things - as we only had so much room in our bags to carry things!), and once that was done we had a little bit of time to kill before going to the Hotel Restaurant for our dinner booking so we started wandering the darkened streets of Wernigerode - only for it to start snowing on us, lightly at first and then fairly heavily! by the time we had gotten back to the Hotel it started easing but everything was covered in a pleasing blanket of white. We got our hoped-for table by the window for dinner, which meant our drinks were delivered by model train which was quite a fun quirk! After our very substantial breakfast, we checked out of the Hotel and headed out into Wernigerode, wandering our way towards the Schloss or Castle. Its not a leisurely hike up the steep path to the Schloss, but once we were up there we had a rather lovely view of a snow-blanketed Wernigerode. I'd been in the castle once before with Dion, and while we did think about going in we decided against it this time as it wasn't anything much special. After a walk down the hill and a fairly leisurely walk through the town, having coffee in a shop and checking out a few other shops (interestingly open on a Sunday, which isn't the norm for Germany) we arrived at the road intersection near the Westerntor station where the train goes through it. According to the timetable we should see two trains pass through, one in each direction within about 5 minutes of each other and in the very light snow we saw one, but the other was a no-show. We popped into the Westerntor station to look at the shop there, saw the display screen which listed the next Schierke-bound train and decided to go for a wander through the town along the path that follows the railway track and catch a photo or two of this next train when it would pass through. We decided to halt at a nice looking spot, and decided to try the last of our Schnapps bottles just as a group of Germans walked by - they seemed quite amused and said "Prost!" to us as they passed. The train came, we got our photos and then we walked back through town, eventually finding a place to have a late-lunch-early-dinner where we had a very hearty stew and a beer, before heading back to the station to catch our late afternoon train back to Berlin. The train was super packed upon leaving Wernigerode but we did manage to find two seats opposite each other in a group of 4, and I figured either the train would become even more full at the next main stop of Halberstadt or it might empty out. Just as we are pulling into Halberstadt I notice a family in a group of three seats behind us get up and walk to the door, so I plonked my bag on the seat and we moved into the group of three seats ourselves. Turns out the train emptied out, so we were able to keep the 3 seats to ourselves. Unlike some of our other travels where we arrive back in Berlin fairly late at night, it was only 8.45pm when we got back into Berlin so with the short tramride home, we still had a bit of the evening free to wind down and get things ready for the next day before heading to bed - which was quite nice for a change! Well we finally got back to the Harz, and it was the white wonderland that we had hoped for in the end! The special train made things fairly easy to get there and back, and Wernigerode is a lovely almost stereotypical German town straight from a fairytale - so very pretty. I think we both enjoyed the trip, and while we might have done a bit and seen a bit, it was on the whole a slower-paced and more relaxing weekend away than we have typically done in recent times. So we've done the Harz, although Quedlinberg still remains as a potential location to visit on our list. Quedlinberg can be easily reached by the same train that took us to Wernigerode, so its all doable - perhaps a summertime visit when its warm? Maybe we won't get around to that one, who knows. But I certainly enjoyed going back to Wernigerode, and also seeing the steam trains there in the snow again - like I had hoped I might!
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While it was prudent for us to return when we did from our Christmas trip back to Australia and New Zealand, if we could possibly at all do it we wanted to see if we could experience New Year's in Berlin as apparently it goes off. Our friends and work colleagues from Berlin had warned against going into the city for New Years or during New Years day, saying it was carnage and often fights break out particularly on New Years Day. However we wanted to go to the official party at the Brandenburg gate if we could - because this might be the only chance we get to experience it and see for ourselves what it might be like.
Having arrived in Berlin only that morning at 6am from the big flight back from Australia, we had slept most of the day away in order to try and recover. We knew that the event area was gated, had bag and security searches due to fears about terrorism-related activity and they would close the gates when it was considered the area was full. The key was to try and get in before it was full and they closed the gates, so we arrived at the entry about 7.30pm. We got in, we wandered around the fairground with the rides and drinks, and even went for a ride up the Ferris Wheel which was an open-sided affair and could actually be spun round in a circle - this seemed neat until you got spun and you realised its actually kind of terrifying! It was also kind of cold, being winter and all of that. The gates ended up closing about 9pm instead, which was when they deemed it full and told everyone not to try and work your way up to the front anymore - but unless you were right at the front, there was plenty of room to move around and it wasn't packed in general by any stretch of the imagination! we found a spot in the middle of the closed-off road near one of the large screens where we could see the main stage clearly but also get a close-up view of what was going on. There were a lot of music acts happening, some of which we recognised from the German songs we've listened to and others we didn't know of. The headline act of the event was Jermaine Jackson, brother of Michael Jackson and one of the members of the Jackson 5 and he sung us into the New Year, at which point there was a large and impressive fireworks display let off - although I swear I've seen better displays in Wellington for Guy Fawkes. By now we were flagging a little bit, so started making the move towards home and we determined the best way would be to catch the S-Bahn from the nearby Hauptbahnhof (main station) and then catch a tram from Alexanderplatz rather than try and get to the S-Bahn station at the Brandenburg Gate. This involved walking across the park in front of the Reichstag, and across the bridge and plaza area in front of the Hauptbahnhof. It was during this walk we started experiencing something we'd been told about - people letting off their fireworks in public. These aren't just any fireworks though, don't think of the crappy fireworks we so often get in New Zealand for Guy Fawkes - these are the old more decent kind, the skyrockets and everything like that kind, and apparently often imported illegally from Poland. Naturally, they are a bit overpowered and dangerous but what was just incredible to see what the many, many small groups of people just letting off their fireworks - and they always had more to let off. The air was thick with the gunpowder fumes and all manner of coloured lights coursing their way into the skies. At a few points we paused to watch some of them, but as we got closer to the Hauptbahnhof I started becoming more aware of how we were potentially in the firing line as there was a lack of care in which direction people were firing them off in. Just as we neared the entrance doors to the Hauptbahnhof some people lit some fireworks and Sasha wanted to pause to watch - I responded by moving her hurriedly into the revolving door, explaining that we were in the firing line and it would be better to watch them from behind the glass wall. We ended up spending some time up on the open air platform which is a few stories above ground, watching all the fireworks go off over central Berlin. We ended up at home, and one thing had become very apparent was the huge mess of all the spent fireworks and attendant rubbish all over the streets and footpaths as people just left the mess everywhere once they'd let them off. The noise in our street, which is usually very quiet was quite something - you could hear fireworks going off all the time, some with incredibly big booms and every so often one was much louder because it was much closer. I've never been in a war zone, and I hope I never do - but the noise of those fireworks going on, and on, and on, and on all night long must be what it can be like when a city is being shelled. We didn't venture out the next day (still recovering quietly from the jet lag), but could still hear the occasional firework being let off. Berlin must drain Poland and wherever else these fireworks come from dry for New Years and the amount of gunpowder that had been let off probably helped push Berlin close to its annual pollution limits for a year in one day! I've never seen or heard anything like it, and what was also surprising was when I headed off to work on the 2nd was the clean streets - those same streets which had been trashed to hell, were now clean like nothing had ever happened. Berlin must have one really big and effective cleaning army on the 1st January each year! So that was goodbye 2016, hello 2017 - what is in store for us this year? |
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August 2019
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