Off to London!

My parents took a tour of the UK after leaving Berlin so I headed to London to meet them before they flew home. I have visited many times but it had been 7 years since I was last there. It was great to visit again and I took the time to see a couple of things I had never done before – the Tate Modern and Churchill’s War Rooms.

I am not generally a fan of modern and contemporary art but lately I find myself more and more in these types of museums. The Tate Modern is extremely well done with lots of interesting pieces and exhibits on display – in addition, the general collection is free!

I took a few shots of some of the pieces I found interesting.

And for my Ottawa peeps, look familiar?

I also strolled along the Millennium Bridge for the first time.

I am glad I waited to do the war rooms until now because I was able to compare the bunkers I had seen in Berlin which were much simpler and stark to the underground offices Churchill had set up. Part of the difference though lie in the fact that the operation centres of the Germany army were destroyed for obvious reasons so the bunkers you visit are more of a bomb shelter. 

Main situation room

Major Desmond Morton, PM's Military Adviser

Churchill's dining room

Churchill's bedroom

The War Rooms also include a museum with artifacts from Churchill's life. It was also well done and quite extensive. As everything is behind glass, the picture didn't turn out great but here a few to get a sense.

Churchill didn't like noise so he made everyone use silent typewriters 

Since I have so many pictures of London already, I didn’t take a whole lot of the usual sites but I had to take a few of Trafalgar as Canada House was already decked out for our 150^th!

And the cross walk lights rival Berlin!

Of course a trip to London would not be complete without a trip to the pub and theater!

Berlin leftovers

There are random pictures from my parents' trip that didn't fit into the other posts so these are the leftovers. 

Berlin has lots of Höfes which are courtyards. One of the better known is the Hackesche Höfe near Hackesher Markt. It is mostly stores and restaurants but also includes a theater, cinema and apartments. I actually looked at an apartment in this area.The reason why this one is so well known is for the art deco interior the first courtyard has.

I've already written about the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church but as I had guests, we went by again. The notable change from my previous post is there is now a memorial to the victims of the Christmas Market attack.

One place I haven't really covered yet is the Tiergarten. The Tiergarten is a park in the middle of the city that runs from the Brandenburg gate to the just past the zoo. It was originally a hunting ground before the city was developed - tier means animal in German. It was part of West Germany when the city was divided. Today, it's a massive park where people can walk around, go to biergartens and see part of the zoo without actually going to the zoo. Finally the weather turned at the end of the week so we had to check it out!

A day of food and drink!

I see the TV Tower everyday but it took me 9 months before I actually went to visit it. 

The Fernsehturm sits on Alexanderplatz was constructed by the GDR between 1965 and 1969. It was supposed to be a symbol of power for Eastern Germany and remains the tallest structure in Germany at 368m. Not only did we go up but we also had lunch – it’s a bit of a touristy thing to do but it was fun to do as the restaurant revolves. It takes about an hour to do one rotation. We were also lucky that after days of crappy weather, we finally had sun!

It's where I live!

Later that day, we also did a craft beer tour. Craft beer is a relatively new thing in Germany since beer is so sacred here. The laws regarding how beer is brewed, known as the Reinheitsgebot, go as far back as 1487 in the duchy of Munich. The laws remain strongest in Bavaria though there have been some adaptations over time. Sadly I took only one photo of the first bar so here it is . . .