Final Berlin Scenes & into Poland

Although Phillip and I have made our way into Poland, I have a few Berlin pictures to share. Before we left Germany, we spent a day walking thru the Tiergarten, Berlin’s version of Central Park. During our 8+ mile stroll, we enjoyed the Rose Garden area. Although it isn’t rose season, the garden was still beautiful.

The Tiergarten traffic circle had a spectacular center statue. I took pictures for a family with the statue in the background then they offered to take one for us. So, yes, Phillip and I are traveling together! I haven’t lost him yet.

The Tiergarten was full of statues, either soldiers, famous statesmen, or hunting scenes like this.

Several streams ran the length of the park, some with pools of still water that made a great reflecting surface for the trees. 

Unlike my posts during our SE Asia trips, I haven’t posted many food pictures. Since we’ve been in tourist areas and our hotel is immediately next to the main train station, we didn’t eat traditional German food. On Monday, we did visit a local market about 6 trams stops from our hotel. We went for the food and it did not disappoint! Delicious wurst, red cabbage, and potatoes cooked with bacon.

As I noted, we are now in Poland. Our train ride was almost four hours and was quite comfortable. We crossed a national border but because Germany and Poland are both EU countries, there was no actual border crossing, no passport stamp. We knew when our train crossed into Poland because Verizon sent us a text message that we had phone service here. Our first stop is Poznan and our hotel room, near the historic old town, is more comfortable and larger than the Berlin hotel room. Phillip tried to find an English language channel. No luck, so we watched a game show in Polish for an hour last night!

Phillip and I are only in Poznan for two nights because the historic old town, Stare Miastro, is its only attraction. We walked there today, only to find that Poznan is in the midst of a reconstruction project. The entire historic town square in under construction. These are views from the barely open sidewalk on two sides of the square.

At the historic square, the town’s Clock Tower is famous, with a live trumpeter at noon, and the fanfare accompanied by two mechanical goats, symbols of Poznań, head-butting each other 12 times. This pair of goats has been facing off since 1551. Crowds gathered for the noon show. 

We saw the trumpeter, on a walkway above the clock.

However, the doors, just above the clock in the above picture, never opened for the goats! We found a statue of the historic goat head-butting scene in a nearby park.

Poznan has a croissant museum, making St. Martin croissants. We stopped by and learned that they had a 2 pm tour in English, so we signed up to learn the story. St. Martin helped the poor in the 12th century and served as the inspiration for a 19th century Poznan baker to make special croissants to give to the poor, hence St. Martin croissants and the museum. The tour had a hands-on component and I volunteered.

We also learned at the museum that the clock tower goats weren’t working today because the construction workers accidently cut the power lines to the clock tower building this morning. No clock tower goats in Poznan today. Tomorrow, we head for Wroclaw. I hope nothing has gone wrong with the dwarf statues!