Review - Cologne, Bonn, Heidelberg, Nuremberg, Munich, and Berlin

ixoy

Just come back from a trip to Germany where I touched upon a number of cities (for various lengths of time). I'll spend a post on each one as it seems the simplest way to do.

Cologne (Koln)

Chocolate Museum ("Schokoladenmuseum") - Set on a boat-like building, it's a nice museum showing the making of Lindt chocolate. The initial entry point to the museum was a somewhat boring history of chocolate and the company's fair-trade ethics, but then you get to see the various machines and steps used to create chocolate (and get a free sample). Great sweet shop attached too with flavours of chocolate you'd never even think of.

Cologne Cathederal - I'm not one for churches but the Cathederal is quite beautiful, particularly the exterior which is lit up at night. I'd recommend paying the few euro to climb the tower to get a beautiful view of the city.

Ludwig Museum - If you like modern art, it's a nice collection of various pieces spread over a few floors. Very near the cathederal.

Kolumba - A modern-art museum built upon the excavated ruins of an old church. The ruins themselves are pretty interesting. The art exhibits are decent but you'd be better off seeing the Ludwig.

Cable Car - You can take a cable car across the Rhine to the park. Good views, including having the car go across a busy dual carriage-way. Lasts about 10 minutes.

Hohenzollerbrucke (Bridge near the Cathederal/main station) - Just cut across it to see where people have hung locks (of various sizes) on the railings, declaring their love for different people. Never saw it mentioned anywhere but it was an interesting curiosity. Plus it's free to do.

ixoy

Bonn

Beethovenhaus - Beethoven's place of birth. Thought it was a little small for the price in. There wasn't all that much to see, although maybe I'm just not appreciative enough of culture. A tad boring.

Arithmeum - Essentially a museum on the history of arithmetic calculation devices. It's a must for math geeks (or general geeks) and is quite interactive as you can try a selection of the exhibits. There's a huge amount of well-translated literature accompanying many of the exhibits which have some wonderful calculators from the 16th century on. A nerd favourite!

Haus der Geschichte der BR Deustchland - A museum about the history of Germany after WWII. It's well laid out, with video and other multi-media displays although the English translations are lacking in places. There's some nice set pieces there (e.g. a '60s diner set up complete with selectable juke box). Good to look at still and it was free.

Natural History Museum - Yes there's many natural history museums in the world, but this one was quite well done as it placed the exhibits in mock natural settings as opposed to just display cases. This ranged from small marsh displays for birds up to a large savannah for the African display.

ixoy

Heidelberg

Philosophenweg (Philosopher's Way) - A beautiful walk up a mountain (the full walk is actually composed of other paths). Lovely views and lots of places to admire them.

Heiligenberg - Once you've climbed up Philosopher's Way, look out for signposts for Heilgenberg and continue on.
At the top there's the ruins of an old monastery, a small viewing tower, but most spectacularly an old amphitheatre built to host Nazi rallies (Thingstatte). It's really big and definitely worth the trip up.
The views here are good but they're probably just as decent on the lower Philospher's Way.
I'd recommend then wandering down one of the many paths back to the old town. It's very peaceful and we met hardly a soul on them.

Heidelberg Castle - You can walk up a steep path or reach it by cable car. It's a very nice old castle, although there's not much in the way of buildings to look around in there. You can see the largest barrel of wine in the world and a pretty interesting pharmacy museum (with good English translations).
I'd recommend going up to the castle gardens at night (they're always open) to get a beautiful view of the city.

Konigstuhl - It's a small area at the top of the mountain that the castle is perched on (Philosophenweg being the opposite one on the other side of the river). I'd recommend getting up there by cable car and taking the paths down through the forest. They're nicely shaded and atmospheric.
Whatever you do though, don't eat in the dreadful food place (won't say "restaurant") at the top of Konigstuhl. Bring a packed lunch instead.

Alte Universitat (Old University) - It's, as described, an old university. Saw two things here - a great hall where the university heads met. Not all that interesting to look at or spectacular but there was a very informative and well-spoken guide there that livened it up. There's also a small student prison attached to the rear which is quite cool (albeit small).

Packaging Museum - Yes there's a museum of packaging on the main street. It's got a selection of products (Nivea, some odd brand of chocolate) and shows how they changed over the years. Most of the text is in German but it's pretty easy to get the concept! Small enough and although I'd have liked more recognisable products, still worth the fee in.

Kurpfälzisches Museum - A large museum containing art and various items related to the history of the area. The subject matter isn't that interesting but the exhibition is huge, so you feel you get your money's worth. There's some nice little pieces where they've models of various historical scenarios.

I'd also recommend just wandering around the old town in general. It's really very pretty and relaxing.

Worth mentioning that we stayed in "Hip-Hotel" here where each room is themed after a city in the world. We got "Cairo" so our room had an Egyptian slant, including a model Pharoh bust encased in glass. A bit on the expensive side (€150 a night for the room) but it certainly had an interesting unique feel.

ixoy

Nuremberg

Spielzeugmusem (Toy Museum) - A collection of toys, mostly from before the 1950s. The greater focus is on dolls, particularly detailed doll houses. They looked very good actually. There was only a small section on toys from the '80s and, although it was great to see a He-Man display, I'd have liked for them to explore more of recent times.

Transportation Museum - More specifically, a train museum. It's got a pretty decent number of old rolling stock, so you can see full-size engines from all the different eras right up to the modern ICE. The text is primarily in German (which was fine with us as we had no time to read it anyway). There's a decent model railway too but it paled in comparison to the one we saw in Berlin.

Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelande (Documentation Centre at the Reich Party Rally Grounds) - Excellent museum focusing on the cult of Nazism and how they not only rose to power but used media and propaganda to stay there. There's an accompanying English audio guide that's very insightful.

Reichsparteitagsgelande - Near the Dokumentationszentrum is the infamous Nazi rally ground, the largest of its kind in Germany. Some of the podium where the Nazi leaders would oversee the parades is still in place although the grounds themselves are somewhat overgrown. Well worth seeing given it costs nothing.

Albrecht Dürer's House - House of the famous painter that you can look around with an audio guide. We were on a time constraint with this one but I guess it might've been okay... The house is pretty small but the guide seemed to be trying to re-create a flavour of the time by using small narrative segments instead of dry descriptions.

Nuremberg Castle - Entering the Castle itself is free, as are the gardens. We paid in to go up the tower (which isn't all that high). Better value was the Deep Well, where you can see... a deep well. It's done as a demonstration where the guide drops a bucket down with lit candles and is in German. However he was nice enough to provide a brief English version afterwards when I asked. The castle itself is nice, but not as picturesque as Heidelberg's.

New Museum - A modern art museum close to the main gates into the old town. The art was quite abstract (not much in the way of paintings here) but I enjoyed it. It was €5.50 in.

Salt Cellars - You can visit the salt cellars beneath the city but only as part of a guided tour. Now the tour is in German and you're given a MP3 player with an English version. The problem was that our guide would spend ten minutes at one piece, waffling away and our mp3 track lasted only a minute meaning we'd spend nine minutes wanting to move on. You could race off from the group but be careful not to get locked in...

Fembohaus Citymuseum - Museum describing a merchant's house during medievael times. We really had to run through this one (to get to the Salt Cellar tour) but from what we did see it appeared quite interesting.

It's worth noting that if you get a ticket for either Fembohaus City Museum, Albrecht Durer's house, the Toy Museum, or the Documentation Centre that you can use it in any of those other museums on the same day.

Nuremberg Old Town - Wander around the old town itself. While a lot of it is modern in appearance, I still found it quite relaxing and it's not very large. There's a few nice streets off the main ones and some sheltered romantic bridges.

ixoy

Munich

Only had a day trip here so what we did see:

Schloss Nymphenburg - A pretty beautiful palace with nice grounds. The walk up to it is quite impressive although be warned it's a couple of kilometres from the nearest U-Bahn stop. Once there we saw a couple of things - we saw the palace itself (which had lots of nice rooms but still felt a bit sparse), Marstallmuseum (a museum of carriages - consisting of two rooms ranging from sleighs to full King-sized carriages) as well as the Amalienburg (hunting lodge - my favourite of the three. Nice and cool inside with just the right amount of decoration).
It's worth seeing although if it's a day trip that you're on, as we were, it might be a bit too time consuming.

Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) - Nothing much to see in the hall itself, but we managed to get here just at 11am (literally the bells were ringing) to see the antique clockwork mechanical knights do a procession on the bell tower. It was interesting but perhaps a tad too long as there wasn't much variety in the movements.

Residenz - This is actually a collection of a number of different buildings. Pressed for time we saw the Schatzkammer (Treasury) which housed a number of old crowns, sceptres, etc. It's not something I found overly interesting but that could just be my tastes.
We also saw the Cuvillés Theater. There's only the foyer and main theatre to see but it's quite plush looking. We particularly liked the wonderful acoustics in the foyer - it's got the best echo I've ever heard. Try clapping your hands here and it sounds like a thunderclap.

Olympiapark - The old Olympic park certainly seems to have impressive looking stadiums which look good from an architectural perspective, although I couldn't care less about the games that were played there.
What we did like was the Olympic Tower - there wasn't much of a queue and you get whisked up very fast to the top in a high-speed lift. The views from the top are great and you're able to wander about two levels outside. It wasn't crowded at all when we went and the city looked quite pretty at night.
Also at the same U-Bahn station that you go to to get here, you can find BMW World. This might interest some of the car fanatics but I got by with just popping my head in for five minutes. I believe they may even let you see some sort of assembly line but I didn't enquire too far.

ixoy

Berlin (Part 1)

Siegassaule (Triumphal Column) - This is the relatively famous pillar in Berlin with the gold angel figure on top. It's easy to get to and you can go up to the top of the pillar for €2.50. The views there are pretty good although at night there's not too much to see as the column isn't very high.

Beate Uhse Erotikmuseum (Erotic Museum) - Pretty self explanatory. The price in here is quite steep (€14) but the content itself isn't too salacious. Yes there's a fair but of erotic art from the ages and some displays on tips and techniques but it wouldn't offend many people. The texts here are a mixture of German and English.

Museum Island:
Actually a collection of museums which you can see all in one day on one big ticket. Of those there we saw:
Altes Museum (Old Museum) - This housed old Greek and Roman statues primarily. There was an accompanying audio guide which was very detailed and insightful. However there was only so much of this I could take before I started flitting through the exhibits.
Pergamonmuseum - Houses the apparently famous "Pergamon Altar" this museum is best when it's displaying very large pieces or reconstructions of old citadel walls, altars, etc. These would be twenty or thirty metres tall and many more wide and are well worth a photo. Less interesting are some of the smaller pieces such as more collections of clay pots..
Neues Musem - didn't go here, but if you're planning on it be prepared to either get a timed ticket or queue for ages to get in. Maybe it's got something amazing inside but we weren't going to spend our time waiting to find out.

Hamburger Bahnhof - A very large, and rather excellent, collection of modern art housed in a museum designed to resemble a train station. The original building houses some good works but attached it is a large warehouse with five more rooms displaying various works. It's not limited to pictures, photos and sculptures either - there's video exhibits as well. Definitely worth a visit if you're at all interested in some of the more creative modern fare.

Schwules Museum - A museum on the history of "the gay" in Germany. Obviously of interest to some more than others, it was compact but informative, helped by a detailed English guide.

Natural History Museum - The museum's collection is largely pretty staid and the displays aren't nearly as well set up as those we saw in Nuremburg. However it's almost worth the admission price (€6) to see the world's largest dinosaur skeleton exhibit. I need not say more than that.

Kaiser-Willheml-Gedachtnis-Kirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Church) - It's essentially the shell of a church, remains left over from Allied bombings. As a result it actually looks pretty cool and it costs nothing to see this cracked front of an old church. Certainly more interesting than many of the standing older churches.

We did spend one night in Propeller Island. Each room here is a piece of modern art essentially and very individual. We chose the "Upside Down" room where all the furniture was on the ceiling. The beds were hidden underneath a raised floor (the bathroom was separate). Very unique. The staff were quite friendly although it's a bit pricey given the lack of amenities you are getting for the cost and a location that is a tad out of the way.