A musical tour of Berlin: from Wagner’s epic opera to techno raves
The Guardian » Germany
by Chris Moss
2M ago
In our new series, we explore a city through its musical landmarks and songs. First stop, Germany’s hip, historic capital, home to trailblazing clubs and inspiration for Dietrich and Bowie Music soundtracks our travels, kills time and distracts, entertainingly. In Berlin, which has more than 300 train stations and where you can see everything panoramically from the overhead S-Bahn, a well-loaded smartphone or MP3 player turns a journey into a film with a score. I have more records related to Berlin than to any other city. I can’t help feeling the city should have a nexus or mother venue where ..read more
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A Black Forest fairytale: riding Germany’s ‘hell valley’ railway in winter
The Guardian » Germany
by Mike MacEacheran
2M ago
The Höllentalbahn is a spectacular line through south-west Germany’s forests and magical towns. Enchanting stop-offs en route include gothic Freiburg and pretty Titisee lake In the tucked away Black Forest town of Donaueschingen, the mighty River Danube begins. It rises as a clear, three metre-deep wellspring in the town centre, encircled by a stone basin sculpted with zodiac symbols. From there, the Danube – Donau in German – flows full tilt onwards for 1,771 miles to its mouth on the Black Sea, passing through the great cities of Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade. There’s so much poetry in that ..read more
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From Arctic art to the Disgusting Food Museum: Europe’s top 10 culture destinations for 2024
The Guardian » Germany
by Rachel Dixon
3M ago
Malta’s first art biennale, Copenhagen’s repurposed Carlsberg district, the first Arctic Circle capital of culture … this year promises a feast of cultural activity Germany is celebrating the 250th birthday of one of its best-loved painters, the Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). His work features mountains, ruins and stormy seas, often with human figures, such as Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. There are exhibitions in Hamburg (until 1 April), Berlin (19 April to 4 August) and Dresden (24 August to 5 January 2025), where Friedrich lived for 40 years; he is buried in the city’s ..read more
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Dresden – the city that saved my Christmas
The Guardian » Germany
by Jamie Fullerton
3M ago
The city’s Christmas markets and baroque architecture will revive even a flagging festive spirit, while its steampunk street art is an edgy pick-me-up When I was eight, Christmas was ballistically exciting and worth dragging my parents out of bed at 4am for. Over my 32 years since, a combination of atheism, credit card bills and John Lewis-branded Venus flytrap monsters has made me more cynical than excitable about the holiday. But I feel my humbug attitude slowly dissolve as I walk between the Christmas markets of Dresden, passing a man in an enormous polar bear costume by the grand baroque F ..read more
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Rail route of the month: across eastern Germany to the Polish city of Szczecin
The Guardian » Germany
by Nicky Gardner
4M ago
Our slow travel expert rides a train through a region of lakes and forests which deserves to be far better known The elegant main railway station in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck is well suited to grand departures, but these are few and far between these days. The only international destination served from Lübeck is Szczecin, in Poland. Half a dozen daily trains ply a meandering route through sparsely populated terrain on a 185-mile journey that starts in Holstein and then crosses Mecklenburg to reach Pomerania. It is a region where, historically, Prussia and Sweden vied for supremacy. Today it ..read more
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Every witch way: a spooky walk in Germany’s Harz mountains
The Guardian » Germany
by Sarah Baxter
5M ago
This 60-mile trail through northern Germany takes in eerie folklore, industrial heritage and forests recovering from a devastating pest The inscription on the wooden shelter where I stopped to eat my Käsebrötchen made quite the pledge. “Wanderer,” it said (at least, according to Google translate), “I protect you from wind and weather, a saviour from evil hands.” Extreme? Perhaps – but you need that sort of promise when loitering with cheese rolls in these spooky parts. A hut was first built on this spot as a rest stop for medieval donkey drivers shifting goods from the nearby town of Osterode ..read more
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Witches, DJs and dancing in the aisles: on board the Culture Train from Berlin to Poland
The Guardian » Germany
by Jamie Fullerton
6M ago
Musicians, dancers and a tarot-card reading artist animate the nearly five-hour journey to Wrocław from the German capital Madame Ziemowit the witch nods and scratches her beard as I flip a tarot card, revealing the chariot symbol. Picking the chariot seems fitting, as the turban-clad sorcerer and I are on a train, having just crossed the border from Germany into Poland. Multicoloured lightbulbs adorn carriage windows, framing a green-blue blur of fields and rivers. Next to us a toddler, sitting in a mini-library by the loo, draws squiggles on an Etch A Sketch. A jaunty brass fanfare plays thr ..read more
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In the tracks of the Orient Express: my train ride from London to Istanbul
The Guardian » Germany
by Ben Aitken
6M ago
The fabled railway service returns in 2025. But you don’t need to wait until then, or pay the eyewatering fares, to ride this classic route One of the fruits of getting on a train is that it makes me want to chat. So instead of gazing at Kent as we proceed to Paris from London, I talk to my neighbour. Martha grew up in San Francisco, studied in Oregon, and puts syrup on everything. When we part ways on the concourse of Gare du Nord – she to lunch with a friend from Wisconsin, me to amble around before continuing towards Turkey – she says the best things about the US are Taylor Swift and meatlo ..read more
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I ventured out of busy central Berlin – and it rose to the occasion
The Guardian » Germany
by Sarah Rodrigues
7M ago
As the city grapples with over-tourism, a new initiative aims to promote its lesser-visited outer reaches, where a mix of funky culture, historic gems and untamed greenery awaits “A cable car? Here in Berlin?” The man cooking my burger at Piri’s – a self-proclaimed dive bar diner in Neukölln, an inner-city neighbourhood in the south-east of the city - is sceptical. “Yeah,” says his Kiwi colleague. “My parents did it. There’s a garden or something.” Both cooks have lived here for upwards of 10 years. They refer to Neukölln, affectionately, as “the ghetto”, seemingly oblivious to the presence o ..read more
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Rail route of the month: the gentle beauty of a ride from Hamburg into Denmark
The Guardian » Germany
by Nicky Gardner
9M ago
This cross-border journey through fenlands and small towns is so idyllic our writer breaks up this short trip with overnight stays What makes a fine rail journey? We all have our own ideas on this, but I find it’s best not to dash and to retain an element of spontaneity, taking the chance to stop off here and there along the way. So, last month I ended up taking three days for a train journey of only 200 miles. It’s possible to travel from Hamburg to Esbjerg by train in four to five hours with a single change of train at Niebüll, a small town in northern Germany just short of the Danish border ..read more
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