Here are a few more pics of the Fortress of Palamidi in Nafplio.
A courtyard in the fortress, with the Greek flag flying high, and the Aegean see and coastline in the distance.
The fortress bell
One of the many arches in the fortress
Notes from the Cape Posts
This tunnel is actually up on the battlements of the Fortress of Palamidi in Nafplio, Greece. You can climb on the walls along the outside of the arches to have a magnicifant view of the Aegean sea.
Two metro stations.
The first one is Brandenburg Tor, with the old gothic Unter den Linden sign under it. In the cold-war, West-German trains went through parts of East-Germany, and in particular through this station. But they never stopped at any of these so-called “ghost-stations” that were closed and guarded.
The second sign is Alexanderplatz in East-Berlin, an area that today is one of the bussiest districts in Berlin.
This band was great. Have a close look at the drum kit. Its made from discarded plastic bottles and buckets. It was a new form of recycling I guess. We spotted them on the outskirts of Alexanderplatz in Berlin.
One of the places you have to visit is Alexanderplatz. It is the site of so much history, in particular the Alexanderplatz demonstration on 1989, just before the wall came down. Over 1.5 million protesters gathered in what was the biggest protest ever in East Germany, so of course it was somewhere we had to visit.
But we were somewhat startled to find that we had stepped into a very large African market. We (purely by chance) selected Africa week to visit Alex, so the square was fulled with African goods for sale (think Greenmarket square or Long Street in Cape Town), and African bands playing on the stages. It was fun and entertaining, but not quote what we expected in the middle of Germany.
I love this idea – roaming hot-dog sellers. I found this particular “outlet” on Alexanderplatz, or “Alex” as the local’s call it. But they are all over Berlin. And at ER1.70c for a hot-dog they are excellent value, and they taste excellent as well. If you’re ever in Berlin lookout and have a hot-dog. You’ll enjoy it.
The little village of Ojcow is a lovely place to visit. Its just a few km from our family’s house in Krakow, Poland, and I always try to pop past when I go running in the forest. It’s mostly restaurants and hotels. But its a lovely place to spend a relaxing hour or two in the country.
While most of the Berlin wall has long-since been removed, there are a few places where sections have been preserved, in particular the East Side Gallery is a 1.3km section of the wall that has been turned into an outdoors art gallery. We only walked a small section of it, but they gallery goes on forever. There are a total of 102 paintings, and these are just the few that we saw. The gallery is something that you must visit in Berlin; the art is though-provoking and interesting.
It was two years later that the wall went down. The Brandenburg Gate was build in the 1800’s, and has often a site for major historical events, including the above-mentioned speech. During the cold war it remained closed as part of the Berlin wall, and now it symbolises the unification of Germany.
Its a truly grand structure to walk under as you wonder from the beautuul buulevard of Unter den Linden to the Reichstag parlimentary buildings.
I was standing in Gorlitz, the eastern-most town in Germany. Looking across the bridge you see the town of Zgorzelec, the western-most town in Poland. It was a simple matter to pop across to Poland for lunch. Well it would have been if the restaurant we wanted to visit wasn’t full.
Leave a Comment