Up before dawn once again ( which is before sunrise at 8.30am) and farewelled our lovely host Ron to catch a cab to Schiphol and onto our next destination – Berlin!
Scott flew in from London and we realised that the last proper family holiday we had together was at Crescent Head in the 90s.
Our penthouse apartment has countless flights of stairs and no elevator……thank goodness Scott was there to carry Mutti’s bag……and there’s no smoking or wheezing! The apartment is spacious, centrally heated and has lovely views……of yet another tower – Berlin’s Telekom tower!
We sorted the rooms and sleeping arrangements before setting out to find the Wall (Mauer). We found a lovely restaurant which served traditional German fare where we enjoyed meatballs, schnitzel and dumplings plus cucumber & dill salad like Babcia used to make. Washed down with steins of beer.
Walking, walking, walking to find the wall…..we found some sections of memorial sites with plaques and history but not the Mauer we were looking for. We ended up in Potsdam Platz and bought some essentials from the Lindt shop. We walked around and took in the scenery and typical German architecture.
Dinner was at a little Polish restaurant we discovered down the road from our apartment ( yes, it’s in Berlin but the language practice was worthwhile). The food itself was a highlight…….they brought out bread in a basket with what looked like mashed potato but turned out to be pork dripping……Michele and Scott were both introduced to a very old tradition that they realised was quite delicious! Then there were cheese pierogi (almost as good as Babcia’s), salmon pierogi in Lobster sauce, Bortcsh with dumplings, ham croquettes and Bigos. (OK……Teresa tried the Bigos and is probably over her childhood phobia about this delicacy). We enjoyed interacting with the waitress who could speak German and Polish but very little English and we entertained her with our attempts to communicate in any of these languages! Flash forward to what it will be like when we meet the family in Poland!