to and from Paris

Saturday morning. We step out onto Charlottenstrasse in Berlin and we are dazzled by the bright light. We haven’t seen much of the sun these past days. Snow – yes, plenty of it. Snow falls from gray skies. Today the skies are incredibly blue.





But that’s in Berlin. How is it in Paris?

It appears that early flights have been canceled because of snows there, but ours is scheduled to take off. Packed again with people from previous canceled flights. There is a delay, however, and as minutes pass, I realize that our time in Paris will be very very brief.

We land in somewhat wet weather. It’s just at freezing outside, which, in a city like Paris means the sidewalks are too warm for snow to stick. We don’t quite reach for the umbrella, but others do.





But we do walk. I have a Christmas list in my head and I am dangerously close to the stores’ closing time. Holidays or no holidays -- 7 p.m., and often times, when the clerks get antsy, a few minutes before. Still, it is quite festive here. The lights dazzle.





We have one errand that’s across the river and as we cross the Seine, the snow intensifies. It must be just below freezing and the flakes are falling, fast and furious, big flakes, huge monster flakes, some surely two inches in diameter.










Beautiful! Here’s the hour for a snowstorm! Come flakes, fall now so that I can wipe everything three times over and still remain wet. And I am wet. When we go into a wine store, I wipe my glasses, the camera lens, everything, and still it’s no use. Everything is dripping with melting snow.










But then the snow tapers off. Our boots are soaked through because there is so much slush on the ground, but no matter. We had a few hours of walking through this gorgeous, snow beleaguered city. And we have a reservation here:





And we’re on time. The meal – a sampling menu – is as good as it gets and I could write more about, but I want a balanced post, so I’ll just show off the fantastic (and not too fussy) root vegetable carpaccio with smoked bacon foam and almond bits, and the final sweet bite of chocolate.









We walk back along the Seine... quiet now, after the rage of snow. Somber even, here by Notre Dame.





And very very early Sunday morning, we leave the hotel, glad to see that the predicted snow is holding off...





...and we make our way past the Gardens, to the RER train and then, straight to the airport. We check in, go through security clearance and wait, happy that today it was all rather easy. We wait for our flight. And wait. And wait some more.

And then we hear the loudspeaker: there is snow, the Charles de Gaulle airport is closed.

Berlin, continued

I look outside at the street. The snow of this never ending European winter storm continues to fall. Not in large amounts, but steadily, without hesitation.










It’s a slow morning for us. Not enough time before our flight out to do big things, so why hurry.

For the first time in a long time we do an exceptionally leisurely breakfast. The kind where you eat a little, get up and add some foods, eat some more and this continues, slowly, without thought as to what comes next.





Finally, the urge to get going pushes us out and since we have time for a stroll through the neighborhood, we do the usual bundling and buttoning and head out.  











It’s pretty outside, but the flakes are falling more rapidly now and I notice that the black coats and hats are starting to look like someone has taken a salt shaker to them.


 


But we’re close to the chocolate emporium of Fassbender and Rauch. German chocolates on display in the week before Christmas. It’s like examining gelato choices on a hot day in Italy. Some pairings are made in heaven.





Indeed, Fassbender and Rauch does chocolate in a big way. Landmarks in Berlin? Don’t waste your time stomping through snowdrifts in the cold. See them here, done in chocolate!















And so we stroll between shelves packed with chocolate in all forms and especially in combination with another German favorite – marzipan, and it’s so aromatic there that of course you cannot leave empty-handed. We don’t.



Time for the airport. Our flight into Paris is to leave after 3 and we’re hoping for a few good hours there tonight and a solid day of that city tomorrow.

But why are there such long lines around the Air France booths? Our flight is on the schedule, on time, but earlier ones have been cancelled. The snow again. That pretty mass of whiteness keeps falling and the agents keep rebooking and the flights keep swelling...

I can see the writing on the wall.

We pull some things from suitcases. Lost luggage suddenly becomes a possibility again.

We wait.

First there is only a delay. Of five hours.

And then there is the (expected, really) cancellation. The airport officially closes.

More lines, rebookings, patient clerks, weary travelers. Air France is, as before, quite sympathetic, empathetic and singularly helpful. We may even get some refunds and reimbursements (missed hotel reservations mess with travel budgets in most awful ways).

We call our Berlin hotel and whimper our way back into a room.


It's evening. We both agree that it’s time to eat something other than game meat. Our German feast was last night. We need to move beyond central Europe in food, if not, as it appears, in travel.

Cookies Cream is an oddly named place, but it is a hot little heaven of vegetarian cuisine here. In our previous Berlin stay, we were not able to get a table for any of the nights. Today, the Berliners must be staying indoors. We’re set.

It's a short walk, a twinkly walk, past brilliantly lit trees -- with a spot for a warm wine, if you feel the need, or a bit of curling with your friends.










The restaurant itself is through an alley way, hidden behind a dark door. There is a club part downstairs, but we’re told to take the stairs up to the dining room.

It’s a modern industrial chipped floors and deliberately not enough paint on the walls kind of place. Where the thirties something congregate. I am by far the oldest in the room.





And the food is superb. I eat a baked cheese with Jerusalem artichokes and beet, then parsley gnocchi with pumpkin something or other and finally gingerbread mousse. With a fine, dry Riesling.














So in the end, the last word comes from a fresh Berlin, pushing out yesterday's older one. Our trip here ends with this modern twist, as if we’re supposed to remember the city in its new incarnation.

We leave through the club part again, where the sounds and lighting are beyond my comprehension.





Yep, leave it to the next generation.

Now, let’s see if the snows let up Saturday so that we can continue our protracted return home.

Warsaw -> Berlin

If I posted a photo of the Central Train Station in Warsaw, you would be dismayed. It is quite bleak. Varsovians hate it (I am told) and I have to agree. I'm not a grumpy, whiny traveler -- I’m generally inclined to have warm thoughts about places I visit (yes, ultimately even Milk Bars), but this station leaves me cold (in all ways). It’s undergoing some cosmetic restoration. Let’s see what happens in a year or so.

And so, we leave Warsaw from this gloomy subterranean space and it doesn’t help that we emerge in the glitzy Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the largest and most modern station in all of Europe. Hrump.

No matter. Poland has more important virtues. Like the splendid landscape, made stunning by the never ending snow that falls and sprinkles, and puffs things out and then falls some more.





Our entire stay in Europe this time, with the exception of one warm-ish day in Berlin, has been one long snow storm. Flakes on my coat, my camera, my face, and now on this flat but lovely stretch of land – these will be the memories I’ll have with me.





I am mesmerized by it all as we speed westward. It’s a six hour trip and about five of those hours are through Poland (Berlin is actually quite close to the border).

The vast fields, bordered by farmsteads and forests, are a playground for wildlife. I watch countless herds of deer...


 


...and large rabbits, with legs long enough to make giant leaps, and red breasted pheasant hunched near the snow covered brush, and in the forest – deer with such fantastic antlers that I could have mistaken them for the fine animals that pull St. Nick’s sleigh.

It’s not easy to take photos – there is the glare of inside light, the speed, and frequently, there is a cloud of snow spewing to the sides, as the train pushes forward. It is not unlike watching Dr. Zhivago, part two.





Sometimes the train slows and passes through towns. Here's one: Swiebodzin. A little known place until recently, when it decided to construct a large tower of Jesus. Larger than Rio's. Largest in the world, I'm told. There is this side to Poland now too. The gaudy, pompous display of solidarity of a different sort -- coalescing around religious symbols and material might. The little engine that could, wants to be viewed by the rest of the world as the big engine that roars. Sigh...





Our compartment mate – a very self assured gentleman who has as his goal to teach me about my own country – tells me I will enjoy taking photos of the border crossing. "Enjoy" is an interesting word. I certainly will take note. In my high school history classes there was much discussion about the border along the River Odra.






And now we are in Berlin.





We’re staying in the commercial heart of Mitte.





And right across the street we have another Christmas market! Make this our third in Berlin and this one is the most glitzy and sparkling of them all. You have to pay to get in (unless, like us, you have a hotel pass) which is curious because once in, all you do is shop and eat.





We participate in the eating part. (With hot mulled wine to fight the bitter cold.)










It really is cold again. And it’s snowing, but we have no complaints about that. You’d have to be pretty jaded to not love the constant retouch of fresh snow. We’re not jaded.

We walk back and forth, sampling sausage and chocolate covered gingerbread, comparing vendors, watching others do the same.





Finally it's time to sit down to a regular meal. We've not really eaten since Warsaw. Our dinner is at another (Eastern) Berlin establishment, where the traditional meal comes with venison over red cabbage, with potato dumplings. It’s absolutely delicious and it seems fitting to be dining on traditional food. Something of old Berlin needs to come through and grab your imagination and food is always a good place to take note of the most pleasing aspects of a nation's soul. And so we eat our venison, followed by plum ravioli and pistachio ice cream, all in this quiet, neighborhood restaurant with a garden covered with snow and an open black iron gate.










We try not to think too much about tomorrow’s flight to Paris, where it is also snowing. One day at a time. One small challenge, then the next and the next... One snowflake, then another, and another, until it all becomes a landscape of white stuff, a coherent whole, a tablet of loveliness.

Berlin -> Krakow

It is as one would imagine it to be: a forested land made gray by winter, then white by snow and now, after a two day thaw – some combination of earthy colors in a Dalmatian-like mosaic. It’s not that in these two days the snow has melted, but it looks hardened and miserable. All that, on display through a window splattered with dirt.

And yet, I can’t take my eyes off of it. Occasionally, we pass a small village, but not very often. Once, a solitary church appeared fleetingly behind the glare from the window.





Another time an abandoned brick factory. Just seconds ago, I saw a small deer with her back to me. Mostly though, it’s pine and birch, growing out of banks of snow.

We are speeding through south eastern Germany, on the way to Krakow in Poland. Though speeding is a relative word. Surely this isn’t the high speed rail of western Europe. But it’s a pleasant, rhythmical movement and though the total trip will last ten hours, I find myself thinking it could go longer and I would not be disappointed. Our train compartment – old fashioned, to be sure – is warm, the window to the world is large.

I note another wee village coming up. The sign tells me it’s Synowa Zarska, Just like that, I know we’re in Poland.



Our second day in Berlin (Saturday) had been far tamer than the first. Europe experienced a partial (and temporary) warming. Two degrees above freezing and continued precipitation meant that there were bouts of rain and gusts of a warmer wind. My daughter needed downtime and I wasn’t in a rush either.

Just after noon, we put aside our various preoccupations and set out for the Alexanderplatz. I think of it as the center of the former East Berlin – the tower defines this part of the city and I remember it vividly from my past visits here.






Now, it is also the place of Berlin’s major Christmas market.

It’s tough to photograph the market. We’re in a crowd of wet, dark winter coats. We put up our umbrella, we take it down. Up, down, raining, not raining. And still it hardly matters: the place is charming and most everyone is in a spirited mood. Aided by spirits.











I’m game. I ask for a hot mulled wine. Ours is special! -- the vendor tells me. We add rum for an extra punch! Oh dear.

There are many, many families here now. Of course. For the merry-go-rounds. For the Santa. For the festiveness of the place, the weather notwithstanding.
























Up one alley, down the next. Like strollers on a warm summer day, but without the warmth or the sunshine.



We spend the late afternoon and evening in our own neighborhood – where Mitte turns into Prenzlauer Berg. And whereas the previous day’s neighborhood walk took place in the former West Berlin, this one’s in the Eastern sector. Not that you could tell. In Poland, the change to a market economy seemed to erase fewer of the distinctly Eastern block retail venues. Even now, as I walk away from the center of Warsaw, I come across shops that may have been there in my childhood – they’re not gaudy, nor pricey. Perhaps the shelves are better stocked, but they’re in their own dated league of another era.  But in (East) Berlin, except in the architecture, I see no signs of that past. In the short time we’ve been here, it looks to me as if the stores, the cafes, the restaurants are all now at the level of the West. Not necessarily posh, but of a certain kind. Not the kind that I have memorized from postwar Poland.











And still, there are the common elements – the familiar forms found, it seems, only in central Europe. Take the small issue of mushrooms. Poland and Germany seem to share a fondness of depicting with great affection the poisonous red mushroom in any number of decorative settings.











And speaking of mushrooms, there is the matter of food. We go for dinner to a café/bar – a place that also serves simple, rib-sticking food – Altes Europa (Old Europe).






We order a potato soup (served with prunes), a mushroom vegetable soup and a plate of meatballs and potatoes. German food, yes, but if you hadn’t told me, I may have guessed Polish. (Though the carafe of delicious Reisling is unmistakably not Polish.)


 



Maybe I’m just getting my mind fixed on the days ahead. Getting ready for the very short, but still significant visit home.




And now it is Sunday afternoon. My daughter’s suitcase caught up with us just hours before we left Berlin and even though we’ve been traveling since Tuesday, in many ways it feels like we’re just starting.  We board the train in Berlin...


 


...and somewhere in that vast forest of birch and pine, we cross a river and with it -- the border between Germany  and Poland. Yes, the villages that appear now are, to me at least, quite obviously Polish.






The train is moving very, very slowly. Stopping at even seemingly empty stations.





And sometimes, for example while sitting at the Wegliniec station (wegel means coal, and we are indeed moving through Silesia – the southwestern coal mining region of Poland), it feels as if we’re really not going to move at all.  A station worker comes up to our car with a big mallet like tool. He tweaks something at the base of our car and steps back. He jots down a word or two, watches...





The train lurches forward.



My daughter is leafing through some Polish writings. Przepraszam, dzisiaj wyjezdzamy... ("I’m sorry, we’re leaving today..."). Vowels! – she asks. Where are the vowels?! What can I say, we’re a generous people, but we’re stingy with the vowels.


It’s dark now. We still have a way to go. We’ve been visited by one German conductor, one Polish one, a vendor with candies (who is indignant that I hadn’t taught my daughter Polish) and now we have yet another conductor checking our tickets.

How late are we? I ask.
Oh, some 35 minutes now.
Is this train typically this late? I ask, because I deliberately avoided the connection through Warsaw where we would have had to make a quick change for the Krakow train. I never felt that Polish trains can be trusted to run on time.
Oh no! Not at all!
And now I feel guilty for my past assumptions...
We’ve pulled in to Krakow many hours behind schedule! Three just last week! This is fantastic!
I no longer feel guilty for harboring those assumptions.

So long as we get in on time for one Krakow supper. Just one.