On Friday once we had spoken with an airline representative and learned that our luggage was on its way to a Berlin, we headed out for some more explorations, especially along the lovely canal (River Spee) that runs through Berlin.
With the exception of Museum Island, which was almost completely under construction, we had a great day out.
We arrived in Berlin on a Wednesday late afternoon and had an easy trip into our hotel via bus (trip was even easier with no luggage to worry about). We stayed at a great hotel/hostel near the zoo so a bit outside the city center (Berlin Mitte). We enjoyed both the area, very active but safe and the hotel (We had a private room.) It allowed for good walks, was a nice hopping area, and the staff were super friendly and supportive as we awaited luggage delivery.
Before arriving in Germany, we had reserved a time to visit the dome atop the Reichstag (Germany’s capitol building). Our walk there took us through a lovely park.
The Dome Tour was self-guided with headphones that started automatically when you began ascending the dome and as you reached specific points on the way up and down. It mostly discussed the buildings you were seeing but also the construction of the dome, the fact that it’s open at the top, and how rain and snow are diverted when they come in so that people in the plenary chambers below the dome don’t get wet.
After the Dome Tour, we had a picnic near the Brandenburg Gate before doing a “free” walking tour that we had also reserved. We’re not normally group tour people, but Berlin has such an interesting history and we had such a short time there that we wanted to learn as much as possible. The tour was great. It was led by a former history teacher, and we got to visit sites you wouldn’t normally find (like the bunker where Hitler killed himself at the end of the war) as Germany doesn’t want Neo Nazis making a shrine out of anything tied to the Nazi government. All but one Nazi governmental building have been razed, and the aforementioned bunker is quite a few feet under a non-descript parking lot with no signage. it was also cool to see the remaining sections of the wall and the stones in the street marking where the rest of the wall stood.
Beautiful Berlin Opera House
One of my favorite stops was Gendarmenmarkt Square. The Square itself represents the multi-culturalism and progressiveness of Germany prior to 1900 symbolized by the buildings that surround the square — a university and two identical churches. One Church is the German Church and the other is the French Church. The fact that they are mirrors of each other indicating that immigrants were no less important to the state of Germany than their native-born citizens. Unfortunately it also was the site of Nazi book burning and proves a cautionary tale that if the Holocaust could happen here it can happen anywhere.
This quote is by Heinrich Heine and was written about the Spanish Inquisition but certainly fits the Holocaust.
After the tour we rested for a bit at the vibrant Sony Center, a mix of restaurants and retail.
Bob found another lookout that he thought we could do, so that became our game plan for Sunday. This route took us to the top of one of the mountains that we could see from the window of our Airbnb unit. After some work on the computer in the morning, we headed to Tantalus Lookout – Puu Ualakaa State Park.
Our route took us over the canal and then back through neighborhoods before cutting through a great school property where a water polo invitational was in progress.
Our route started in the Makiki Forest Recreation Area where we went up and up and up again (no zig zagging here) over a very rooty path before veering right into the Puu Ualakaa State Park. Google Maps said it should take us an hour and 45 minutes to get from our place to the top. It took just over 2 hours. This was a watch your footing, pause frequently hike.
This was so worth it!! Some of the best views we’ve ever seen and what a great look at Diamond Head. Many others were there to take in the view, but they drove up. Probably smarter. Much quieter though than Diamond Head.
As we started back through the lookout area to hit the trail, we saw chickens. Not sure why, but we have seen quite a few wild chickens while we’ve been here.
Aloha!
That’s it for our Hawaiian adventure as Monday was spent doing laundry, cleaning our unit, writing posts, and transferring our cell phone service from AT&T to Google Fi. That took a little effort, but the most stressful part was waiting to ensure the new SIM cards would arrive before our flight out.
The one thing we knew we would do while in Hawaii is climb Diamond Head, mostly because we’d heard about it and it was in walking distance from where we were staying. So, Saturday morning we left about 10ish to walk the 2.8 miles to the park starting along the canal by our building.
Diamond Head is a crater. You walk into the crater through a shared pedestrian/car tunnel before paying the entrance fee and heading to the top.
You do not come to Diamond Head and expect to be alone and definitely not on a Saturday. It’s a destination here, so we joined the multitudes and paid our $1 entrance fee ($5 per car — amazing!) to start our upwards journey. The path is easy to follow and zig zaggy until the very top where you do some vertical stair climbing. There is also a longish tunnel to walk through near the end (FYI – if you’re claustrophobic) and then a small space to scoot through to get to the observation deck if you veer right and not left at the decision point at the top. This is not indicated on the sign that says you can go either way.
After we left Diamond Head, we started back down the road the way we came to see if a market we had passed on the way to the park was still open. It was not, but we stumbled on a great cactus garden on a community college campus. It reminded us of our times in Tucson.
Okay, back to more typical Hawaii destinations. After a stop for a great, fresh smoothie, we were off to the Iolani Palace to at least get a look at the US’s only royal residence. We saw a number of other cool buildings along the way.
The Iolani Palace was the residence of the royal rulers of Hawaii from 1845 to 1893. It’s located in the capital district along with other government office buildings. We found this to be an attractive area.
When we were in Auckland, the paper had recommended a bar in Waikiki in their travel section, so we had to give it a look. It is called The Study, and it’s located in The Modern Hotel. It is too cute. It is behind a bookcase during the hours when it’s closed. It opens at 6 pm, with the bookcase rotating out far enough for people to walk through. We went early to see it open.
Aloha! Bob and I arrived in Honolulu at @ 11 am Friday morning prior to our midnight departure from Auckland. Time traveling is better when you gain time! The weather forecast was for rain for our entire stay (late Friday morning through Monday night) due to a couple of tropical storms, but they have been good and died out except for some impact on surf.
Many moons ago when we planned to head to Hawaii after NZ, we thought we’d be in Hawaii longer and planned to see more of the islands. However, when a house sit in Germany opened up, we jumped at the chance, so have settled for an exploration of Waikiki with the short stay.
Our initial impression of Hawaii began before we even departed on our Hawaiian Islands flight from NZ when every pre-board announcement was followed by “mahalo.” This is Hawaiian for thank you, but they said it so often that we began to think it meant period, a verbal cue for us to understand they were done with their statement. It continued on board. It does beat getting sworn at.
Our next impression of Hawaii came at the airport where we could have watched a short feature film before our luggage arrived. Some poor girl traveling from overseas was frantically trying to find someone to talk to as she was going to miss her next flight. The Honolulu Airport is old and very small. We walked outside to get to Immigrations and after you pick up your luggage, you are almost immediately outdoors. The airport has been rated as one of the worst in the nation by the J.D. Power Annual North American Airport study. Of course, no one comes to Hawaii to visit the airport, and as we did get our luggage, no harm no foul.
We are not beach people, so our stay will tell you almost nothing as to whether you should visit (though I’m always of the opinion that it’s good to see and explore new places), but we have enjoyed our visit and the found the food to be much more affordable than we had expected.
We had to do a stroll near the beach beginning near the resorts before hitting the more public areas.
Many of the buildings in Waikiki seem older — built maybe in the 60s or 70s, but there are also some newer buildings, especially shopping centers for those needing to take a break from the beach.
If you’ve made it this far, mahalo.
Bob and I returned to Auckland last Friday afternoon July 27th and spent much of our last week prepping to leave Auckland. However, we did see two movies as part of the New Zealand Film Festival, and we would recommend both. We saw “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” which is a good but depressing documentary film about the power of money in our Democracy and the inability for money to buy true friendships. Roy was a powerful attorney starting with the McCarthy era and with close ties to the current president. The second film was Who You Think I Am, a French film starring Juliette Binoche. She is as beautiful and talented as ever and the plot has a number of twists and turns through to the very final scene.
We also had a final outing. This time we took the ferry to Birkenhead, another area across the harbor from Auckland, but further west than Devonport, for a nice walk about — with both of us bootless. My foot felt great (got the official thumbs up Tuesday with x-rays to show the fracture healing).
While the town center of Devonport is pretty much right at the harbor, we had to do a quick hike steeply uphill to get to the center of Birkenhead.
We didn’t have a map of Birkenhead like we had for Devonport, but the public library was able to help us out.
Inside of the library
One of the things that we knew we wanted to do was to walk through the Le Roy’s Bush Reserve that we’d read about. It is a walk through a rain forest setting along a stream and by a waterfall. Naturally, it (a boardwalk) within the park was being rebuilt, so we were only able to walk through a small portion. However, with the aid of maps from the library, we found other areas of Birkenhead to explore.
We walked to the War Memorial Park where the memorial is behind glass and the park focuses on sports activities
From the park we walked down to Kendall Bay for a wet, and sometimes muddy walk through Kauri Point Centennial Park and Chelsea Heritage Park, by the Chelsea Sugar Factory and then back to the wharf to catch the ferry back to Auckland.
Peckish Travels