The European Family Vacation of my Dreams

Part one:  Germany


I was truly, wonderfully spoiled as a child, with wonderful vacations all over the world, because my father was a pilot for Pan Am.  We could fly for free.  My own children don't get the same privilege, and it pains me. 

I have decided to create a virtual vacation for us.  I am going to post pictures of the places I'd like to go with my family if we could afford it.  I'll include Sweden, of course, and the other scandinavian countries; then Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, etc.  But I'm starting with Germany, because of the Neuschwanstein Castle, where I went once, as a preteen or teenager.

         

Winter Magic Castle

  

 

I think in heaven, some people live in castles like this.

The inside is not exactly cozy!  But very fine.

 

  

Inside

 



View from Neuschwanstein Castle

Next, on to Berlin, my city of Birth.  There's a small castle on Peacock Island in Lake Wannsee, in Berlin.

      


     

By ferry to Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island)

     

 

Now, on to downtown Berlin and the famous wall:



This is what the wall looked like when I lived in Berlin, in the 1980s.



Ku'Damm, the main street downtown, with its bombed-out church since World War II.



Tempelhof Airport in Berlin

     



Ronald Reagan visited Berlin.  I saw him (from afar) there, and I later learned that he was instrumental in getting the wall torn down!  Miracles do happen.  No one ever could have imagined that wall would ever go away.  It was incredible.

   

   An East Berlin checkpoint.  Machine gun-toting guards watched the wall day and night.  How creepy.  How mundane it became, yet how cruel and deadly it was for so very long for millions of East Berliners!

This is what the checkpoints looked like when I lived there in the 80s. This is from the West side, the point between freedom and imprisonment.


  



My friends and I used to shop here.  Eighth grade.