Mmmmm, another pop-up at Zampano, featuring this ridiculously good sourdough bread.
And a bang-up menu, as always. We try to go eat with them every time they show up on the radar.
Next, Tel Aviv-ian food at NENI during Food Zürich, which is fast becoming one of my favorite city-wide events. (Don't kid yourself: the menu for that evening included all of this. We nearly died.)
Did I mention a few pretty-ish days? I don't get over to the Limmat that often, but when I do, I am compelled, always, to take photos. This is just such a lovely city.
The tiny, but very quiet cloisters at Fraumünster. How it can be between Paradeplatz and the river and be so still, I don't know, but it's lovely and worth a visit if you're in the neighborhood.
Lastly, a Persian(-ish) dinner, also through Food Zürich. The food was lovely, if a bit sparse. (I'm not a big fan of sharing food family-style with people I don't know, because other people are not--how do I put this delicately?--maybe as considerate as I am, portion-wise. Oinkers. Is it so much to ask that you make sure everyone has gotten a share before you empty the plate??)
The open-air "tent" in which we dined had plenty of charm, though; all of the fixtures in there were made of kitchen utensils.
Then, it was off to Berlin, mainly to see my concert--but, of course, to fit in as much Berlin touristing as we had time for, as well. Full disclosure: I love that city. Its history is so close to the surface, and kept honest and raw, but it's also a place with plenty of vibrancy and diversity and culture and great people. (And they speak high German, so bonus for me, with all of my local linguistic challenges.)
Our first afternoon, we set out to do a little exploring near our hotel, then headed to dinner in Kreuzberg.
We started at Potsdamerplatz 'cause it was right by our hotel. The first time I was in Berlin, this place was touted as the world's largest construction site, a claim to fame which I found hilarious.*
Nowadays, it contains several sections of the Berlin Wall and explanatory info panels.
The path of the Wall itself is indicated by that line of bricks set into the ground.
This Korean pagoda-thing seemed a bit out of place in central Berlin, but its nearby sign says that it's the Korean Pavilion of Reunification, placed here because it "embodies the desire of the Korean population for a peaceful reunification", like the one Germany experienced in 1990 after the Wall came down. (I did not expect a moment of poignancy for Korea in the heart of Berlin, but what an elegant and powerful statement.)
Our next stop was Berlin's Holocaust memorial (the official name of which is Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), just down the street from Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag.
I didn't really understand the form factor of this memorial until I read this quote from the architect: "The enormity and scale of the horror of the Holocaust is such that any attempt to represent it by traditional means is inevitably inadequate". The underground visitor's center here is one of the most heartbreaking (and simultaneously anger-inducing) places I've visited in my life. Berlin doesn't forget, and that's one of the things I appreciate about it.
After a quick stroll through the Tiergarten, which is just across the street from the memorial, we headed to Kreuzberg for dinner. That neighborhood is everything, all the time, and it's overwhelming and colorful and crazy and graffitied and dirty and loud and magnificent. Dinner was at the excellent Spindler, where we both had variations on asparagus plates...but the standout of the evening was my banana millefeuille with dulce de leche, pistachio ice cream, and vanilla whipped cream. Good Lord. I don't even really like banana, except, on occasion, chopped up in my morning cereal, but that dessert was extraordinary.
Why, indeed. (The restaurant next to Spindler.)
We started the next day with a visit to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which has been closed for renovation the previous three times I've been to Berlin. This place was bombed by the Allies during WWII and left standing, in its ruined state, as a monument to reconciliation and peace. (Among the artifacts here is a cross made of nails found in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, as well as a cross donated by the Russian Orthodox church.)
Built in the late 19th century, this place would have been astounding in its full glory: it contained
2,740 square metres/29,500 sq ft of wall mosaic; supported a 113 m-/371 ft-high spire (although now it's only 71 m/233 ft high); and had a nave which could seat 2,000-plus people.
The remaining mosaics inside are stunningly ornate (and borderline Jugendstil)...
...and while there's a surprising amount still intact--considering how little of the building is left--those cracks overhead are a reminder that this is only a small fraction of what was once here.
Across the street from the Kaiser Wilhelm church we strolled past this huge and wacky facade I can only describe as Art Nouveau-Gothic...
...and, of course, I became instantly obsessed.
Awesome.
We also got to witness a little soccer hooliganry in that same neighborhood: just across the street from each other, the fans of FC Bayern and of RB Leipzig were holding rival pre-game festivities, and it was hilarious. Next to the church, the Leipzig fans were holding a little sports-carnival-thing for the kiddies and grilling up massive sausages and presenting various awards from a purpose-built stage. Across the street, these guys (the Bayern fans) were blaring the loudest football-related music, and singing and dancing on tables and drinking copious amounts of beer, and every time a vehicle associated with Leipzig drove past, they'd boo and hiss. (Kickoff was still hours away, and I'd venture to say that there were some very, very drunk fans at that game. Which Bayern won, 3-0.)
Next (unplanned) stop: the Deutsches Technikmuseum, a massive showcase for all things science- and technology-related. (So yeah, lots of stuff. And I'd say we saw about half of it.) Here, an utterly magnificent TV console from 1961.
Desk telephone from 1924. This thing could only receive and transfer incoming calls, but not place any outgoing.
Ugh, I love old record-playing apparati. One day when I have a massive house full of classy and beautiful antiques, I'll have a whole room just for phonographs and gramophones and the like. Or maybe I'll just scatter them profligately throughout the house. (This one's from 1905.)
Terra cotta from Anhalter Bahnhof, once one of Berlin's fanciest, largest, and busiest train stations, built in 1841 and running trains to several major European cities by the early 1900s. It also became the site from which nearly 10,000 elderly Jewish men and women were transported between June 1942 and March 1945 to the Theresienstadt transit camp in then-Czechoslovakia (and from there to either concentration or extermination camps). The station was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in WWII and fell entirely into disuse during the early Cold War; after it was demolished in 1960, a handful of architectural remnants ended up in the Technikmuseum, and part of the facade was left standing somewhat incongruously in a now-rather-modern-looking neighborhood. (We rode past it in a bus, and it was so striking, I had to look it up later to figure out what it was.)
In the first of two train sheds, the massive "Night" and "Day" sculptures, also from Anhalter Bahnhof.
In the second train shed, surrounded by various other trains from various other eras, an exhibit on the complicity of the German State Rail in the deportation of Jews during WWII, with this "typical freight wagon" as its centerpiece.
The inside. Made me feel queasy, thinking about people being in here, how they would have felt, where they were going.
But back to trains not associated with evil. Here's the interior of the first train shed.
And a neat old express train from 1844.
There's also an entire additional huge building dedicated to flying machines; this corrugated silver thing is a Junkers Ju 52 airliner, built in 1941 for passenger traffic. (It belonged briefly to Lufthansa, then was sent to Spain, first for their own passenger traffic, then for use by the Spanish air force during WWII.)
A Henckel He 162 jet fighter. Mike says the arrow points to the front, in case there's any confusion. (Ok, ok, with the exception of the trains, I somehow only took photos of war-related vehicles here. There's a lot more to this museum and its collections than just WWII artifacts, but that's apparently mainly what I got. History major and all that, I suppose.)
Just one more: this crazy little concrete one-man bunker from 1943. I cannot imagine holing up in there for any reason.
Because we weren't so far away, we took a quick few photos at Brandenburg Gate...
...I spotted an excellent manhole cover...
...and then we headed to a marvelous Georgian dinner at Schwiliko. (Georgia the country, not the state, and cripes, is that food good. We tried out some pork/beef dumplings [khinkali]; red beans cooked in a clay pot [lobio]; fried eggplants with walnut pesto and pomegranate [badrijani]; and, pictured here, this chewy flatbread baked with cheese and an egg in the middle [khachapuri]. ALL TREMENDOUSLY GOOD.)
And then, the main event: THE HEAVY! I cannot even express to you the joy in my heart at being able to catch these guys live. They are blues, funk, rock, soul, reggae, the occasional tinge of High Noon-like jangly western...everything. You might know their music from such commercials as this one--that's certainly how I discovered them, and then followed them down the iTunes rabbit hole, where I fell hard for them, only to realize that A, they only toured in Europe (mind you, this came out before we'd even thought about moving to Switzerland); and then B, they only played festivals (which I generally despise); and C, then they took a 5-year touring hiatus to work out personal issues and to make a new album. (Fiiiiiiine, I suppose those are valid excuses for not touring, but ohhh, what a long time that was to wait for such glorious, awesome music, live and in person.)
But now they're back, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Trying to figure out how to go see them again soonest. They must never, ever stop touring again.
They put on a dang good live show, and played about 85% of the songs I wanted to hear...
...including this one, which is one of my absolute favorites, "Big Bad Wolf." (They put out two versions of this--one heavier on the guitars, and one with major brass. I can't even stand how much I love the brass version.)
Naturally, they saved "How You Like Me Now" for the encore, but what a show. Rock and roll!
Because this is a short-ish post, and I obviously can't abide that, I'll fast-forward in time a bit to the opposite of the smashing success of our short time in Berlin, and tell you about our near-utter-failure of a trip to Milano. In a nutshell, we were trying merely to test out a couch or three before purchasing one for our new apartment; oh, sure, everyone in Zürich is happy to sell you these particular brands of couches, but no one actually has one you can sit on, and so we "had" to go to Milan, where all three brands have a flagship store, to try them out before committing to one. (They're most certainly not the highest-end couches one can buy, but they're a step or two up from Ikea, so we felt it was worth the effort to test them out.)
Aaaaaaand cue the sad trombone here. I feel like we knew, in our hearts of hearts, that Italy closes down in August, but somehow we'd forgotten that minor factoid, and we got all the way to Milano, only to find that Everything. Was. Closed. Ughhhhhhhhhhh. This was the first time ever I've actually been unhappy to be in Italy. Well...at least we got some good food and a cool museum for our efforts.
And a smattering of Milano's excellent architecture...
...and history. (View from a taxi of the Spanish-built, 16th-century Porta Romana, so named due to its positioning at the start of the road leading to ancient Rome. The red arches in the background are a small remaining portion of the Spanish city walls.)
Pane cunzato at our favorite restaurant in the city, Un Posto a Milano. (I'd heard of this dish before, but never tried it. Holy smokes, so good. Bread soup with capers, almond pesto, tomatoes, caperberries, homemade baked ricotta cheese, fresh mint, and red crispy onions.)
The next day, wandered past the bell tower of San Gottardo in Corte, the chapel in Palazzo Reale, in our search for actual open furniture stores.
Past this, too. (The Duomo never, ever fails to impress.)
After finding not one but five closed showrooms**, I felt like we'd better retrieve something positive from the tatters of this weekend, and dragged Mike to a museum. The Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, to be specific, and what a surprising and delightful find.
This place was the home and the collection of the brothers Bagatti Valsecchi, who, in the 1880s, set about furnishing their family mansion in 15th- and 16th-century Renaissance style, but also cleverly concealed all of the then-modern-day comforts (hot and cold running water, electricity, central heating) in and amongst the antiques. (The family lived here until 1974, and the place became a museum in 1994.) This is a globe from 1579, in the library...
...which looks like this.
This place has some stunning plaster-, stone-, and woodwork. (Doorframe in the room of the Valtellinese bed, looking into the Bevilacqua room.)
The cupola gallery...
...with some gigantic and incredible 17th-century ceramics.
Table in one of the private sitting rooms.
Cripes, and the ceilings in this mansion! Sooo many coffered ceilings. This one and the frescoed trim underneath it are considerably older than the 19th-century mansion itself, but I'm a terrible documenter and failed entirely to note down how old these things are and where they're from. (And I can't find any of that info after the fact. Sigh.) Nevertheless: magnificent.
The glorious Grand Salon.
Hallway o' arms. Most of this is genuine Renaissance, but here and there the brothers supplemented the collection with 19th-century replicas of things that were missing.
HELLO. My name is Inigo Montoya... (I am always immediately and intensely drawn to rapiers and other pointy things with handles like this, thanks to The Princess Bride.)
View through the gates of some random building across the street from Bagatti Valsecchi. (Sheesh. you'd think this is the palazzo district, or something.)
Oh, and! We strolled past Villa Invernizzi (not accessible to the public, but again, thanks, see-through gates!) because I'd read that there were flamingoes on its grounds. Lo and behold.
For dinner, we decided to head over to the Navigli and see what was shaking. Turns out, everything: apparently, that's one part of the city that does not close down in August. (Soooo many people out and about there.) We found dinner at El Brellin, a restaurant serving classic (with some updated) Lombard/Milanese dishes, where everything was tasty, but Mike's risotto alla Milanese (with saffron and bone marrow) and our shared cotoletta alla Milanese (thin veal cutlet, bread-crumb battered and fried) were the absolute tops. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the place is situated right next to the ridiculously picturesque Vicolo del Lavandai, along a stream that was used by washerpeople doing laundry here into the 1950s.***
To do the washing, they'd beat the clothes against those triangular concrete pieces. So amazing that all of this has been preserved!
And they were super nice and let us try some samples, and they remembered us the second night. So lovely.
To sum up: Berlin = great success, Milano = tasty, but ultimately a failure. So we came home and then bought our Italian-branded couch at a store just over the border in Germany. Go figure.
Next up: the epic 10 days we spent touring Ireland with my parents!
*A super interesting thing that I just learned about Potsdamer Platz: when the Berlin Wall was built, the large underground station here became a ghost station--that is, a station located just inside East Berlin through which various metro lines from West Berlin had to run. So the Eastern authorities sealed off the station to the public; posted numerous armed guards there, around the clock; and installed various security measures to keep East Berliners from trying to escape into the West via train. Passengers on trains from West Berlin, which slowed to pass through the unused stations (there were several), would see only empty, dilapidated, dimly-lit platforms under heavy guard, and it wasn't until the early 1990s that these stations came back into use. (After major renovation, of course; they hadn't been used since the 1960s.)
**Yes, I'd spent some considerable time both online and on the phone (gasp!!!) trying to see which showrooms loudly and clearly proclaimed their closed-ness during the August holidays, and we ended up trying to visit the ones that had no such declaration, in the slim hopes that they'd be open. Ha, ha, what a hilariously misguided idea: none of them were. Ughhhhhhhhh, again.
*** "El Brellin" is dialect for the wooden planks on which the washers would kneel while doing the laundry, and the restaurant was built in the old grocery store where the washers would buy their supplies. And I say "washerpeople" because "lavandai" actually refers to washermen, a confraternity of which formed in Milano in 1700, and who formally organized and performed the public washing services at this spot in the 19th century, hence its masculine name. Fascinating.
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