Thursday 7 August an after-hours guided tour of Berlin Zoo
Very pleasant walk around an empty zoo which I often find noisy and claustrophobic (admittedly, my tolerance for screaming children acting like it is one big playground is shrinking with the same speed as parents’ inability-meets-unwillingness to raise their children is growing).
Exactly when did we move from “we are in the public space and therefore ought to behave like normal people” to “we are in the public space so we are allowed to be as obnoxious as we can”?.
By the way, this is one reason I love Berlin’s other zoo – Tierpark Berlin, with all its space.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it, despite the fact that I had forgotten my most useful lense for the purpose. Nevertheless, the light was nice and soft so I did take a few photos:
Back home I experimented with some slow shutterspeed out the window (months under a streetlamp), and black and white:
Friday 8 August Rudower Fließ and an organ concert in Dorfkirche Rudow
Since I had decided to attend an organ concert in Rudower Dorfkirche in the early evening, I decided to go early and spend some quiet time with my camera at Rudower Fließ. After taking these two portrays of an early-morning visitor on my balcony.
A word about the organ concert and a photo of the (comparatively) unimposing organ can be found in the post “The Pipe Organ is experiencing ………
A word on the organ concert can be found in this post.
Saturday 9 August: “Vogelstimmen am Neunten”
This walk takes place on the 9th of each month, organised by Christine Kuhnert, Bezirksgruppe Spandau des NABU Berlin. Christine is one of Berlin’s most knowledgeable ornithologists, botanists, and actually all things nature-ists. So it takes a monumental retard to go all the way to Spandau to spend 2,5 hours in her company, walking the newly opened path starting at the bridge to the Zitadelle and going left along the canal – without having inserted the card back in the camera.
So that is what I did. Therefore, just this photo of one of the hundreds of dragonflies we saw, snapped with my phone. Hoping to go back soon because that area is amazing.
Sunday 10 August 12.00 “Friedhofstour über den FRIEDRICHSWERDERSCHEN Friedhof, Bergmannstraße”
Started the day watching the full moon setting:
Regular guided tours on the cemeteries at Südstern by Jakob Preuss.
Quoting Jakob Preuss (freely translated into English): “The third-oldest of the four cemeteries on Bergmannstrasse, and the only one whose original church is still standing. It’s the Friedrichswerder Church on Französische Strasse, built by Schinkel, and now part of the National Gallery. It features a magnificent sculpture of Luise (yes, Luise of Luisenstadt) and her sister Friederike! Many doctors are buried in the cemetery, including Dieffenbach, known for cosmetic surgery, among other things, so that a common saying in the 19th century was “If you want to flatten your nose, go to old Dieffenbach!”*) There’s also a Klamroth family plot and many lesser-known, interesting gravesites.
*) It rhymes in German: “Willst Du deine Nase flach, geh zum alten Dieffenbach”.
But first, the second gripe about children in one post. That has to be my record:
In a repurposed chapel at the Bergmannstraße edge of this cemetery, Berlin’s first cemetery café – Café Strauss – opened in 2013. The idea was to create a peaceful space for contemplation, reflection and relaxation, for visitors and mourners alike, to enjoy coffee and cake and appreciate the historic grounds (dating back to 1844).
I read about this back then and found it an excellent idea, and when I moved to Berlin I found myself living quite close to Bergmannstraße, and have visited Café Strauss several times before or after walking on the cemeteries, mostly looking to photograph birds. And always enjoyed the relative peace and quiet of the place.
Recently, the café changed owners, and is not and now called Café Friedberg, and has a completely different atmosphere, and is not enjoyable at all.
Since today’s cemetery tour started right next to the café, I had planned on having a leisurely breakfast in the café first. I had not in my wildest imagination foreseen that it would be taken up by a children’s birthday party, with children running around, screaming and shouting, making it impossible for anyone else to spend time there. And not only that, the children used a part of the cemetery as a playground as well, with balls and balloons, and even decorated the tiled paths with coloured chalk.
The parents? They were either admiring their miraculos offspring, or busy on their phones.
Sigh. So that was my first visit to now Café Friedberg, and also my last since they obviously want to chase away the kind of guests for whom the original café was intended. What a shame.
And astonishing that the responsible authority (Evangelische Friedhofsverband?) agrees to this.
But back to the very interesting tour. Highly recommended – the link is above. It was not Jakob Preuss’ fault that I did not spot any birds to photograph. In order to not have schlepped my camera along completely in vain, here are a couple of other impressions:
The first one is one of many examples of shrapnel damage in many cemeteries from WWII bombings, in this case of Tempelhof Airport.
