In the ground at Bebelplatz, which is a central square in Berlin by the opera house, is a curious site. There is a window that looks down on a room with empty bookshelves with enough space for 20,000 books. This is a monument to remember a book burning ceremony held on this spot on May [...]

If you don’t remember the Trabi (or Trabant), it was a car manufactured in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It tended to belch smoke and was comically small. They have mostly disappeared from the roads but a company in Berlin has brought them back for nostalgic tours of the city

This is the famous Checkpoint Charlie (behind the festive tree) that used to be the gateway from East Berlin to the American Sector of West Berlin. It is not the real checkpoint but a recreation as the original was torn down with the wall. The photo is the photo of a young American soldier who [...]

When I first went to Berlin 3 months after the wall fell I could not find any trace of it. I did miss this section of wall near the Germany tax service building (see yesterday’s picture). I loved the contrast of the interesting neo-clasical building in the background in what used to be West Germany [...]

This is a mural on a government building in Berlin that shows what communism was supposed to be like. Ironically, in front of this building is a memorial to the citizens who died in an uprising of 1953 in East Germany. The protests originally were seeking lower work quotas but later demanded the resignation [...]

This memorial to those who died in the holocaust is named very plainly the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”. It is in Berlin very near to the Brandenburg Gate. It is composed of 2,711 granite slabs of various heights on an undulating 4.7 acres of land. The memorial is located on land that [...]

This is a transcript of an episode of the Amateur Traveler focusing on traveling to Venice and the Veneto in Italy.

Travel to Bavaria and Southern Germany – Episode 188
More blogs posts about Germany
More podcasts about Germany

Chris: I’d like to welcome back Jason and Janie from Charlottesville, Virginia who’ve come to talk to us about Bavaria [...]

The first story is a sad one but one that people need to hear. Please, please, please pay attention to the seat belt signs when you fly.
Pay attention to that seat belt sign
A Texas woman is paralyzed after getting up to use the lavatory, ignoring the fasten seat belt sign, as her Continental Airlines flight [...]

If you have trouble figuring out what to pack for a trip then have I got a hotel for you…
Check In at Germany’s First Naked Hotel
Clothes will be strictly forbidden on the premises of Germany’s first hotel for nudists, which will open shortly in the southwestern Black Forest region. Guests will be required to remove [...]

This is the travel journal from my trip to Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy in 2007.

Europe – day 1 – Rothenberg
Europe – day 2 – Rothenberg
Europe – day 3 – Zurich
Europe – day 4 – Zurich – Zueri Faescht
Europe – day 5 – Grindelwald
Europe – day 6 – Grindelwald
Europe – day 7 – the road [...]