Berlin for me was a continuous surprise. The biggest surprise was when I realized that during the Cold War, there was half a city belonging to the “free world” side in the middle of Socialist Germany. The second surprise was when I ate the famous Soljanka about which Sven Hassel’s hero Porta tells, and the third was when I realized how it happens in the biggest brewery in town. Read and see!

In Berlin

Berlin was a surprise for me. I stayed there for 5 days, in March 2018, at the international tourism fair, considered to be the largest in the world.

It was the first time I set foot in Germany, and the former capital of Hitler and then the city through which the famous “Iron Curtain” was drawn was a special attraction for me.
Since we were staying for 5 days and did not know exactly how to get from the hotel where we stayed to the exhibition center and from the airport to the city and back, we decided to rent a car. We landed in sunny weather, not hot, as befits an early spring. We went to the rent a car company from the airport to take our car and from there to the hotel.

It was easy to reach Alexander Platz where our hotel was, then we checked in and went out on foot to walk around and find something to eat. I quickly found a restaurant located in an old house, with well-known architecture, from the Saxon villages of Transylvania.

German gastronomy

The restaurant did not have a very large dining room, but the quiet, intimate atmosphere, I could say, invites you to quietly enjoy the dishes. Of course, before the main course came, we ordered a Berliner and toasted our success. The tasty beer, like any German beer, plus the sentimental feeling of drinking it at her home made us hungry. To serve, I served a classic sausage with boiled potatoes because I was just in Berlin. I confess that it didn’t seem like a very big trick and I thought that what I was preparing at home from my own pork was much tastier.

What to eat in Berlin

David got some meat in the oven and we got down to business. This first contact with German gastronomy, well-known to Brasovians like us, was a grandfatherly one. It didn’t set us back, but it wasn’t disappointing either.
Instead, the TV Tower seemed to me something imposing in its height.

We then went to the hotel and took our car to go see where the exhibition center is, to find out where to park, where to enter, I ask for the necessary details so as not to waste time the next morning when the tourism fair started.
Since the exhibition complex was located exactly on the opposite side of the city, I drove a bit, but on this occasion I saw the city.

Berlin Architecture

Berlin is not a city that delights you with the architecture of its buildings as it happens in Naples, Barcelona or Rome. It is a grave and stiff town like a Prussian officer. Taking into account the fact that it also suffered 40 years of Soviet influence, it had little to surprise us with. However, I found beautiful things in Berlin. The first of them is the Berliner Dom and close to it the Altes Museum a collection of Roman and Greek artefacts. From here we very quickly reached the Brandenburg Gate which we passed on our way to our target.

A short distance from the gate, on June 17 Boulevard, we passed by the place where, on August 28, 1987, American President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in which he once addressed Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev with the words: “If you want peace, Mr. President Gorbachev, open this gate, Mr. President Gorbachev, tear down this wall”! To the younger ones who will read this book, I tell them that the “Berlin Wall” used to go through that exact spot and they can Google it to see what it meant.

Berlin Streets

200 meters from this place, we have a monument erected in memory of the Soviet soldiers who died in the battles for the conquest of Berlin, from the end of the Second World War, covered by the classic guns and two T34 tanks, which carried the Red Army in triumph throughout the war.
We spent the rest of the day at the exhibition hall preparing for the next day, after which, in the evening, we returned to the hotel on the same road. Also in the Brandenburg Gate area we have the Reichstag Building, the first seat of the parliament.

Berlin Nights

We ate dinner in the same place, only this time,  I remembered Sven Hassel’s writings. Especially his Berlin hero, Corporal Jozsef Porta, who, when he wasn’t killing Germany’s enemies and he had raw materials at hand, he cooked some goodies that everyone who ate licked their fingers. That’s how I started searching in memory for the famous Berlin soup Solianka.

I quickly searched the menu and what do you think, I found it!
Soljanka, an old-fashioned soup from Eastern Europe, almost as famous as Borscht, the Russian beetroot soup. It is a hearty, sweet, spicy and sour soup with red peppers, tomatoes and sauerkraut. In the days of the German Democratic Republic, you could find this soup on every menu in East Berlin restaurants, as, here, we still find it today.

I enjoyed the soup and steak which I had as a main course and after washing it all down with beer we went to bed.

All in all, Berlin is a destination I recommend for those who want to enjoy German gastronomy and step on places from the European history of the last 60 years.