POSTCARDS FROM JERUSALEM: POSTCARD FROM JERUSALEM/BERLIN

WHY BERLIN?
How is it that this inveterate shopper never entered a store except to eat lunch and buy chocolate at KaDeWe, the largest department store in Berlin with an entire floor of food items? It makes Macy's and Harrod's food courts look like child's play! How is it this lover of art and galleries never stepped foot in one in the entire 8 days in this city? Read on!

For starters, Berlin itself is one big gallery, there for the viewing! Not necessarily art as we know it, but history at its best and worst.

Return to Checkpoint Charlie in 2013

In 1961 shortly after the erection of the Berlin Wall, we were traveling as students around Europe and the Mid East for 90 plus days with Berlin on our itinerary. Ignoring the pleas of our families that it was dangerous and to not go, we went anyway. We both recall going to a party in East Berlin in the apartment of a young couple we picked up hitchhiking in Greece and driving through Yugoslavia and dropping in Berlin. They hid in the backseat remaining silent and frightened as the Yugoslavs hated the Germans. Neither of us recall how we got to their apartment but we do remember the tanks at Checkpoint Charlie and the soldiers and guns and bombed out buildings. We also remember Herb holding a camera at his waist and only getting a photo of wires overhead. Thus our collective memories end.

Then 5 years ago I accompanied Jennifer to Berlin and for 5 years have wanted to take my husband. I knew that with his love and knowledge of history, especially Jewish history, this was a city he would totally immerse himself in. What I was unprepared for was how much I got out of this city after only a 5 year absence. Berliners have come to grips with their past and their treatment of its various inhabitants (Jews, gypsies and gays to name a few) during WWII. The literally hundreds of Jewish monuments from the smallest brass squares imbedded in the sidewalks designating the names of the Jewish inhabitants who lived there to some as large as the boxcar monument (see below) which many of you have heard me speak about, to say nothing of the Holocaust Monument and Jewish Museum.

DIVERSITY DESTROYED

"The 2013 Berlin Theme Year (Open Air Exhibition) commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Nazi's accession to power on January 30, 1933 and the 75th anniversary of the 1938 pogroms." Not only is there a museum exhibition (which we did not see) but there are pillars papered with large photos and bios in German and English of some 200 Berliners who"stamped their mark on the diverse society of early 1930s Berlin." There are large black Xs advertising the pillars all over the city. (see Berggruen pillar below) There are also 11 urban memorials sites that "provide background information on the events that unfolded here between 1933 and 1945." One was just outside our Hotel Adlon that was very close to the Brandenburg Tor/Gate. "Working with various partner organizations, the Theme Year's programme highlights the cultural diversity that made Berlin a city of global fame and commemorates its destruction at the hands of the Nazi regime."

The placement of the pillars was purposeful in that athletes are in front of the 1936 Olympic Stadium; actors and artists near theaters and museums, writers and journalists near libraries, etc. Both the concept and the implementation are brilliant and give one pause during a normal day or for tourists to appreciate these people who either emigrated or were murdered by the Nazis in the camps. It is necessary to give the Berliners a lot of credit for facing up to their past and creating ways to educate the younger population as well as the tourists.

We were surprised to learn of some of the names we read about on the pillars as we had no idea they were Berliners: Albert Einstein, Screenwriter Billy Wilder; Artist Lionel Fenninger (ne Lyonel Feininger); Actress Marlene Dietrich, to name but a few lucky ones. Then there was Cora Berliner, one of the first women professors of economics; Regina Jonas the first woman rabbi; two of the millions murdered for no good reason.

I highly recommend planning a trip to Berlin before the exhibition ends in November.

TOPOGRAPHY OF TERRORS

"This is the present day name of the site on which the important institutions of the Nazi apparatus ofterror and persecution were located between 1933 and 1945: the headquarters of the Secret State Police (Gestapo), the Reich SS Leadership and Security Service (SD) of the SS and, from 1939 on, the Reich Security Main Office." The exhibit is built along a portion of the Wall and extends for nearly a city block.

The exhibition is very difficult to view. The horrific ways in which the Nazis chose to murder the people who disagreed with their politics boggles the mind as does events like the Book Burning. The glee shown in some of the photos with which these so called humans participated in these deeds is unbelievable. (more photos below)

THE BERLIN PALACE OR SCHLOSS

Only a portion of the size!

The city is also one large crane! And we thought Jerusalem was building! It doesn't hold a candle to Berlin in size and scope of its projects. There is an entire city block being turned into a shopping mall with perhaps a half dozen cranes at that site alone. There is the Berlin Palace, damaged by Hitler's army and then dynamited after the war by the GDR and the Russians that, despite numerous objections, they are rebuilding. From the vantage point we had in the new Humboldt Box built to highlight the Palace goings on, it looks like its own small city with the foundation pilings some 40 meters deep. To quote the Federal Buildings Minister, "the Berlin Palace will be the cultural calling card for all German!" The Schloss as it is called, was founded in 1443, and is almost as old as the city itself. Its proponents say it was and will be like the culmination at the Louvre of the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Its opponents say the fundamental policy is restoration not rebuilding, that it should be seen as an historical act of German post-war history.

The former American Ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, asks, "Why rebuild an imperial

Humboldt Box

palace in the center of Berlin? Why honor the seat of the last Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who bears much responsibility for WWI? Why restore a building on whose balcony the first communist dictatorship in Germany was proclaimed in 1918? And above all, why rebuild the heart of the city which as Hitler's capitol, rained death and destruction on millions of Europeans?"

He presents many answers but I will just mention a couple: Other capitols have rebuilt historic sites which has given these cities and countries a sense of pride. The US kept the hope of liberation of East Germany and Eastern Europe alive and President Reagan ushered in the final collapse of the communist empire. The reconstruction of the BerlinerSchloss in the heart of Berlin would be the symbolic crowing of the 50 years the Americans spent supporting the reunification of Berlin, Germany and Europe.

THE NEUE OR NEW SYNAGOGUE

Constructed from 1859-1866 to hold over 3000 Jews, the synagogue was inaugurated with Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia in attendance. It was badly damaged before and during WW II tho it was one of the only synagogues to survive Kristallnacht in 1938. In 1940, a Nazi decree closed the synagogue and used it for storing uniforms. The remainder of the history is very complicated due to more than one section of the synagogue or another being demolished and/or rebuilt and to the rebuilding that took place after the Wall came down in 1989. December, 1935, Regina Jonas was ordained by the liberal Rabbi Max Dienemann in Offenbach who was the head of the Liberal Rabbis’ Association. She spent her short life as a chaplain and was ultimately sent to Theresienstadt where she was murdered at 42. It took until 1972 for the Reform and Reconstructionist movements in the US to ordain women rabbis. In 1995 Bea Wyler, who had studied at the JTS in New York, became the first woman rabbi in post war Germany at the Jewish community of Oldenburg. There is a small museum inside with some photos and religious objects as well as photos and a fascinating story of the first woman rabbi Regina Jonas.

The entire neighborhood surrounding the synagogue has had a resurgence with restaurants, boutiques and an increasingly bourgeois clientele, what we in the US would call gentrification. As of 2008, there were about 50,000 Jews in Berlin with 15,000 Israelis and many Russians.

THE HOLOCAUST MONUMENT

Monument looking towards Hamburger Tor and Reichstag

Seventeen years after the idea of a memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe was passed by the Bundestag in 1999, the Monument was finally completed in 2005. Designed by American architect Peter Eisenmann, it consists of 2711 grey concrete slabs called tombstones. The ground is uneven and the slabs vary in heights and sizes thus creating a rather dizzying effect. Beneath ground, there are several rooms depicting personal documentation of survivors and many touching stories of entire families dying in the Holocaust. The location, close to Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag on the site of a portion of the Wall makes the Memorial even more meaningful.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS
Perhaps one of the most moving memorials is Gleis or Track 17. Behind and alongside the Grunewald S-Bahn station, located on the western outskirts of Berlin, lie the remains of the track.

Date, number, destination alongside tracks.

Between fall 1941 and spring 1942, deportation trains carrying Berlin Jews to ghettos–primarily Lodz and Warsaw in Poland–and extermination camps–primarily Auschwitz and Theresienstadt–in the east departed from this train station. The creation of the memorial was initiated by the Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company, to commemorate the deportations undertaken by its predecessor, the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Strangely this neighborhood of Grunewald has some of the most beautiful homes in Berlin, some directly across the street from the station and memorial.

In front of the station is a "telephone" booth containing books about the history of Gleis 17 that people can borrow and/or deposit with a bench on each side where they can sit and read. A very interesting concept.

A new memorial since I was last in Berlin is not to far from the Synagogue. It is entitled Trains to Life...Trains to Death and shows children with their suitcases going off to safety and those going off to the camps. Very moving.

To me one of the most effective memorials, however, is located in a neighborhood park. I am copying verbatim what Rabbi Yehiel Poupko of Chicago wrote so beautifully as there is no way I could explain it better. Surrounding it on the base is a poem by Swedish Poet Nelly Sachs.

In Berlin, there is a neighborhood memorial by the German sculptor Karl Biedermann. It consists of a bronze desk, a bronze chair, and a discarded toppled chair. All of them are larger than life-size. The sculpture sits in a park; a park in which people play and relax; a park surrounded by all the life in apartment buildings in Berlin. And in this park filled with life surrounded by apartments filled with the living, this German sculptor made absence present in emptiness, memorializing the Jewish people in a sculpture entitled, "The Abandoned Room."

The SS knocked on the door at 5:00 or so in the morning. The Jews had to go, with no time to put life and home in order or to pack, and in life hastily discarded a chair topples and remains there on the floor in The Abandoned Room never to be set upright. This memorial is the room and life abandoned by the Jews who lived in those apartments and played in the park where now sits their abandoned room.

THE JEWISH MUSEUM

Museum, the Berlin Jewish Museum is in stark contrast to its already existing building. In spite of that, however, it is quite striking. From above, the design is that of a Jewish Star. The inside is quite confusing and is geared to people with little knowledge. (photos below)

Sorry to disappoint everyone who was waiting for a first hand report about the exhibit A Jew in the Box, but we had no idea it was only for two hours on certain days. Thus you will have to settle for the only Jew we could find, invited in by the guard. Furthermore, no one asked him any questions! The guard encouraged us to return but we just didn't have time. (more photos of the museum below)

SACHENHAUSEN
"While young people from all over the world were gathering to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, just a few kilometers to the north of the German capital prisoners were being forced to erect what SS chief Heinrich Himmler called a 'thoroughly modern concentration camp'..." Sachenhausen

served as a prison primarily for political prisoners until the end of the Third Reich in 1945. Although it was not originally built as a concentration camp for the main purpose of executions, it soon became one when they added a crematorium area in 1939. It was built to house 10,000 inmates and to serve as a training camp for the SS Death's Head Units. It also was a medical teaching facility for the SS doctors to learn how to murder. However the camp was not like Auschwitz with mass murders but a "preventative detention camp" where the Gestapo took so called political enemies.

Jewish area where barracks stood; 2 remaining

The prisoners produced useful items for the guards and other personnel. Sauchenhausen's claim to fame, however, was its production of British pounds that went into circulation. Master printers from all over were gathered in one barrack room and were not allowed to leave. They took their meals, slept there and only saw each other. This was the subject of a US film in 2007 called The Counterfeiters (do see it!). A favorite story our guide shared is how years after the war, one of the printers asked to see some banknotes in England. The banker told him that was ridiculous that they had checked all banknotes and they were all fine. The counterfeiter insisted and holding each one up to a light he made a pile of the counterfeit ones. It seems that the Brits use money clips that make a pinhole so the counterfeiters made their own pinhole in a different place—Britannia's face!

To me, the most amazing thing about the camp is its location adjacent to the nice little town of Oranienburg. The inhabitants had to have known something was going on between the arrivals and the stench of burning bodies. Our guide, Gabe, told us several fascinating personal stories he has collected through research and contacting living relatives of prior inmates.

From 1945-1950 the camp served as a Soviet camp for special prisoners. From 1961 -1990 it was a National Memorial and in 1993, Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum came into existence.

THE REICHSTAG

A visit to the Reichstag is a real treat and should include a reservation for lunch (or dinner if you prefer a night tour). Aside from its fascinating past, the walk up the ramp in the dome has spectacular views. What we learned is that the Bundestag is the government and the Reichstag is the building where the government meets. Lord Norman Foster managed "to preserve the historic shell of the building and create the interior space for a modern, outward-looking Parliament." From the top of the dome, we are told by audio that there is an opening on top for air that filters down into the plenary chamber and that in certain light one can see down from the top ramp. Had I made reservations earlier, we might have been able to visit a plenary session. Advance reservations are required for all visits either on line or by phone or hotel.

Merkel's office upper left rounded

There are several other very sleek, modern buildings along one side of the Reichstag, one of which houses the offices of Angela Merkel. They were purposely built in a line and the entire complex is ecologically prudent. The chronology of events pertaining to the building itself is quite long: opened in 1894, fire shortly after Hitler came into power in 1933 was the end of parliamentary democracy in Germany and was a pretext for persecution of political opponents. 1945 at the end of WWII the red flag of the Soviet army was seen on top signalling the victory over National Socialist Germany or NSG. 1948 more than 350,000 Berliners demonstrated against the Soviet Blockade; 1961 The Wall was built part of it running right alongside the Reichstag. Restoration was completed. 1990 First Bundestag elected by whole of Germany and held its inaugural sitting in the building. 1991 Bundestag in Bonn decided to return seat of Parliament to the Reichstag. Sir Norman Foster commissioned to reconstruct. 1995 Permission to construct glass dome and walkways. June 24-July 6 Christo and Jean Claude wrapped the building in fabric, attracting some 5 million visitors. Reconstruction began shortly thereafter. 1999 the Bundestag moved from Bonn. The first sitting week began on September 6 of that year. (more photos below)

THE STASI MUSEUM

Although I purchased a catalogue explaining the Stasi, I find it quite impossible to wade through. Let's just say the Stasi stood for the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic or GDR. It used every trick of the trade for spying and surveillance that has appeared in any spy novel and then some. Our favorites were the mini cameras that were kept in men's ties, women's purses, behind large coat buttons, in briefcases, tree trunks, car doors and anywhere else one can imagine.

Perhaps the strangest piece of information gathering tho is that based on the principle that everyone has a distinctive odor, the Stasi would break into people's apartments and take "odor samples" from towels, seats, couches and clothes, archive these in jars with names on them and when necessary call out the dogs to sniff the perps out!

Vans to take neighbors away without suspicion!

Normal looking mini vans, outfitted with tiny cells and other wondrous inventions picked suspects up so that the neighbors wouldn't wonder why people were dragged off to an unknown fate. Later, under communism, the Stasi used the same anonymous arrest vans to cart suspects away.

"Considering itself the "shield and sword of the party" it was from this compound that the Stasi conducted its nearly 40-year-long fight against the so called enemies of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) - against those who refused to follow the guidelines of the regime, against those who did not conform to its ideas of a human being."

What the authorities found so amazing was that a communist dictatorship left such "fabulously narrative physical artifacts behind." The museum is located in the original Stasi headquarters and exists because the East German political opposition stormed the building and occupied it permanently in January 1990. They found everything in offices, garages and cellars.

The minister's office known as the Mielke suite, the actual rooms with the original furniture belonging to the head of the Stasi, are on view. Although a very bad man, he had good taste!

THE BERGGRUEN MUSEUM

In 1996 the National Museum reopened the Berggruen as Berlin's finest collection of modern art. Frankly, after my two visits (both after Heinz Berggruen died in 2007), I think its collection of Picasso, Klee, Matisse and Giacometti to name but a few, is the finest not only in Berlin but one of the tops in the world. The name Berggruen is familiar to art lovers in the Bay Area as son John owns a prestigious gallery in SF.

Heinz was born in Berlin to a Jewish family and fled Nazi Germany in 1936. By 1939, he was working at SF Museum of Art (now SFMOMA) and had attended UC Berkeley. After the war, he opened a gallery in Paris where he solidified his relationships with the artists who became the heart of his collection. He closed Paris in 1980, moved back to Berlin in 1996 bringing his art collection with him. In 2000 when the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, encompassing Berlin’s state-run museums and other cultural entities bought the priceless collection for the “symbolic” sum of 130 million euros, Berggruen had come full circle. The NY Times in his obituary called his return of the collection to his place of birth a "powerful gesture of reconciliation" As were his wishes, he is buried in Berlin.

Notice the X on the pillar. There are artists bios of those who either escaped or were executed.

The Museum recently reopened after a major renovation where it now encompasses an adjacent building that has been connected to the original by a steel and glass pergola with a view of the gardens and better shows off its magnificent collection.

BROHAN MUSEUM
The State Museum for Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Functionalism (1889-1939) is situated next to the Berggruen Gallery which is how we happened in. I was familiar with the work of Eva Zeis but not the other two. As is true of the other buildings we visited, this one too is quite lovely and functional . The work of the three ceramists was shown in curved cases in a well lit room. The permanent collection has some real gems for Art Nouveau and Art Deco lovers!

EAST SIDE GALLERY
The gallery is located along the banks of the river Spree on what is the longest segment of the Berlin

Wall that is still standing. Right after the fall of the Wall, the East Side Gallery was created and painted by 118 artists from 21 different countries. Using various artistic means, the artists commented on the political events that took place in 1989 and 1990 in over 100 works of art found on the eastern side of the wall. Before this time the only painted pieces of the wall were for tourists in the west.

I had wanted to see this approximately 3/4 mile long wall, the largest outdoor gallery ever, to add to my collection of photos of street art in numerous different cities. However, when we arrived, I was dismayed to see how much graffiti had been painted over much of the wonderful art.

People ignored the government signs that accompanied many of the original works and felt it their right and duty to deface them.

Now there is an even bigger threat that has hit the news. A developer who met with strong opposition from the citizenry went in under cover of night and dismantled part of the wall. He had the legal right but the local politicians will try to find a way to preserve the rest of it. I had noticed 1990 and 2009 on some of the works and discovered that many of them were restored in 2009.

It would certainly be a shame to dismantle the rest as it remains a sign that Berlin has a lively, vibrant community of artists who, among other reasons, find this a way to pay tribute to the people who died trying to flee to the West as well as to the restoration of democracy. (more photos below)

THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi regime held on a beautiful lake in the Berlin Suburb of Wannsee. On January 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, chief executor of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, called the conference to discuss Final Solution policies for Jews. Several plans were discussed and the minutes which were classified as a Top Secret Nazi document included things I doubt any of us have heard of before. The one that really hit home was what to do with the seniors over 65 who were not going to be sent to concentration camps. Instead they were going to create Old People's Ghettos: "The intention is not to evacuate Jews over the age of 65 but to send them to an old people’s ghetto. Theresienstadt has been earmarked for this purpose. In addition to these age groups - and of the 280,000 Jews who lived in the Altreich [Germany] and the Ostmark [Austria] on October 1, 1941, some 30% are over 65 - the old people’s ghetto will also receive Jews with war injuries and Jews with war decorations (EK I) [Iron Cross First Class]. With this convenient solution the many intercessions [for exemptions from deportation to the East] will be eliminated at one blow."

It is very strange to look out at the beautiful scenery and think about what went on in this building! Just down the street is the home of the late artist Max Liebermann. We were only able to see the garden through the fence where volunteers were working on the day the home is closed.

POTSDAM

The Potsdam Conference was held from July 16 to August 2, 1945. It is considered to be the last of the WWII conferences with the Big Three in attendance. Truman replaced Roosevelt and Clement Atlee replaced Churchill part way through due to Churchill's defeat as Prime Minister. Stalin was at all three conferences: Yalta, Tehran and Potsdam.

The meeting was to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany which unconditionally surrendered on May 8 (VE Day). The goals also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues and countering the effects of the war.

Once again, as in Wannsee, the conference was held in a beautiful building in a lovely setting.See below for the meaning of the Red Star.

BERLIN AND CULTURE ARE SYNONYMOUS!

The choice of art, music, theatre, nightlife, lectures, etc is endless. We opted for five concerts, varied tho all classical, in various locations, and enjoyed every one of them. Before leaving home, I tried for the Philharmonic and the closest I could get was in the adjacent chamber music hall the afternoon of the day we arrived. I had no idea that a musicologist was giving a lecture and the two pianists, two percussionists and a saxophonist would be demonstrating his points for 45 German minutes but then they played an entire piece of wonderful music! And we got to see the chamber music hall.

We also got tickets for the main hall to hear one entire program of one piece by one German composer, Walter Braunfels 'Grosse Messe op.37'. We were in line for tickets and the young woman in front told us to get tickets for that night as the composition is spectacular. She was correct and we purchased the CD. Orchestral music at its best even tho it was not the Philharmonic. And we got to see the main hall.

A last moment attempt to get into the dinner concert at the Charlottenburg Palace/Schloss resulted in a harried ride with our guide for the day Thorsten (our guide five years ago) to get the last two tickets and arrive as the first course was being served. We did not tour the Palace but enjoyed a lovely dinner served by waiters in Baroque costumes and a concert by professional musicians also in period clothing playing 17th and 18th century Baroque music. The dining room is located in the Grosse Orangerie and has a view of the garden, beautiful even at night. We were seated at a table for two as were many other couples and there were a few larger groups. I would say the room could hold several hundred people. Frederick III built the castle in the 17th century for his wife Sophie Charlotte and it remains the largest palace in Berlin. It was heavily damaged during WWII and rebuilt in the 1950s.

We also got last minute tickets to the Konzerthaus Berlin, a beautiful old building originally built as a theatre in 1821, changed to a concert hall after WWII. There, too, we got the last two seats, on the ground floor, where we could bask in the beauty of the hall. It had been severely damaged by Allied bombing and the Battle of Berlin but when it was rebuilt the exterior remained as the original architect had designed while the interior was adapted to meet the conditions of a concert hall in a Neoclassical style. Acoustically, the hall is considered to be amongst the five best concert venues in the world for music and/or opera.

What an unexpected treat we had there. The audience would not stop applauding the young Japanese conductor Kazuki Yamada conducting the Rundfunk (Radio) Sinfonieorchester Berlin and a young Austrian pianist Ingolf Wunder. Wunder won second place at the International Chopin Competition in 2010 as well as several special prizes at the same competition. After playing a very long Chopin piece, he returned to play Rachmaninoff sans orchestra. It was a magnificent concert.

Our last evening, we spent at Clarchens Ballhaus, a 1913 venue lit mostly by candlelight and looking its age. The entry is through a lovely casual garden restaurant with the dilapidated building facing. Up ancient stairs with a period sofa and table at the top and carefully placed candelabras lighting the way, one arrives at the ticket seller. For 10 Euros per person we heard a wonderful Israeli pianist, Einav Yarden, a total coincidence. Between the peeling paint and the chipped mirrors and the flea market chairs in the so called concert hall, it is a step back in time! In fact, it is a wonderful place to either attend a concert as we did or ballroom dance (or watch) on the main floor. People of all ages attend both as well as dine in the garden ( as we did). Highly recommend on your next visit to Berlin! (more photos below)

THE PERGAMON
It seemed as if we didn't even visit that many museums as the list is endless. But that is really because

we think of museums as art museums and these visits were to art as well as different kinds of museums. We of course went to the Pergamon but it is under restoration as is much of rest of the city so the wonderful front entrance was blocked off from view. Thankfully, the 2nd Century BC Pergamon Altar, considered a Hellenistic masterpiece, was still open. I never have gotten into this kind of history but I will admit it is a very impressive edifice. The crowds, however, were a bit much! We wandered through where we could and probably took the same pictures we took over 50 years ago!

MUSEUM OTTO WEIDT'S WORKSHOP FOR THE BLIND

Mr. Weidt, a brush manufacturer, employed mainly blind and deaf Jews. Apparently he had vision problems himself which helps to explain his choice of employees. There are stories by survivors who were hidden in the rooms that are now the museum. He hid his secretary and she too survived to tell stories and still stops in frequently at the museum.

To end on a humorous note, the man who has run the museum for many years has an award winning mustache, even better than the ones we saw in India!

BACK FROM BERLIN
We have done so many interesting things since arriving back from Berlin that I will write about soon. However I thought at least some of you might be interested in hearing about and seeing this amazing city. Don't go for less than a week as there are many more things to see than we could cover in our eight days!