What Makes a City Liveable?

I have never been to Berlin before, although I have been to Germany several times, and if I thought about it at all, I suppose I expected a rather “monumental” and forbidding Germanic landscape.

I was wrong. This is first and foremost a livable city.

We spent time today doing the usual touristy things: the bus tour with running commentary in several languages, the obligatory looks at famous landmarks–I even bought a sweatshirt at Checkpoint Charlie (it was cold!) But the real highpoint of our too-short visit was the experience of walking around the neighborhood of our hotel.

We walked to a restaurant several blocks away that had been recommended by our son (aka the Tech God). He has been everywhere, and his restaurant recommendations are always flawless-he’s a real foodie. We strolled through streets lined with 4 and 5 story apartment buildings, a mix of restorations and new construction. There were pocket parks everywhere, with children on swings and slides, young people playing table tennis (and in one case, older men playing bocce ball). Bikes were everywhere–and Berlin has the same bike-share/rental that we’ve seen elsewhere. At street level, there was cafe after art gallery (dozens of them, as we are in the arts/gallery district) after retail shop after grocery market after “wein cafe”–all at small, human scale, and all very inviting.

Berlin has an enormous amount of green space–large urban parks and the ubiquitous small “pocket” parks. What it doesn’t have is the monotony of the US suburbs. There were no quarter-acre lots with grass; instead, there were flowerpots and small potted trees on balconies–and the density that makes all of the wonderful urban amenities sustainable.

Once again, mass transit was evident everywhere. The subway, we are told, runs on minute and a half headways. Buses are everywhere. There are plenty of cars and bicycles, of course, but you can get anywhere in short order on public transit.

What really impressed me was the general attention to quality–beautiful windows and doors, etc., rather than the large, poor quality construction that characterizes so many of America’s “McMansions.” (Contrary to what all those “make yours bigger” emails we all get, size ISN’T everything.)

Finally, we remarked upon the sophistication that comes with diversity; as our waiter tonight noted with pride, Berlin is a truly international city–home, he assured us, to over 250 nationalities.

There are remarkable museums and fantastic architecture here, but it is the scale and variety of the built environment, the prevalence of the art and music, and the investment in infrastructure that makes this so livable-and delightful.

If we Americans weren’t so smugly convinced that we know everything we need to know and that we are “exceptional” (in the good sense), we could learn a lot from cities like Berlin.

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Fantastic Hotel in Berlin

When Bob was planning this trip, he depended a lot on Trip Advisor.com; since we were planning to visit places we hadn’t previously been, we depended upon internet photos and ratings from other travelers for our choices. And thus far, we’ve been pretty lucky. The Shakespeare Hotel in Vilnius was delightful; the Westbury in Dublin was what one would expect of a 4 or 5-Star hotel.

But I must say, the Circus Hotel in Berlin has been the high point of our trip so far.

It isn’t much from the street, but the interior is impeccably done, whimsical and modern. Not only is the hotel artfully done, with beautifully executed details (and very high-quality fixtures–architects and their spouses notice things like windows and bathroom accessories)–but the hotel has a very obvious personality. It is seriously green–with all manner of energy and environment-saving practices. The magazine in the room explains that the owners are committed to paying staff a living wage, and to other “ethical practices.”

Not only are the rooms (at least, ours) spacious, bright and well-appointed, the restaurant (organic, local foods) is excellent. And the prices for rooms and food can only be described as “great values.” To add to that value, it is located in the midst of art galleries, cafes and music venues–what is evidently the artsy section of the city. I really recommend this hotel!

The trip here was tiring; we got up at 3 am and took Ryan Air from Dublin, the train from Birmingham to London, the Eurostar to Paris, and–in our only stressful experience–a sleeper train from Paris Est (East) to Berlin. The stress was a result of the chaos that is Paris Est and the attitude of the French personnel in the misnamed “Information” booth. To suggest that their attitude was dismissive would be kind. Nevertheless, we made it to Berlin as scheduled, if exhausted.

We’re going to bed early, and we will cram as much sightseeing as possible into the day and a half we have before we leave for Florence.

Once I figure out how to include photos in these blogs, I’ll share some. We are meeting son Stephen (also known as The Tech God) in Tuscany, so I anticipate learning this arcane skill. We will also have daughter Kelly, son-in-law Robert, son David and daughter-in-law Jackie, and grandchildren Sarah and Bert all together for a week exploring small villages in Tuscany.

So far, a fabulous vacation. (What WOULD we do without MasterCard…)

Civilized Travel

I’m so jealous.

I’m writing this in the absolutely magnificent St. Pancris station in London, using the free, fast wifi while waiting for the Eurostar to depart for Paris.

I may be jinxing us by saying this, but so far we’ve found travel far more efficient than our experiences at home led us to expect.

We’ve flown Baltic Air twice and Ryan Air once–each time leaving promptly on time, with a minimum of fuss. No removing our shoes, no “getting intimate” with security personnel. No boarding by row numbers. (In the case of Ryan Air, no assigned seats.)

We flew from Dublin to Birmingham, and took the train directly from the airport to London’s Euston Station. The train was high speed; we were served breakfast, and there was free wifi. Businesspeople plugged in their laptops and worked, and there was no clickety-clack to disturb them–it was smooth continous rail. When we arrived in London, we walked three blocks to St. Pancreas, which, in addition to being beautifully renovated, is immaculate and inviting. The rest of our trip to Berlin will also be by rail.

Trains here are modern and clean. Electronic signs on the platforms tell how many minutes until the next arrivals; similar signs are at bus stops. (We have access to the technology, but to my knowledge it isn’t being used by IndyGo. It would be helpful in Indianapolis, since unlike the five-minute headways here, our buses run every forty minutes or so, and are frequently late.)

It’s so civilized to travel on a dependable, integrated transportation system. We could have such a system, if we had the political will.

Instead, we aren’t even repairing our bridges.

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Last Day in Dublin

We had scheduled a train excursion to Waterford and a couple of other spots in the Irish countryside, but it was cancelled for lack of other participants (apparently we were the only people who’d signed up), so we spent most of the day walking around Dublin.

The area around our hotel is fairly posh, but a few block away, things changed. While the amount of retailing remained astonishing, the quality of goods on display–and seemingly all being offered at 50-60% off–was somewhere between poor and shoddy. While we had remarked on a lack of diversity around the hotel, there was much more in the poorer precincts, leading us to form an impression that ‘people of color’ are probably disproportionately poorer here, as at home.

We walked through and around Trinity College, where students could be identified by their traditional black robes (now polyester–I wonder what they used to be). The campus is very old and impressive, but there is a lot of deferred maintenance visible.

We were struck by what appears to be a really first-rate public transportation system. Buses, rail, taxis are everywhere. And we were jealous of the impressive bike-share program; the distinctive blue bikes can be checked out through a kiosk, which unlocks the bike from it’s stand. No attendant needed. From casual observation, the program seemed very popular–we saw lots of folks checking them out and returning them.

People are not as thin as in Vilnius, but still far, far from as obese as we are in Indiana.

Tomorrow is a long travel day–we need to leave our hotel at four in the morning, and then it is air and rail with several changes until we reach Berlin.

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DUBLIN

The difference between Vilnius and Dublin in attitudes is palpable. Although the young woman who narrated our tour in Vilnius said that Lithuania was experiencing an economic downturn, it wasn’t visible–shops and cafes were bustling, there was significant construction and restoration activity, and everyone we interacted with seemed upbeat.

In Dublin, by contrast, the shops are all plastered with sale signs, there are empty shops even on Grafton Street, the “fancy” and expensive shopping thoroughfare, and both our cab-driver yesterday and a salesclerk in Marks and Spencer’s today volunteered that Ireland is experiencing a depression. (Their terminology.)

The taxi driver also volunteered considerable anger at “the bankers” who are giving themselves bonuses after their actions bankrupted the country. People are losing everything, he said, and those who brought on the crisis are still living high. One of these days, he predicted, someone with nothing left to lose will shoot a couple of them.

Sobering realities, and not so far from those we left at home–although I haven’t heard so direct an indictment elsewhere.

Last evening we strolled around Temple Bar and ate at a traditional Irish restaurant called Gallaghers. We had Irish boxty–the Irish version of Knish, with some variation. (It has been a theory of mine that every culture has similar dishes that are simply named differently–kreplach, ravioli…).

Tomorrow we are taking a day train out into the Irish countryside, and quite early on Tuesday we head for Berlin via Birmingham, London, the Chunnel and Paris. It will be a long travel day, and I anticipate no time for blogging until we are in Berlin.

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