The Dome of the Reichstag in Berlin

April 23 A visit to the glass and steel dome of the Reichstag in Berlin used to be something I would never contemplate. The lines were always huge, no matter what time of the day. However now, due to tightened security and the requirement that all visitors register in advance for security clearance, a visit […]

Berlin and the Pope’s Revenge

April 22 The Berliners have a great sense of humor. You’d have to, to live in a city which has been pummeled to smithereens by war (more than 60% of the city center was left in ruins after 1945) divided and torn apart by the Cold War and then reunited and for the next nearly […]

Welcome back fourth time

April 21 Dick and Darlene Muth arrived on April 20th for their fourth trip with European Focus since their first one to Italy in the spring of 2010. This time, we’re spending time in some of the great cities of Europe including Berlin, Prague and Vienna. Follow their adventure here as well as on our […]

Street Artist on the Kurfurstendamm, Berlin

April 19 The Kurfurstendamm is still “the” place to shop in Berlin. It lost a bit of its luster when the eastern part of the city opened up but the once and still prime shopping street in Germany’s capital city is still all about the big brand names and shop til you drop. I spent […]

Berlin, Germany and an Inexpensive place to sleep in central Berlin

April 18 In the heart of Berlin in the vibrant neighborhood of Kreuzberg my friends Georg and Martina Siegmann have opened “The Five Lofts” apartments in a former store house that Georg bought in 1986. Moving from Rothenburg ob der Tauber where they owned and operated the successful “Passage 12” gift store, the Siegmanns have […]

Regensburg Former Roman Camp, Former Bavarian Capital

March 22 A day spent in the lovely small city of Regensburg is a day well spent. There is so much to see and do in this town on the banks of the Donau River (later, the Danube as it flows into eastern Europe) that it’s almost unfair to try and do it all in […]

Mauthausen’s Somber Shadow

March 20 There was a time when Germany was ruled not by men or women, but by monsters. The concentration camp on a hilltop near Mauthausen, Austria is testament to that fact. During Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich,” which lasted from 1933 – 1945, millions of people were brutally murdered by a regime intent on ridding […]