Quick update: I’m writing this at London Heathrow on Day #19. After spending the morning yesterday in a drizzly Berlin (looking at art and having lunch), we flew to London Heathrow. We’re all set for our onward flight home — just didn’t have a chance to write more yesterday. Will provide full updates on Day #18 & 19 later.
We awoke to a drizzly Berlin morning. As our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until around 6pm, we’d planned on exploring the city more. However, the weather necessitated that we try to do things indoors (which can be a bit suboptimal with the little one). To ease things more, we opted to check-out of the hotel and take the rental car with us, thereby enabling us (in theory) to park at our destination to avoid getting soaked.
We settled on the Kulturforum as a destination due to its variety of offerings. In particular, we wanted to get at least a taste of the Gemaldegalerie, arguably Germany’s finest collection of Old Masters. Once again, Emerson did pretty well in a museum spending an hour or more looking at paintings with us. Highlights included works by Botticelli, Caravaggio, Canaletto (awesome ‘souvenirs’ of the Grand Tour), Rembrandt (though I prefer Hals, who’s work I didn’t see), and Vermeer. Libby also liked Gainsborough’s and Reynolds’s, though neither generally do much for me.
After the museum, we ate lunch at the Sony Center (this time having a much better meal at a place called Josty). Following lunch, we returned to the car, drove out of the city center, stopped for gas, and then returned to the car to Hertz at the airport. Mission accomplished! I managed to drive successfully for 2931km (a little over 1800 miles) through eleven (11!) European countries.
We flew out of Tegel airport (for the first and likely last time, as it’s scheduled to close once the new Berlin Brandenburg opens in a few months). The Lufthansa airport lounge was very nice… they served (among other things) wurst, potato salad, and fresh pretzels!
We departed on time and arrived in London a little early. The flight was uneventful, aside from Libby forgetting her Kindle on the airplane. Trying to retrieve it quickly (if at all) seemed highly problematic. So, I just provided my contact details to Lufthansa/BMI, deregistered it from the hotel, and will call about it from home. If it’s found and they can ship it: great! If not, she can have my Kindle Touch for the time being (which I bought on a bit of a lark anyway for only $79) while we wait for the next generation of tablets and e-readers to come out.
We stayed at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow, a short ride from the terminals via taxi. The hotel is sort of decorated in the “faux fancy” style… it’s not really great, but it’s fine for its purpose. We ate “Scottish food” for dinner (McDonald’s—right next door) to save time and money (which is always popular with our McNugget anyway), and we then quickly went to bed since our flight was fairly early in the morning.