August 2017

A few final thoughts from my trip to Germany: The eastern part of Germany is full of wind farms, fine railway stations (Go to Leipzig!), and a lot of new roofs, but it feels empty Germany’s social divisions have become...

The last time I flew out of Berlin’s Tegel airport, I said “never again”, as its squalid facilities would put even the USA to shame.   But here I am, 10 years later, with another delayed flight (I blamed the...

Sitting in a (distinctly non-Anglo) Saxon café with a glass of black pilsner in my hand, on a terrace overlooking the Elbe as it made its way through Dresden, I could not help but enjoy the discomfort of endless groups...

I said in a recent post that it seemed but short steps from saying that German car-makers cheat, to saying that German business cheats, and that Germany cheats.  In other words, that Germany risks letting its criminal car companies represent...

We visited another fine museum on our trip.  Eschewing the sculpture, china, and old masters available in Dresden's partially-restored splendour, we went to the suburbs and visited the Bundeswehr's Museum of Military History.  This was not the eccentric choice it...

As I sat in a splendid and rather Rococo coffee house in old Weimar – which cannot have seen better days any time lately – I was struck by the range of turmoil that this city has seen over the...

Eating quietly in a restaurant in Erfurt's Fischmarkt, our peace was disturbed by the arrival of 29 assorted Swedes who variously shuffled and stumbled their way into the building.  They were accompanied by a be-blazered, didactic-type who, once latecomers had...

When I wrote this ... Just so that VW could lie to the public ... on the wall sticker in the Gedenk und Bildungsstätte Centre in Erfurt, my wife said "That makes you sound like a communist".  Maybe so, but I have...

This is the first of a number of posts about my Summer visit to south-eastern Germany. The highlight of my trip to Germany was not the wonderful black pilsner I found, or the glories of a grandchild developing language skills,...