UKC

after watching that prog about secret bunkers from WWII the other night my lad asked if we could visit Germany.

Where is good for a family visit, and has some WWII history nearby too perhaps.

slightly aside i was thinking of vienna for a city break as the missus would like that, anyone been there, is it good for famlies.

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:
Berlin and Potsdam is fantastic to visit, getting around is so easy. i've never really checked out the WW2 aspect as they have 'moved on' from the war unlike the Brits continual obsession with it?!

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:

Cologne is nice and as a child used to enjoy going there not sure if the phantasialand attraction is still there anymore but thats a good trip out of the city.

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:

You could try Kiel. They used to base their subs there - the sub bunkers were still there when I was last there and there was a sub on quayside that you could have a look around. Nice beach too - beach bbq at night (but not that boats can see the light or you get moved on by the GCP.

Hamburg - you could take the ferry. There's ten mark alley, which your kid might find interesting.

In reply to dek:

Mmmmm, I wonder why?

In reply to Removed User:

Phantasia-Land in Bruehl still exists. You could also go into the Ruhr for some industrial history stuff not too far from cologne, e.g. the mining museum in Bochum, including an artificial pit with lots of interesting machinery and stuff 17 m below ground. And for climbing, there's the former steelworks in the Landschaftspark in Duisburg.

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:

Heidi park Saltau!

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe: Karlruhe is nice, some nice towns near by which are ye olde worlde in the Baden-Baden region.

Awesome beer too.

In reply to violentViolet:

or actually visit a nice part of Germany... :P

Dresden is probably a nice city to visit, rich war history (read: bombed to pieces) and the area around it makes for very nice walks too.

Many large German city's have a 'war' history and interesting places. I quite liked Berlin, nice city to visit. There's a guidebook for legal and less-than-legal buildering out there.

The attitude of the Germans toward the war and themselves is huge can of worms you really do not want to open...

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:

Regensburg is a wonderful small city, although (thankfully) managed to get through the war pretty unscathed. It's handy for Nuremburg, Munich and Dachau.

In reply to Arjen:


They have by and large moved on and are more concerned with the post-war successes of current generations, unlike large swathes of our populace.

In reply to Arjen:

Bullshit. It's a fact of history and when it does pop up in conversation - as it does from time to time - it's rarely a conversation stopper. It's not the sort of thing to bring up in a completely unrelated conversation, but the Basil Fawlty approach is terribly old hat. My German partner's parents are still laughing about my father's comment that he could never forgive the Germans for Coventry not because they flattened the place but because they somehow managed to miss his mother-in-law. Apparently the East hasn't really come to terms though, and as for Austria...

Meanwhile, there's plenty of obvious places to go (MunichBerlinHamburg) but the Ruhr really is something different - off the conventional track, but stuffed with some really interesting museums and galleries and a chance to see a side of Germany that most Germans don't. The converted gas tank in Oberhausen is an unbelievable exhibition space, Duisburg gives you the opportunity to run around a disused iron works (for free), Gelsenkirchen has a really interesting zoo and their football club (Schalke 04) has an amazing ground, Essen's Zollverein Colliery is a Bauhaus masterpiece (full of museums and bars) and Wuppertal has the world's craziest railway (famed for elephant death-leaps). Honestly, it sounds totally mad to recommend the German equivalent of Teeside but it's got a lot going for it (and Aachen and Köln are within easy striking distance for something a bit more traditional).

In reply to psd:

Well, also the West-Germans I've met out here find WWII an awkward discussion topic to be honest - I've been living in Germany for nearly two years now, and only know a few people that actually can have an honest laugh about something like Fawlty towers... and I'm talking about the young, educated generation.

In my opinion it still is a big can of worms, and the poor Germans are getting it stamped and stamped in that they were the baddies in the war, in such a bad way that its bordering on trauma-imprinting. One student in our lab told me that her teacher even forbid her pupils to say 'ss' (as in 'es-es'), when spelling out words, they had to say 'doppel-s'...

I wouldn't know a lot of people who would honestly laugh about the joke your father made... the Germans who lived outside of Germany for a while are mostly ok with it (hardened off), but in Germany itself are jokes about this part of their history still 'not done'. This, in combination with a natural serious attitude (self-depreciation is not really 'done' here) sometimes leads to cramped situations.

I'm not saying the above is a bad thing or that all Germans cannot talk about the war (in fact, I quite like living here), but its just a hell of a lot different. I try to explain it to Germans like this: The way you take the piss out of the Dutch for their watery tomato's and their bloody caravans, so do we about the fact that you nicked our bicycles during the war. That is quite a relevation for most, and I've heard more than once 'god, I wish we could talk about it like that'. It could be that I have a DDR-skewed view on it, but some of my West-German colleagues weren't really any different.

So in my humble opinion is my statement not complete bullshit...

Anyway, coming back to nice places in Germany: it really depends what you want to see. Personally, I would never specifically go to an industrialised area, I'd rather go and walk in a forest or up a hill. But maybe that's just me... For a city, Berlin is quite enjoyable with a very rich history (WWII and DDR in one).

In reply to paulmcg:

Second vote for Karlsruhe. Black Forest, fairyland castles, glorious vineyards on both sides of the Rhine. Just over the border, Strasbourg also and option.

In reply to Arjen:

Ah, I hadn't realised you were Dutch! I'm amazed you haven't been throttled with your own orange shirt yet (I have one German friend who saw the photos of Guantanamo and said "If Hitler had been a football fan..."). I do wonder if that changes the experience somewhat though? I have a suspicion that I get away with a fair bit more because I'm usually in the former British zone and because people realise that I'm sending up the British attitude as much as the German.

My point, really, was that if something pops up naturally in conversation then don't hold back from it because the chances are that you'll get an eye-opening response rather than cause massive offence. Obviously it's an incredibly poor choice of conversation starter, and to view Germany through the prism of a narrow range of history is to miss a larger story that's much more interesting.

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:


re: Vienna - highly recommended. Very civilised.

I'm not a big fan of cities; after three or four days I've generally had enough. I had a week in Vienna last year and could easily have stayed longer. The public transport is excellent. Plenty of well stocked museums (including a military one just out of the centre which has a lot of WWll German / Austrian kit which you rarely see if that's of interest). The zoo (Tiergarten?) is good as are the other public parks. We went to the state opera, which was exactly as you might expect it to be.

I'll be going back.

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe: heidelburg is nice. there's the castle, with a large barrel of wine, the Oden Wald- near where a lot of the fighting at the end of the war took place, river cuises and the is an air museum nearby, with hitler's car, part of the birlin wall, hitler's plane and various other things. Can't quite remember where it is, mannheim? O iy, there's even a place called birkenau, in the forest- near wald michelbach, where i tend to go.

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe:

If you want a complete experience of a small but perfectly formed German town then I vote for Paderborn. I was based there for 3 years and it is a fantastic German town. (cheap flights, 20 mins from airport to town)

http://www.paderborn.de/microsite/welcome/index.php

It was one of the most bombed towns in Germany and they have the famous "Dom" there which is the Popes second home should the Vatican burn down, well worth a visit even if you're not religious.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Dom_zu_paderborn1.jpg

Locally, there are a lot of war sites that are not very well advertised. Not far from Paderborn airport (20 mins from town centre) there is a famous triangle shaped castle, Wewer Castle, which was the local HQ for the 3rd Reich, and if you can dig up enough info, you will find that there were many concentration camps there and are now occupied by Farmers.

http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/cards/castle%20a.jpg

There is still a British Garrison in Paderborn and all the camps they occupy, Barker Barracks specifically, are all cobbled as thats where the main Panzer Brigades were based and operated from.

Sennelager is about a 10 min drive from Paderborn and there is also a Barracks there, Normandy Barracks. Occupied by the Brits now, their Officers Mess is amazing and is still covered in German WW2 flags and emblems, sadly you probably won't be able to get in!

Sennelager railway station was also the main junction for transporting people to concentration camps, Bergen Belsen is only 1 1/2 hours away.

In between Paderborn and Sennelager is Schloss Neuhaus. It has a massive "Schloss" and again was a focal point for the SS and German local district HQ.

http://www.klaes-w.de/fotos/owl/paderborn_schloss_neuhaus_6897.jpg

If you travel up the B1 towards Hameln (about an hour away) you can see the clock and the route of the Pied Piper. Excellent history and a good visit for kids.

Also, last point honest! Half way up the B1 towards Hameln is an amazing place called the "Externsteine" Amazing rock formations and heaps of history for Paganism.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.geologe-online.de/Bilde...

If all this doesn't flick your switch, then my second favourite place in Germany is the Harz mountains and the town of Goslar, amazing place, one of the oldest towns in Germany. (Fly to Hanover and it's about 2 hours away)

http://www.goslar.de/englisch/webcams/home.htm

The Harz mountains was the border between West and East Germany, and if you walk through the woods, you can still see the observation posts and remnants of the Eastie Beasties. Also, spent most weekends there climbing, loads of routes. Heaps for the kids to do as well.

Anyway, as you can tell I like certain parts of Germany and clearly need a coffee!

Hope this helps.

Viel spass, Tschuss!
Denni

In reply to Earl Tyrconnell-Smythe: Goslar is a lovely old spot - and you can climb in the Okertal, which is only a few km away.