Das Ist . . .

Berlin was bitterly cold. My love and I ran from restaurant to cafe to bar like our lives depended on it. We warmed fingers numb from the cold on hot coffee and spiced wine and watched fireworks fill up the night sky. We took refuge in museums filled with eastern treasures, and toured the ruins of one of mankind’s most infamous walls.

Coming back in the Summer we crossed from Switzerland, through the Black Forest with its twinkling sunlight to Freiburg, and out again via the Roman ruins and Porta Negra of Trier. We were struck on the rebound by the drama of Germany’s differences. The West and East and all the invisible lines that dissect the country and its capital. The traditional and the modern, the teutonic and the cosmopolitan, the fiefdoms and the state. With regional flavours as distinct as the meats and the wines, the recipe still somehow holds together.