Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WORTH A DETOUR
TREPTOW PARK & THE SOVIET WAR MEMORIAL
Southeast of Kreuzberg, the former East Berlin district of Treptow gets its character
from the Spree River and two parks, the Treptower Park and the Plänterwald. Both are
vast sweeps of expansive lawns, shady woods and tranquil riverfront and have been
popular for chilling, tanning, picnicking, jogging or just strolling around for well over a
century. In summer,
Stern und Kreisschiffahrt
operate cruises from landing docks just
south of the Treptower Park S-Bahn station. A bit further south, you can scarf a saus-
zenner.com
;
Alt-Treptow 14-17; mains €6-12; 10am-midnight; Treptower Park, Plänterwald)
, a his-
toric restaurant and beer garden with an integrated Burger King. From the terrace,
Treptow 6; Plänterwald, Treptower Park)
, a pint-sized island reached via a 1915 steel bridge
that was the first of its kind in Germany. In summer there's a cafe, boat rentals, movie
screenings, concerts and parties.
Nearby awaits Treptower Park's main sight: the gargantuan
Sowjetisches Ehren-
which stands above the graves of 5000 Soviet soldiers killed in the 1945 Battle of Ber-
lin. Inaugurated in 1949, it's a bombastic and sobering testament to the immensity of
Russia's wartime losses. Coming from the S-Bahn station, you'll first be greeted by a
statue o
r Ruussiia grieving for her dead children. Beyond, two mighty walls fron-
ted by soldiers kneeling in sorrow flank the gateway to the memorial itself; the red
marble used here was supposedly scavenged from Hitler's ruined chancellery. Views
open up to an enormous sunken lawn lined by sarcopphagii representing the then 16
Soviet republics, each decorated with war scenes and Stalin quotations. The epic
dramaturgy reaches a crescendo at the mauusole
ue of Mo
f Motther R
oleuum, topped by a 13m statue of a Rus-
sian soldier clutching a child, his sword resting melodramatically on a shattered
swastika. The socialist-realism mosaic within the plinth shows grateful Soviets hon-
ouring the fallen.
South of here, near the Karpfenteich(carp pond), is the
Archenhold Sternwarte
(
GOOGLE MAP
;
030-536 063 719;
www.sdtb.de
; Alt-Treptow 1; exhibit adult/concession €2.50/2, tours
€4/3; exhibit 2-4.30pm Wed-Sun, tours 8pm Thu, 3pm Sat & Sun; Plänterwald)
, Germany's old-
est astronomical observatory. It was here in 1915 that Albert Einstein gave his first
public speech in Berlin about the theory of relativity. The observatory's pride and joy
is its 21m-long refracting telescope, the longest in the world, built in 1896 by astro-
nomer Friedrich Simon Archenhold. Demonstrations of this giant of the optical arts
