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Tags: Most-Shocking-Starbucks-Locations / Starbucks / Fast Food Travel / Coffee Travel / Berlin Travel / → All Tags

Walk The Path Of The Berlin Wall And Crash Into A Starbucks

Fresh from our Most Shocking McDonald's Locations and Must-See Apple Stores Of The World series, we're taking requests for Subways as we begin our Most Shocking Starbucks Locations. Know of a 'Bucks randomly tucked into a curious corner of the world? This is going to be a running series, so email us your suggestions!

So let's say that you're enjoying a lovely evening out for a stroll in Berlin, Germany and you're perhaps following a brick path in the street that marks the former location of the Berlin Wall. You're walking along, eyes down at the ground as you ponder the history around Potsdamer Platz especially, when you run right into the side of a Starbucks.

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Tags: Food Travel / Berlin Travel / Museum Travel / Germany Travel / → All Tags

Berlin Shows Their Sausage Love By Opening A Currywurst Museum

It's hot and greasy and goopy and fatty; it's a full, heaping plate of Berlin's favorite fast food Currywurst. Only a few months ago, we found ourselves on an informal tour of the Berlin's best Currywurst stands, from Konnopke's underneath an U-bahn station to the KaDeWe's department store kiosk. Believe us when we say that currywurst—sausage drowned with curry ketchup and curry powder and presented with a side of either french fries or potato salad—is the shizznit.

So apparently we headed to Germany a tad too early, as Berlin has just opened the first museum devoted completely to the history and varieties of currywurst. The Deutsches Currywurst Museum, cozying up next to the tourist trap that is Checkpoint Charlie, explores the eating habits of Berliners (who consume around 70 million currywursts every year!) and doles out samples of the tasty favorite.

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Tags: Berlin Travel / Berlin Wall / Art Travel / → All Tags

This Year, The Berlin Wall Goes Temporarily Nude

It may seem like a radical move, but large sections of the Berlin Wall were erased this year to ready it for the East Side Gallery makeover and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a reunited Berlin.

The newly-erased wall has now been patched up and painted with a protective undercoat, and presumably there'll be protective overcoats on the finished artworks later. It's all the better to prevent the ravages of time and also save the artwork from the less artistic vandals and graffiti artists.

This week, perhaps the most famous mural has been started over: the Brezhnev-Honecker kiss, with artist Dmitry Vrubel admitting he is "a little bit afraid" that the finished work won't be the same as his original. He also said he'll need at least a month to get it done, so postpone your Berlin wall visits for a bit. It's probably best to wait until the grand reopening in November to be sure you'll see the wall remnants at their finest anyways.

Related Stories:
· Touch-Up Begins on Berlin Wall's Passionate Kiss [The Age]
· How Berlin Will Celebrate the Fall of the Wall's 20th Anniversary [Jaunted]
· Berlin Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: pixseb]

Tags: Berlin Field Trip / Berlin Travel / Communist Travel / Tourist Traps / → All Tags

Berlin's Wurst Tourist Traps: Checkpoint Charlie

Jaunted's assistant editor Cynthia is currently kicking it in Berlin and all this week she'll be telling us what to do and not do in town. Any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

Taking a picture in front of a section of der Mauer (the wall) is a touristic rite of passage for visitors to Berlin, usually accompanied by a stop to the former location of the US Army's Checkpoint Charlie. We however chose to bike instead of walk around Berlin during the city's perfect early summer weather, and therefore literally breezed by most of the jammed tourist traps that dominate the areas where the Berlin Wall once stood.

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Tags: Celebrations / Berlin Wall / Culture / Berlin Travel / → All Tags

How Berlin Will Celebrate the 'Fall of the Wall's' 20th Anniversary

This November will mark 20 years since the Berlin Wall came tumblin' down, and Berlin has figured out plenty of ways to celebrate, making 2009 the ideal year to visit this buzzing city.

For one, they're scrubbing what's left of the wall clean at the East Side Gallery - the largest remaining portion of the wall - and have invited all the artists who famously painted murals on the section to come back and repaint it. The wall will be cleaned and resurfaced first so that the new paintings should be more resistant to car fumes and vandals. Visitors can watch the artists in action and a grand reopening is planned for November.

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When Tourists Attack: Hitler Loses His Head in Berlin

The newest version of Madame Tussaud's wax museums opened up in Berlin over the weekend, but just seconds in to the new museum's life, a vandal struck: A Berlin man leaped right into the exhibits and tore off Adolf Hitler's head.

The wax figure of Hitler is now being repaired and the management of Madame Tussaud's is adamant that they'll return him to the exhibition. (The museum says market research they carried out before opening revealed that a majority of Germans wanted to have him on display.)

Ripping heads of wax dolls does sound like a nice way to get revenge over people, though. Only we mightn't target Hitler straight out: there's this rather enticing version of Britney Spears to be dealt with first.

Related Stories:
· Madame Tussauds Berlin [Official Site]
· Hitler Will Return [Spiegel]
· Madame Tussaud is a Slave 4 U [Jaunted]

[Photo from Prague Wax Museum: Curious Expeditions]

Tags: Eat-n-Sleep / Berlin Travel / Europe Travel / → All Tags

Eat 'n Sleep Berlin :: unsicht-Bar and Hotel Kastanienhof

Our Eat 'n Sleep feature profiles a restaurant in a random city and a hotel nearby. It's kinda like that old show "Dinner and a Movie" but you know, with restaurants and hotels. And better jokes.

If you want to dine with a difference in Berlin then it's the unsicht-Bar that you should head to. The name translates to invisible bar, and that's what your food is here--they've skimped on decor costs and made the restaurant pitch black the idea being that the rest of your senses will enjoy your meal for your eyes. You'll get a bit of coaching on where to find everything in the dark, and they arrange everything like a clock so you can know that you'll find your spoon at 12 o'clock and your fork at 9. The menu is short--you can choose from a 3 or 4 course meal, with a theme like fish, poultry, lamb, veal or vegetarian. The rest is a mystery until it gets into your mouth.

After being in the dark all evening, it's just a short stroll--even blindfolded--to the Hotel-Pension Kastanienhof at Kastanienallee 65. Both spots are close to the Rosenthaler Platz U-Bahn station and the Kastanienhof has that quaint wooden German look about it. You can get anything from a single room up to a two-room apartment suite at prices starting at around €100 ($140), including a typically burdensome German breakfast. (You can even invite your pals in for breakfast at €9 a head). That gives you plenty of eating in Berlin, just don't forget that it's also a city with plenty to see, too--once you've opened your eyes.

Related Stories:
· unsicht-Bar [Official Site]
· Hotel-Pension Kastanienhof [Official Site]
· Dark Dining [Jaunted]
· Berlin Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Berlin Hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: HeideKlein_OrangenKopf]

Tags: Tom Cruise / Berlin Travel / Tempelhof Airport / → All Tags

TomKat's Long Berlin Film Kiss

What's so surprising about this picture of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes having a romantic meal in Berlin? Cruise is in town to film the movie "Valkyrie" with director Bryan "X-Men" Singer, but he almost didn't get permission to film in Germany because of his Scientologist beliefs. However, when you get are filming the story of Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer (portrayed by Cruise in the film) who led an attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944, a sound stage in Toronto just won't do it. Luckily for Cruise, he recently received permission to film at Tempelhof Airport, a commercial airport used as a military base in World War II.

Baby Suri was nowhere to be seen, having probably decamped to rub noses with Knut the polar bear. We're guessing she won't be old enough next summer to see "Valkyrie" when it opens in August 2008.

Related Stories:
·Berlin Hotels [HotelChatter]
·Berlin Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: Just Jared]

Tags: Celeb Travel / Frank Zappa / Berlin Travel / → All Tags

Berlin Is Zappastrasse!

Musician Frank Zappa was posthumously honored this weekend with his own street in Berlin, in the former East German section of the city. The street previously known as Strasse 13 is the home of Orwo Haus, a rehearsal and concert space used by hundreds of bands whose members had lobbied to change the name of the street.

Anyone know why they picked Frank Zappa? Is there already a David Hasselhoff Street? And will other famous musicians who have recorded in Berlin, like Lou Reed and Rufus Wainwright, expect a similar (or greater) reward?

Related Stories:
·Berlin Hotels [HotelChatter]
·Berlin Travel [Jaunted]