history

Like I said before, I first heard about the London Canal Museum due to its ice well, a unique artifact from Victorian times that it’s so unusual I had to see it with my own eyes. This artifact is the King's Cross Ice Well, and it was used by Carlo Gatti to house imported ice from Norway. The ice was brought to the ice well by ship and canal barge, and it was preserved in two wells under the buildings where the London Canal Museum is located today. One of these ice wells can be viewed from the public area of the museum, and it’s a weird sight to see.

London Canal Museum and the King’s Cross Ice Well

London
5 min read
21/02/201828/05/2024

Back in 1999, local historian Christian Bormann found something that it wasn’t supposed to be lost. Nine years after demolition began, he found a piece of the Berlin Wall, somehow forgotten in the woods between a train station and a supermarket. More than 80 meters of the original Berlin Wall, built in 1961, is standing there, some with the V-shaped brackets that once had barbed wire on it. It’s hard to believe that something with this historical importance was lost and this is why we went there to see it with our own eyes.

The Newly Found Original Berlin Wall that was lost in the woods in Schonholz

Berlin
5 min read
05/02/201823/05/2024

Imagine that you could drive down to a local church or a monastery and ask for a room to spend the night, with breakfast in the morning. Imagine how it must be to sleep inside a church with the glass stained windows next to the bed. This is what we did at the Kruisherenhotel Maastricht, unique hotel experience and one of the most amazing places we have ever stayed of our Fotostrasse life. We spend one night there in the middle of December 2017, and we will share everything about it below.

Kruisherenhotel Maastricht: a Luxury Design Hotel inside a former 15th century Church

Maastricht, Netherlands
9 min read
17/01/201828/11/2023

During the years where Nick Cave was living in Berlin, back in the 1980’s, he was filmed for a Dutch documentary called Stranger in a Strange Land. Produced by Bram van Splunteren for the Dutch TV channel VPRO, you get a glimpse of the life of Nick Cave in Berlin even though some parts of the movie are voice-over in dutch. But you don’t need to worry about it, all the interviews with Nick Cave are in English.

Nick Cave in Berlin: Stranger in a Strange Land

Berlin
3 min read
16/12/201713/08/2024

You can still see the tall gothic tower of St. Nicholas Church from almost anywhere in Hamburg. But this Gothic Revival church doesn’t mark the skyline of the city like it used to when it was the tallest construction on Earth, from 1874 to 1876. Nowadays, the church is the second-tallest structure in Hamburg and a memorial to everything that happened during the Second World War.

The View from St. Nicholas Church in Hamburg

Germany, Hamburg
8 min read
14/12/201712/05/2024

Risiko was a legendary bar & club in the West Berlin of 1980’s, and Uli M Schueppel did a short film about its last morning, all the way back in 1986. The footage captures and documents a little piece of Berlin history with a cover of Lost in Music by Anita Lane and Alex Harvey as the soundtrack of this movie shot in Super8.

Last Morning of Risiko, one of Berlin’s legendary bars from the 1980’s

Berlin
3 min read
11/12/201730/12/2023

I was in Kaliningrad in the last days of October 2017, and the House of Soviets caught my attention since I arrived in the city. The building can be found in the middle of the central square of Kaliningrad, close to where the Königsberg Castle used to be but not quite there. The House of Soviets was built over the moat of the castle, and you can clearly see this in the following picture. There you can look at the ruins of the castle and the abandoned building in the back.

The Monster of Kaliningrad: The Story of the House of Soviets

Kaliningrad, Russia
7 min read
22/11/201730/10/2024

It was August 21, 1988, and four people decided to risk their lives crossing the Spree River in an attempt of escaping East Germany in hope for freedom in West Berlin. Three men and a woman risked their lives and watching it today make everything look like a distant event in the past, but that was Berlin at the time.

Escaping East Germany: Swimming Across the Spree into West Berlin in Video

Berlin
3 min read
12/11/201705/02/2024

Konrad H. Jarausch explains the Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall on a TED-ED video animation

Konrad H. Jarausch explains the Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall on a TED-ED video animation

Berlin
2 min read
07/10/201708/04/2024

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