What is it about the food In Germany? You don’t hear much about it but it’s absolutely brilliant. Here’s a strange experience.

Berlin has a reputation as being quite alternative and edgy but deep in the heart of the most conventional, if opulent, retail surrounding of KaDeWe, the Berlin equivalent of Harrods, lies a little secret that is pretty popular with the locals. On the 6th floor, when we visited surrounded by Christmas offerings, is the Potato Bar. It does exactly what it says – serves food that always has potatoes at the heart of the eating experience.

First find somewhere to sit if you can – a bar stool or hard wooden seat around the cooking arena. Peruse the menu whilst watching the chef prepare potatoes many ways. There are quite a few sophisticated combinations but basically this is food as fuel to keep the retail experience going. Bratkartoffeln – fried potatoes with ham – is a favourite and with a glass of beer is just lovely. Hearty winter food in a most unexpected place. (NB Germany also has a Potato Hotel – ed.)

And then there’s the ice cream. It doesn’t get much more hip than the area of Kreuzberg in Berlin (Neukölln perhaps?) but the coffee shop Fraulein Frost and its Guzimi ice cream (one of many flavours made by the Frost team) does it for me. The Guzimi is composed of cucumber, lemon and mint and it has become perhaps their signature flavour. Great café, great ice cream. Summer heaven.

Unfortunately not every visitor shows the right level of respect and appreciation. On my last visit I was pleased to witness the following exchange which illustrates just how confident Berlin’s restaurants are becoming in what they offer:
American customer (calling across several tables to a waitress): ‘Can I have some garlic bread with that?’
Waitress (calling back): ‘No, that’s Italian.’
Customer: ‘Well, some bread with herbs in then.’
Waitress: ‘No, this is a Prussian restaurant. I will bring you some bread but not with herbs in it. That’s Italian food.’

Berlin, I think I love you.

We went to stay with our friend Andrea in Berlin earlier this year. She lives in Kreuzberg, an up and coming area of the city full of mixed housing and apartments, cafes and restaurants. Although the area is gentrifying, it should keep its varied mix of people due to the combination of private and public housing. Let’s hope so.

Anyway, the point is that whilst we were staying there, our hostess asked us if we would like to go a piano recital in a factory. What an excellent idea!

This is how it can happen in Berlin. A local neurosurgeon loves piano music and pianos, so he begins to restore them as a hobby. He then rents an old factory space to enlarge his hobby into a business. He then thinks it would be great for people to hear these lovely pianos played by really good pianists. So every so often they clear a space in the workshop and arrange a motley collection of chairs to seat around 150 people. A pianist visiting the city will be invited to perform on one or more of their pianos and a series of piano concerts is born – fantastic.

We went along to this Piano Salon Christophori on a cold evening and parked in the works car park next to the factory. Wheelchair access for our friend is good as it is all on the ground floor – the factory floor in fact. We pay and wind our way through heaps of piano parts and equipment to our seats a few feet from the stage. It hadn’t occurred to me before that to store lots of pianos you need to take them apart and stack up all the components separately.

Two huge industrial heaters are blasting away to warm the large space. Pianos are wheeled about on stage and a very eccentric looking piano tuner works on the pianos right up to the last minute. The atmosphere is more relaxed than a traditional classical concert or recital but still purposeful.  The neurosurgeon does a short introduction introducing the music to be played and spending rather more time talking about the pianos it is to be played on. At this point, one of the staff squeezes past our chairs, turns the heaters off and then the concert starts.

The first part of the recital seems almost subdued and intimate but the second part, after a change of piano and composer is far more powerful and the sound easily fills the space, floating up through the girders and winch machinery. The pianist receives rapturous applause and although we can stay for drinks at the honesty bar we decide to go out into the cold night air and home for coffee.

A magical evening.

The town of Mittweida lies in deepest Saxony about 50km west of Dresden. Although it has a modest population of around 11,000, it nevertheless has its own museum, the Alte Pfarrhäuser, housed in a converted old vicarage about a hundred metres from the pretty town centre.

We have been travelling to this part of Germany for 10 years now and visit the museum most years. Indeed, I strongly suspect that we might be the only English visitors the museum has ever had. So, what is so wonderful about this museum that keeps drawing us back?

Firstly, even though it is a local foundation, almost everything is done to the highest standards. Display cases are modern and beautifully made, information panels detailed and the story of the town is well told with a range of artefacts, paintings, photographs, models, rooms and documents.

Secondly, it changes a bit every year. Rooms are updated with new displays and items added, and there is nearly always a temporary exhibition. This year it was an exhibition of the work of a photographer from the region, and in a previous year, for example, there was a tongue-in-cheek exhibition on ‘Sachsische sprache’, the Saxon dialect.

The building itself has been beautifully restored and has a pretty garden, so it feels like visiting a lovely old house rather than a museum. Some of its rooms are meticulous recreations of historical living and work spaces in and around the town, focusing on the agriculture and cottage industries that sustained the region before industrialisation. A weaver’s room with its loom is on display, as well as a full set of shoemakers tools and lasts. We were fascinated to see how the many-angled pitched roofs of the town are mainly a result of adding extensions to the height and depth of the buildings, to make extra working and living space inside.

The museum also explains the unusual structure of some of the local villages, which sometimes have two or more parallel streets in the valley not far from the stream. At one time most houses would have owned a strip of land running from their property up the side of the valley and onto higher ground. Some families still own these strips of land, usually arable these days, and rent them to larger farms in the area.

Last summer we had a special treat. Having visited the museum, once more dramatically increasing the number of UK visitors, we decided to sit in the garden for a while and look out over the roofs of the town. After a time, one of the staff came out and offered us coffee. The table was beautifully laid and cups, saucers, coffee and biscuits were provided. We sat in the shade on a lovely day, in a lovely place, enjoying the sunlit view and conversation about just how good a small museum in Germany can be.

Two years ago I read an article about how Germany is spending too much on infrastructure. Airports were mentioned. Apparently, every city has a nice new one, and I can confirm that the ones at Leipzig-Halle and Dresden are excellent.

The article also criticised the number of water theme parks being built. Not being much of a fan of theme parks I rather agreed with the tone, suggesting that money could be better spent elsewhere. Once I started thinking about it though, I realised they also meant the Sommerbad or Freibad, those outdoor open air swimming pools that are a feature of many German towns. Many of those in the east, where we go on holiday, have been rebuilt in recent years. In my opinion, this is taxpayers money very well spent.

I want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to councils in Germany for building and maintaining these places – they are wonderful. A few years ago we went to a spectacular Sommerbad in Zeitz (about 50km from Leipzig) complete with slides and fountains, but I want to pay a special tribute to a much smaller one further east in Rochlitz.

Rochlitz is a quiet town on the river Zwickau and it has the most wonderful Freibad not far from the river. Set in well-kept grounds with trees and flower beds, the unpretentious buildings are spotlessly clean and well maintained. The same goes for the large swimming and diving pool. There is small pool for tiny children and parents and other sports facilities nearby. Also plenty of grass for picnics and seating with tables around the pool.

We have been visiting this part of Germany for ten years now and usually go to the Rochlitz Freibad several times each year. The kiosk serves home-made ice cream – pear and elderflower are favourites – and snacks and drinks. It is a great value place to relax and spend the day in and out of the pool.

We were shocked to read last year that a few weeks before our visit, the Zwickau river had burst its banks and flooded the lower part of the town and the pool. Many local people rallied around the indomitable Schwimmeister Andreas, to clean out all the mud, repair the damage and restore the pool and its surroundings to their former glory. The people there are right to treasure this fantastic place, we are privileged to visit. Long live public support and investment in pleasures we can all enjoy!