Northern Lands; Or, Young America in Russia and PrussiaOptic, Oliver
General
Northern Lands; Or, Young America in Russia and Prussia
Optic, Oliver
Prussia (Germany) -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction; Russia -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction
The train left Stettin at half past three, and arrived in Berlin at
six. The officers and seamen had again been arranged in four divisions,
so as not to overwhelm any hotel, and to enable those in charge of them
to exercise a proper supervision. Dr. Winstock had gone up to the city
to make arrangements for their accommodation, and was at the station
on the arrival of the tourists with omnibuses and droschkes enough
to convey them to the hotels. The Kinnairds, with the surgeon and
the commodore, went to the Hotel de Rome, _Unter den Linden_, as the
principal street of the city is called.
CHAPTER XIX.
BERLIN, POTSDAM, AND DRESDEN.
Berlin is built on a plain, and there is nothing in the site to
recommend it. Like a drunken man, it is on the Spree, which wanders
through the centre of the city, with a branch that forms an island,
and a canal that winds around the city, and through the adjacent
country, so that the Oder on the east and the Elbe on the west are
united. The streets are generally broad, with plenty of squares and
other open spaces. The houses are of brick, covered with stucco, upon
which the Baltic fogs that prevail here have a bad effect, injuring
the appearance of the buildings. The principal street, on which the
palaces, museum, and hotels are situated, a very wide avenue, in
imitation of the Champs Elysée in Paris, but not at all to be compared
with it, is _Unter den Linden_. The middle of it is a broad gravelled
walk, with double rows of lime and other trees to shade it for
pedestrians. On each side of this is a narrow roadway for equestrians.
Outside of these roads, and separated from them by a fence and a line
of trees, are two streets for general use.
The weather was warm and pleasant, and Dr. Winstock proposed a
ride through _Unter den Linden_, which is about a mile in length,
terminating in the palace at one end, and the Brandenburg Gate at the
other. Two _droschkes_--four-wheeled carriages, with one or two seats,
similar to the _voitures de place_ of Paris--were procured. Lincoln
and Miss Gurney, with the doctor, occupied one of them. The great
avenue was full of people, and the scene was very lively. The party
drove towards the palace first, near which the hotel is located. In
a moment the doctor stopped the carriage at the colossal statue of
Frederick the Great, one of the most magnificent monuments in Europe.
The Statue itself is seventeen feet high, resting on a granite pedestal
twenty-five feet high, on the sides of which are bronze figures in high
relief, life size, of thirty-one persons, including the heroes of the
Seven Years' War, and the eminent men of the great monarch's reign.
"The king lives in that house," said Dr. Winstock, pointing to a very
plain edifice nearly opposite the statue. "He may often be seen sitting
at the corner window. There is the queen now, at the second story
window."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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