Travelsmartplanet

1/4 of the world’s storks roost in Poland and birth 2 or 3 chicks. They mate for life and are said to bring good luck. In August or September, they leave for Africa. They eat frogs and insects which have not been sprayed with insecticide.


Even though Poland was behind the iron curtain, 80% of the farms managed to remain privately owned and raised crops in the “old fashioned” way, which was of course, organic. So now, as part of the EU, they have a corner on organic produce and meat.

There are more bridges in Berlin than Venice – about 1,000

The Berlin wall, which came down on November 9, 1989, had been 100 miles long, 12′ high and 6′ thick.

Beate Uhse, a woman, runs the largest sex empire in the world – sex shows, shops and the Erotik Museum in Berlin.

Berliners have a real sense of humor and love to rename their statues, monuments and
buildings:

The lipstick and the compact

The Pope’s revenge

Jimmy Carter smile

Cheapest lady in Berlin

Garden of Eden

Communist East Berlin built a huge TV tower (shown here), one of the tallest structures in Europe. There’s a restaurant in the middle in a giant silver globe. One concept that the architects hadn’t factored in was how sunlight strikes the globe. It forms the shape of a cross. In those days of an Atheistic communistic state, this was called “The Pope’s revenge”.

After the Berlin wall fell and East Berliners flooded into West Berlin, they had a hard time keeping a job, since they were not used to working a full 8-hour day. It really wasn’t their fault, as there weren’t enough goods to keep stores open all day.

Humboldt University in Berlin founded way back in 1810 by Frederic the Great has had 27 Nobel Prize winners. Both Grimm brothers and Einstein taught here.

There is a 1 mile beach on the river Spree in the heart of Berlin.

And you thought it was only in modern times that invented the toll booth for cars… In 1207 in Segulda, Latvia, when waterways were the highways, there were 3 toll castles on both banks of the Gauja river. In the summer, operas are staged at the Segulda Castle and there’s a hot air balloon festival here.