SPOILER Alert: There is nothing related to pianos in this post. I was back in Berlin recently. This being my 3rd trip, I’m beginning to feel like I know my way around a little. However this time it was freezing and dangerous since clearly nobody shovels snow in Berlin and every single walking surface was covered by an inch thick, uneven, rock hard layer of ice. The streets, however, were fine. Berlin has any number of places to recommend to visitors, but I’m recommending the Food floor  on the 6th level of the KaDeWe department store. The store is a huge upscale department store, similar to Bloomingdales in the US, and more upscale than Macys. However the 6th floor is a food lovers delight. Similar to Harrods in London, you can find any kind of food here, from raw meats and fish of any type, to canned, bottled and boxed

Just got back from a quick tour of 3 German manufacturers; Bluthner, Steingraeber and Schimmel. I’ve been wanting to visit these makers (and others) and took advantage of my son’s school break and a (relatively) cheap fare from Delta to fly from JFK to Berlin, rent a car, and spend 4 days driving through cold, damp, gloomy northern Europe. We spent Tuesday morning doing a driving tour of Berlin before driving to Leipzig. Berlin is a fascinating city due primarily to its history, not its current incarnation. While it certainly has its sights, it has more than its share of drab, built-in-a-hurry, post war architecture. I did show my son the wall, drive through the former East part and have a lunch of a Donner. Then on to the autobahn for the 2 hour drive to Leipzig, where we stayed the first night in a typical, small, hotel-restaurant and slept

I visited Berlin this spring, on my way to Vienna. While there I visited a small technician based Bosendorfer dealer in the former Eastern section. These guys have had the high level tech training typical of Europe trade crafts, studying and working at Bechstein. They approach some things differently, for example they have a bass string making lathe. “Often it’s quicker just to make a string rather than wait for one to be ordered and delivered”…indeed, I’m sure it is. They also approach European style pinblocks differently. Faced with a typical Bosendorfer or Bechstein pinblock replacement, most American rebuilders would get out the chain saw and remove it completely from the sides of the case, where it is glued and often screwed in. Here they have a large, sophisticated multi purpose machine tool and route out the pin field, replacing with pinblock material. They never remove the whole block. When