Germany

Every city has a "first baby" of the New Year, but Berlin's buzz this year is about a New Year baby who's an elephant!

A German supermarket is dressing up in 60s decor and inviting Germans to get their old marks out from under the sofa cushions and spend them.

Germany has just opened the first 5km of a planned 100km bike route that will eventually connect 10 cities and four universities in the Ruhr area, and more are planned elsewhere. The wide route is aimed at commuters, with 2 million people living within 2km of the route, as well as reducing pollution and traffic congestion. Other routes under consideration include a 30km route from Frankfurt to Darmstadt. In some cases, the routes are able to take advantage of disused rail lines. For more...

There's an old saying that it's a bad idea to go shopping when you're hungry. Now we find it's that way for burglary, too. An otherwise successful German burglar has been taken down by a bite of sausage. In February, burglars broke into a supermarket in Anspach by breaking down a door. They tried the office safe and couldn't get in, but they did take €300 worth of cigarettes with them. And one of the burglars, unable to resist a delicious temptation, took a hefty bite out of a pork...

This week, Europe's first T-Rex skeleton takes the stage, and Berlin's Natural History Museum is hoping he'll be as popular a performer as his relatives have been elsewhere. In an interview with TheLocal.de, museum director Prof. Johannes Vogel said that Tyrannosaurus Rex specimens  "have this funny effect of transforming the perception of museums, and this will be no exception." The museum is well-known in Berlin, and Vogel thinks the exhibit may be the ticket to world status,...

Bombardier CSeries gets certified Airworthy.

For those who hate to have a cut-down tree and then throw it out, but can't bring themselves to love an artificial tree, Germany's Happy Tree company has a solution. They'll rent you a festive tree, and then take it back after the holiday. A startup last year when they rented 400 trees to customers in Cologne and Dusseldorf, this year they are aiming at 3000, in 12 cities, including Hamburg, Bremen and Hannover. Last year, about 75% of the trees survived the holidays; the company is aiming...

Common and popular place to get a snack in Germany.

On the sidewalks of Berlin, you are likely to find these commemorative stones. Learn more about them.

Berlin's new airport creeps closer to completion, but problems remain.

Berlin hotel construction halted; it's crushing the subway tunnel beneath it.

  One of the things I enjoy most about traveling is coming across unexpected gems.  Case in point, Zur letzten Instanz.       As my  brother and I were exploring Berlin early one evening, we came across Zur letzten...