City Breaks

St Petersburg Episode 02 Peter the Great

St Petersburg Episode 02 Peter the Great

The building of the beautiful city of St Petersburg at the dawn of the 18th century was all down to the willpower of one man: Peter the great. Hear how he drove tens of thousands of serfs and prisoners of war to dig into marshland on the banks of the River Neva and plant the foundations of his dream city: an elegant array of palaces and cathedrals set to rival anything he had seen on his travels to Amsterdam and London. Find out about the man who dreamed of sophistication, yet watched his henchmen torture his own son to death for opposing him.

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St Petersburg Episode 01 Introduction

St Petersburg Episode 01 Introduction

Dobro pozhalovat!  Welcome to episode 1 of City Breaks St Petersburg. This opening podcast will give you an overview of the city, historically, geographically and culturally and an idea of the material to be covered in each of the remaining 16 episodes. We hope that after listening to it, you’ll be looking forward to the rest of the series and maybe also keen get down to planning a visit, knowing that what you have learned will help you get the most out of your city break.  Or perhaps you have already been to St Petersburg and will enjoy reminiscing.  Whatever your knowledge of the city, and whether you have travel plans or not, we hope you will love the ‘virtual visit’ anyway!

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Munich Episode 14 World Capital of Beer

Munich Episode 14 World Capital of Beer

First, a brief history of brewing in Munich, from its beginnings in medieval monasteries, through royal patronage, the 19th century development of the craft on an industrial scale and, finally, the development of the 6 big breweries. Find out which brewery was started for his own personal use by a Wittelsbach monarch and why Löwenbräu has a lion as its symbol. Hear too about some of the city's most popular beer gardens and what snack foods you should order if you want to drink your beer in proper Bavarian style. We finish with a visit to both Munich beer festivals and more ideas for further research: a museum for beer-lovers and ideas for a guided tour of the city’s breweries and beer halls. Prost!

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Munich Episode 13 Enjoying the food in Munich

Munich Episode 13 Enjoying the food in Munich

This episode is devoted to all things culinary in Munich, including Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) and the Viktualienmarkt,(food market) which is the gathering place for anyone wanting to buy local produce or enjoy Bavarian snacks like Weisssurst with mustard. Descriptions follow of some of Munich's best-known dishes, including hearty meat-based meals like Schweinesbraten and Leberknödelsuppe, popular local vegetable dishes such as Sauerkraut, Rotkohl and the wide variety of local mushrooms – Pfifferlinge, Steinpilze – which are the base of delicious sauces. Of course Munich is a cosmopolitan city, but the emphasis here is on traditional, Bavarian cuisine and so we couldn't resist a mention of the city's museum dedicated to the humble potato, the wonderfully named 'Kartoffelmuseum'.

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Munich Episode 12 Sport

Munich Episode 12 Sport

First, a brief history of Munich's two great football clubs, Bayern Munich and TSV 1860, and the grand Allianz Arena, home to both teams. Hear too about the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, which cost the lives of over 20 people, including 8 Manchester United players and the 1972 Olympics, seen as a way for post-war West Germany to showcase its splendours to the rest of the world. The Olympic Park is still a major tourist attraction today, but things went catastrophically wrong when Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israeli athletes hostage in front of the world’s tv cameras. Finally, BMW, sponsors of the Munich Open Golf and Tennis tournaments, whose factory and museum, BMW Welt (BMW World) are both much-visited attractions today.

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Munich Episode 11 Music and Literature

Munich Episode 11 Music and Literature

First, hear what Wagner, Mahler and Richard Strauss did in Munich and where you can still find traces of them today, followed by a rundown of the city's current music scene, from Bavarian folk music to classical. Learn about the 'Golden Age' in Munich, from the late 19th to the early 20th century, with its café culture and iconic characters. Literary Munich is covered via the authors Heinrich Heine, whose statue stands in the 'Poet’s Garden' near Odeonsplatz, and Thomas Mann who settled in Munich after studying at the university and wrote all his most famous works there. Heine's remark, uttered in 1823, that 'Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn human beings' is one of the most quoted sentences in German culture today.

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Munich Episode 10 Art

Munich Episode 10 Art

A brief history of art in Munich and information on its main art galleries and what to look out for there. Find out about works by Albrecht Dürer, Hams Holbein, the German Romantics like Caspar David Friedrich and the Blue Rider artists such as Wassily Kandinsy and Paul Klee. Hear too about propaganda art and the so-called 'degenerate art' of the Nazi period, which saw Hitler refer to the artists he thought subversive as 'cliques of chatterers, dilettantes and art-frauds.' Finally, hear the story of the Munich Art Hoard, culminating in the discovery in 2012 of Cornelius Gurlitt in his Munich apartment with huge quantities of art which had gone astray during the 1930's and 40's and which had been thought lost forever.

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Munich Episode 09 Standing up to Hitler

Munich Episode 09 Standing up to Hitler

Hear about some of the Munich citizens who spoke out against Hitler, often with fatal consequences: the journalist Fritz Gerlich and churchmen Alfred Delp and Rupert Mayer. Discover too where, in today’s Munich, you can find traces of them still. More in-depth coverage is then given to the White Rose Resistance Group, Munich students led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, whose pacifist leafleting campaign ended in a show trial in a Munich courtroom and execution without appeal that same afternoon. There is material on their actions and their ideas, followed by pointers to the places in Munich where they are memorialised and an indication of the ways in which their plea for tolerance and respect for human dignity outlived them.

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Munich Episode 08 Munich and World War 2

Munich Episode 08 Munich and World War 2

Episode 8 focuses first on places in Munich with connections to World War 2, such as the Stadtmuseum,the Dokumentationszentrum on Königsplatz, the Jewish Museum and the Dachau memorial site. Mention is made of two fictional works of great relevance; Robert Harris's Munich, a fictional account of the Munich agreement in 1938 and Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief, set in a Munich suburb in 1939. Finally, hear about the devastation left at the end of the war, the painstaking efforts of the 'Trümmerfrauen' who cleared away an estimated 5 million tons of rubble, and the memorial plaque requesting that you 'Pray and remember those who died under the mountains of rubble.'

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Munich Episode 07 Munich and the rise of Hitler

Munich Episode 07 Munich and the rise of Hitler

Episode 7 tells the story of Munich's connection with Hitler, from his arrival in the city in 1913 until the start of World War 2 in 1939. How did Munich come to be known as the 'Hauptstadt der Bewegung', or 'Capital of the (National Socialist) Movement'? Hear how a speech by Hitler in Munich's Hofbräuhaus ended in bloodshed on Odeonsplatz in 1923, and about his ensuing trial and the prison sentence during which he wrote Mein Kampf. The last section mentions later connections between Munich and the Nazi party, including the Bavarian Film Company, Hitler's friendship with Unity Mitford and the role played by well-known Munich sites such as the Hofbräuhaus, Odeonsplatz and Marienplatz.

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