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Published: August 13th 2007
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Street Art
Sample of the street art in the area we stayed. Well we've almost caught up, we were only in Berlin last week!
Upon arriving in Berlin our expectations were shot as we walked from train station to hostel in a seemingly dodgy area. Once we reached the hostel things still didn't look better - crappiest place we've stayed at so far. We had a cry about it, ate a fantastic falafel from down the street and woke up to a beautiful Berlin summer's day. We decided to start our stay in the capital with a bike tour. Trish faced her fear of riding a bike on a road with real cars and we had a great time. Our guide was an American who basically came to Berlin on an exchange for a semester and never really left. After our tour it was easy to see why. We then realised that our "dodgy" area wasn't really dodgy it was just the charm of the ever diverse Berlin still recovering (and doing a great job at it can we just add) of decades of structural, cultural and political destruction.
It was amazing to hear of the history of Berlin over the centuries, in particular the very recent 20th century history. Our
Remember Michael Jackson dangling his baby???/
This is where he did it. Second floor balcony. guide really knew his stuff and he gave us about the whole year 11 and 12 history syllabus in 4 hours. The best bit was we just got to take pics and ride a bike - no exam at the end! Kind of wish we had paid more attention to history classes in school though.
Berlin is an extremely diverse place, jam packed full of many many different nationalities and subcultures (a
lot of punks) - tourists and locals alike. The place is also rich in the art and cultural scene as can be seen by the huge walls of graffiti all other place (not just the remains of the Berlin wall).
Our tour took us past most of the major sights in the city. We saw the place where the Nazi's burnt 40 000 (or so) books by Jewish authors or that sympathised with Jews - Bebelplatz. It was the Humbold University library at the time and the uni calls it its darkest day. Now there is a window in the middle of the square and when you look down you can see masses of empty shelves and a plaque that reads (paraphrasing here) "If you start
Berliner Dom
This place is massive! by burning books you will end with burning people". It is highly appropriate for the monument and given that it was said by someone in the 1800's is also very prophetic really.
We also rode past the site where Hitler's bunker is. It is just a carpark now. There is a very small plaque just to tell tourists this is where it is but they do not plan to dig it up or put anything else there as they do not believe he should be glorified. Our guide said that when he only found out where it was when he started work as a guide before that he used to ask locals and no one would tell him.
Similar to the crazy Nazi's the communists were also a bit nuts and we found this part of history even more interesting than that of WWII which we already had heard a lot of about. The tour ended with a spectacular story from our guide on how the Berlin Wall fell. According to the books you read the city is still unfortunately a little divided culturally (obviously not physically) but of course we didn't get that feeling as we were
Brandenburg Gate
A symbol of victory for Berlin over many decades. During the cold war this gate was in the death strip, that is between the East and the West. Another reason it is so symbolic today. There was a pretty big party on the steps when the Wall fell as it was the closest Berliners had got to it in 28 years or so. there only for a short time. You do notice though the difference in buildings from the former East to the former West but it in itself adds to the diversity. There are a double row of cobblestones through roads and buildings where the wall used to stand and bits and pieces of the wall all over the place. The largest remaining part of the wall is called the East Side Gallery and is about 1.3 kms long.
The days following our tour, we wandered around and revisited the sights we rode past. We also did a day trip to Sachenshausen Concentration Camp, about an hour from Berlin. It was a lot bigger than we expected and of course a lot has been ruined by the Nazi's at the end of the war. The funny thing about this camp is that the Soviets actually built another camp to house their POW's immediately after the war for about 5 years. They estimate about 10 - 12000 people were killed in this camp. It is hidden (well not anymore) behind the surrounding wall of the Nazi camp. The Soviet's made Sachenshausen a monument to the perils of Fascism and spack-filled the holes
Brandenburg Gate
This little lady sits on top of the Gate. She was once known as the Goddess of Peace or something similar. She was stolen by Napoleon and taken back to France as a momento of his victory. When Germany defeated France years later they brought her back home and popped her back up there. They couldn't really call her the Goddess of Peace anymore so they renamed her Victoria and she is now the Goddess of Victory. She is pointing at a very bland and boring building in the square - it happens to be the French Embassy. We think she might be giving them the 18th century bird! in the wall where the hinges were that held the gate to their secret camp and just totally ignored the fact that they'd used the camp for a very similar purpose. Absolute nutters!
We of course also did the whole Wurst thing and made sure we sampled as many types as we could. We both enjoyed Currywurst surprisingly enough - sounds awful. So next time you're having a barbie - try shaking a bit of curry powder on your sausages and smothering them with ketchup. That is essentially all it is. Oh and be sure to have it with fries.
So we loved Berlin dearly and wished that we could have stayed for longer but alas the lure of another country (even though we're not even getting stamps in our passport - damn the EU!!) took us away.
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