Advertisement
Published: September 20th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Berlin
The remains of the Berlin Wall Berlin, Berlin. How everyone raves about it, so we had to see it. The best way to do that is by walking (or cycling if you can afford to rent a bike). So we walked. And walked. And walked some more. After spending 5 days with family near Cologne (Germany) where we mostly ate and drank (and ate and drank some more) it was actually very good for us. But maybe not so much for our feet.
The walking started as soon as we arrived. We arrived in Berlin about 8pm one night and couldn't find our hostel. We walked in one direction, had no luck, turned around back to the train station, went in the other direction and had no luck, asked for some more directions and found out we had been heading in the right direction originally! So we went back again. What was a 10 minute walk more than doubled. I could have quite happily thrown a bundle of stuff out of my pack before I got to the hostel. Backpacking has its moments.
The next day we joined a "free" tour of Berlin which I read about at the hostel. We were picked up at
Berlin
The square outside Humbloldt university where the book burning occurred the hostel for a 4 hour walking tour around the main sights of Berlin. It was an amazing tour. The tour guide had heaps of information and technically it is free (although they asked for tips and we were so impressed we gave one). We started at the Brandenburg Gate, saw the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window, and then kept walking around, mostly in the old East Berlin. After the tour we wandered around on our own, browsing shops and just generally experiencing the feel of Berlin. By the end of it, we both needed feet massages but unfortunately neither of us got one!
Our tour guide was a font of information, but the time we had didn't allow time for looking around the museums and going into the buildings that we passed, so the next day Evan and I pretty much repeated our steps from the tour and tried to absorb more information about Germany's recent past.
One of the most amazing buildings for us was the Reichstag, the German house of parliament. It is really interesting in that the top of it has a giant dome which you can walk up
Berlin
The Reichstag - check out the dome and around (if you don't mind queuing for a long time!) which was put there so that the politicians can look up every now and then to remind themselves who they are there to serve - the ordinary people above them. A very good concept. Unfortunately the line was so long by the time we got there we probably would have spent all day in the queue. So - for anyone going to Berlin - get to the Reichstag early or late!
Berlin has so much history but of course most of what people think of is the modern history - and it is not positive. So much atrocity. Funny to think that WWII was only 60 years ago, and that the Wall only came down in 1989.
We saw a new memorial which has been built as a reminder to everyone of the Jewish holocaust. It is an interesting piece of art - a large square filled with large grey concrete blocks set at different heights. There is no defined meaning behind this. Obviously the artist had his own ideas, but he hasn't made it public, rather leaving everyone to make up their own minds about its
Berlin
The Memorial to the Jews killed during WWII significance. Underneath this memorial is a free museum telling the history of the persecution of the Jews during Hitler's reign. It is incredibly moving.
We saw the only remaining section of the Wall dividing Berlin into east and west and on our second day took a walk through the Topography of Terror exhibition behind the wall which describes the history of WWII. There is a particular focus on the activities of the SS and Gestapo. We even watched the short film they have on the Nuremburg trials.
I particularly liked the escape stories associated with the Wall. It was only built in 1961 to prevent all the East Germans from taking holidays in the West and never coming back. An early escape story included the man who bought a low riding sports car, drove into east germany and stowed his girlfriend in the boot, removed the windshield from the car, and then drove "under" the gate extremely fast! Some other guy heard about it, bought the car and did the same thing! The army learned after that and built a zig-zag checkpoint to stop it happening again.
Then there was the famous square outside Humboldt University where
Berlin
The UN bears the students and teachers and others gathered together and burnt about 20000 books of "questionable" content, or simply written by "inappropriate" people, like Jews. There is now a room under the square, which you can see through a glass covered hole, full of empty bookshelves big enough to hold 20,000 books. Quite disturbing. To some way make up for this, people now sell books in front of the University.
On a more positive note we went to see the UN bears. All of the United Nations countries have been given big plastic bears which they were asked to paint and then put in an exhibition around the world. These bears are being taken around the world and auctioned off as they go. Some of them are incredibly cute, some gorgeous, and others just a crack up. Check out the Cuba bear!
We were going to check out the famous Lego world, but e14 was way more than we wanted to pay for entry! So instead I think we found a nice wine bar, where we had a beer! We also walked through the 5 star area of Berlin - full of car shops with Ferraris, Audis, Bugatis, Porsche,
The Cuba bear!
Love that cigar you name it! There was even a chocolate store with replicas of famous German buildings - amazing.
We also took in a couple of museums during free time on Thursday night. We saw the bust of Nefretiti, the Gates of Babylon (covered with scaffold - typical!) and the Altar from Pergamum in Turkey. All amazing in scale and history.
Berlin was fantastic. I would have loved to have more time there, but Poland was calling!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.104s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0397s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb