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Published: February 9th 2006
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Day trip to Potsdam
Charming town outside Berlin
Lots of history.
Penny met us at the S-Bahn and then we were off to Potsdam for the day. Potsdam is a city just outside of Berlin that is full of palaces and gardens. A touristy little place but a really nice day out, even with the rain. After finding a spot to park we walked over to Neues Palais which was built by Frederick the Great and had 100’s of sculptures and over 200 rooms (not that we saw all of them) that are richly adorned. One of the interesting rooms was where the walls were decorated with shells and semi-precious stones and rocks in sort of a mosaic style. It was just amazing to look at all the work that must have been put into decorating this room. Now I know what to do with all the rocks and stones I have collected over the years. Haha
We also walked through a few gardens with nicely manicured lawns and colourful flowers and lots of huge statues. Some of the statues at the palaces etc. looked like they were in great need of a real good power wash. Lol
Anne was feeling a little tired and the prospect of having to wake up at 5AM tomorrow morning was not so appealing. So she headed home while Penny and I made our way over to Check Point Charlie.
From 1961 to 1990 Check Point Charlie was the only crossing point for foreigners to use to cross between East and West Berlin. The Check Point Charlie Museum details a lot of the history behind the Wall and the people that attempted to escape, both successfully and not so successfully, including a few of the cars that had been modified to allow people to hide in the fuel tanks, seats and suitcases in order to be driven out. It was during the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989 that the East German Government decided to make visas available at the border for travel into the West. The people were amazed and flocked to the border crossings just to see if it was really true and then spontaneously began to pull down the wall with hammers, picks and anything they could find. Some people even used their bare hands. These were some of the scenes that we watched on our TV’s.
Scenes that Berliners from both sides of the Wall never believed would ever be seen.
There is a brick path around the City that follows the old line of the Wall. In total it is about 135km long and serves as a reminder of the past.
Check Point Charlie is now very touristy but interesting to see all at the same time. There was a big queue at the Museum so we headed to a local café and grabbed a coffee and snack and sat around chatting for quite some time. Check Point Charlie is open until 10PM so we were hoping it being 6:30/7 things would have died down a bit and they had but after all that we found out admission was €9.50! Too expensive for my blood! So we checked out the official souvenir shop instead I find it so interesting that all of the tourists shops are selling bits of “the Wall.” Like it’s really a part of the original Wall! Anyhoo, I picked up a few postcards and a book about Check Point Charlie and the Wall. A good read for the train tomorrow.
Next we moved on towards seeing the outside
of the Judischer Museum Berlin but came across Topographie des Terrors where between 1933 and 1945 the Central institutions of Nazi persecution and terro were located - the Gestapo headquarters “Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office on the ‘Prinz Albrecht Terrain.’” Is an open air presentation housed in the excavations along Niederkircherstrasse and runs alongside section of the now demolished Berlin Wall.
Then we made it to the Jewish Museum. The outside is supposed to represent shattered glass…I wasn’t all that impressed and the museum was closed so we couldn’t go in to have a look.
It’s past 8PM, let’s go look for a place to eat. We wandered around for quite a bit and couldn’t remember the neighbourhood Anne took us to yesterday and we eventually called Anne to find out. We only had .20€ so not much time to talk. But enough time to hear Anne spell out the street name. Phew! So we headed in the direction of the street that Anne spelled out for me and we actually came across another set of Asian restaurants. We ended up having Vietnamese for dinner…a stirfry and it was oh so yummy…especially since by this time it must have been about 9:30/10.
It was about 11PM and still relatively early so we walked to that neighbourhood we were originally looking for and walked around to survey which place we’d like to sit down it. We ended up in a quieter place and sat down to talk more bollocks. Before we knew it, it was about 12:45. Hey, Penny, when’s the last train? We totally forgot to check on that. Whoops! So we decided it’d be a good thing to head for the train station. We got there and were buying tickets when we saw an S1 train go by. Slow ticket machine! We’ll have to catch the next one. Hmm, now it is about 1:30, the platform where the S1 and S2 trains run have only been running S2 trains the last while. Hey, the train passed and now the board has gone blank. I think that there are no more S1 trains tonight! Doh! I talked to the underground guy and he directed me to the Night Bus information stand. The help desk lady didn’t speak too much English but I pointed out on the map the station that I needed to get to and she punched it into the computer and the directions magically popped out. So I headed to the bus stop where I met two sisters who also missed the last train. They were nice enough to give me a life in the taxi they were taking to where I’d catch the second bus. They were super nice and I couldn’t say “Danke Shoen” enough. Now I had to figure out which side of the street to stand on so as to be on the correct bus going in the correct direction. I crossed the street a few times to look at the signs to double check. Then I settled on one stop. Looked more closely at the printed out directions and realized the information for which bus stop to stand at was printed right there! Lol Well, I was standing at the correct stop so that was nice confirmation!
It’s really neat that on the buses every street/stop is announced and written up on the light up display board. It sure makes it easier for non-German speakers like me. After about ½ hour my stop came up and I now had to decide which way to go on Lichterfeld. Of course my first guess was wrong and I had to double back. I found the station pretty easy…well I found the backside first and couldn’t walk through because the doors were locked so I had to walk around. From the station it’s a piece of cake to find the Kleinkaufs. Thank goodness Anne gave me a key to open the gate and the door to the house. By this time it was about 3AM so I tried to be as quiet as possible. Tough when you room is on the top floor and the stairs are super squeaky! Over two hours to get home when it should have taken ½ an hour to 45 minutes tops. Sure do appreciate the efficiency of the metro! Lol
I love Berlin because it is such an interesting and beautiful city full of absolutely fascinating history and I look forward to one day coming back to this great City. Plus it is a City that I see changing over the next while as well…
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