Berlin (East and West)

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Wednesday started bright and early, well for these last few days anyway, with showers at 7am followed by breakfast as we had to leave for Alexander Platz and the Segway tour at 8.30am.
As an aside breakfasts nowadays consist of toast, fruit, yogurt and a cuppa, especially since Paris, as we have had kitchens in the apartments. No need to venture out for breakfast as we did in New York where our hotel room didn’t have any tea making type facilities at all.
Anyway we found our way to Alexander Platz on the subway and booked in at the Segway tour place just underneath the Telekom Tower. The tour was a ‘blast’!!!!! We were divided into small groups, 5 in ours, with a guide, shown how to ride the Segways and underwent a bit of a driving test to make sure we were OK with them. That wasn’t a hassle as we had ridden them before and they are very easy to get the hang of anyway. The others in our group were a couple and their teenage daughter from England and our guide was an Englishwoman who had been living and working in Berlin for 5 years.
We set off around the old East Berlin area with the guide, Mariette, stopping at points of interest and telling us all about them. We covered many, many such places including Marien Church (the oldest Church in Berlin and the centre for the anti-communist movement during the division of the city as the Church was tolerated by the regime), Neptunes Fountain which was shifted to its current site from the old Prussian Royal Palaces that were pulled down by the regime after the division of the city, (they are now rebuilding a replica of the palaces on their original site opposite the Berlin Dom Cathedral which was the royal families church in its day and did survive the regime), we stopped at the Cathedral and a university and saw the site of the Nazi ‘burning of the books’ back in the 1930s near the start of their rule, (there is a very poignant memorial to that event on the site, a glass window about a metre and a half square in the ground with a room underneath it of empty library shelves all in start white), Checkpoint Charlie (or the tourists version of it), an old GDR sniper tower where the wall used to be, a large open car park area surrounded by tall apartment buildings where Hitler’s underground bunker was and where he committed suicide along with many of his henchmen as the allies advanced on Berlin in 1945, the Brandenberg Gates and the Reichstag, and the list goes on. All the time we were zipping around on the footpaths and the roadways on the Segways. They are a great way to get around……might have to have a look on Trade Me when we finally get home?????? It is a fascinating place to look around when we are constantly reminded that it is only 20 years since the Wall was pulled down and we are reminded everywhere of the terrible conditions that the East Berliners lived under in the old GDR. They have not in any way, shape or form tried to hide what it was all like and near Checkpoint Charlie there are large signboards on either side of the road outlining the history of the cities division from 1945 until 1989. It was really interesting to be reminded of it again.
We finished the Segway tour around 2pm and wandered off to a nearby restaurant for some lunch before wandering around the Alexander Platz and taking in the history etc. of that area.
We also walked back to some of the spots we had visited that we wanted to see close up. The old Marien Church was built in the 1200s apparently and for old European churches was very plain inside but still a magnificent building. We then walked back to the Cathedral or Berlin Dom and by this time the rain had set in and it was wet!!! However that didn’t deter us too much and the Cathedral was another magnificent church. We were able to get right up onto a walkway around inside of the lower reaches of the huge Dome and then go up higher to a walkway around the upper outside of the Dome. This afforded great 360 degree views of much of the city, pity it was raining but never mind!! We didn’t go up the Telekom Tower this time as we had done that the last time we visited Berlin in 2008 and that day was bright and sunny so it was a bit pointless doing it again especially as it was raining.
Early evening we headed back on the subway to the apartment stopping at a ‘supermarket’ (and I use the term loosely as they are nothing like ours really) to buy some bits for our sandwiches for dinner. We have found that clothing, shoes etc. seem very expensive here, especially if you convert back to NZ dollars, but a lot of food and grocery items seem very cheap. We bought 2 types of cheese, some sliced salami type meat, tomatoes and some fruit and it was well under 10 euros and we have found that at other times. A lot of their farming produce is heavily subsidised here and that keeps the prices down. However their GST is 19%!!!
We spent a quiet evening downloading the photos from the day, having a light dinner, and planning our movements for Thursday.
Today, Thursday, was another slower start with a bit of a sleep in before beating the feet to an area a bit south of our base on Stresemann Strasse in the Kreuzeburg area of Berlin where Joy had spotted a lovely waterfall in a large park called Viktoria Park that she wanted to see. We found the park after a decent walk through a very old part of Berlin, and even found where the huge waterfall should have been, BUT there was no water in it. Shame really as you could see that it would have been a fantastic sight if there had been water in it…..but never mind, it was another experience just to walk around this part of Berlin which seemed to be very Jewish in character with a lot of Jewish jewellery shops and eventually we came across a very large Jewish cemetery that was obviously very old as well.
We then jumped on the subway again and found our way to an area where the Berlin Wall has been permanently preserved as a memorial. It was called the ‘East Side Gallery’ and featured a very long section of the main wall with a shorter section of the second wall showing where the ‘no mans land’ was during the time of the regime. It is still quite strange to stand on both sides and try to imagine how crazy it must have been for the inhabitants on both sides but especially those on the East Berlin side. This area was right along one of the rivers/canals with the waterway being in the West but the Wall running right along the bank on the other side. Very weird feeling for me anyway.
We then headed back into the old West Berlin by subway to the Kurfurstendamm area where Joy purchased a genuine Steiff bear from their official shop, and some other bits and pieces of clothing, before eating at a very nice restaurant on the K. This place actually featured NZ beef on their extensive steak menu but needless to say we didn’t go down that track and ate something different and rather less expensive. However if you don’t start converting back to NZ dollars which we don’t do when eating out, in the local currency and meal of NZ sirloin steak with a baked potato or wedges etc. with a salad was only 23euro. This would be like paying $23 for a steak meal at a NZ restaurant and you wouldn’t get much for that at home!!!!!
We then wandered down to the Kaiser Wilhem Church that I mentioned in my last blog. This memorial to WW2 is being strengthened etc. but there was apart of it open to the public in the form of a ‘Memorial Gallery’ where picture boards etc. showed the timeline and story of the building and the new church that was built beside the ruins in 1961. You were also able to see some of the magnificent old fresco painting on the ceilings and the mosaic tiled floors in the small area still standing. The 1961 replacement church is a truly magnificent building. We went inside but there was a service taking place so we couldn’t wander around but we certainly were awe inspired by the beauty of the building and the organ that was playing.
Some more wandering around the huge shopping areas in the K area and then back on the subway to the apartment to catch up on things like blogs and photo downloading around 5 pm. We are booked in tonight for a tour of the Reichstag building, the equivalent to our Parliament Buildings. This turned into a bit of a mission and we only discovered yesterday talking to our Segway guide that you had to pre-book tours of the Reichstag on the internet as they had tightened things up due to some sort of security threat a while ago. We got on the net last night and managed to get a booking for 7.45pm tonight so we leave soon, around 6.45pm, to make our way up to that part of the city complete with passports etc. to get into the building for our tour. Unfortunately it will be in the dark and Joy really wanted to get some photos from inside the big glass dome on top of the Reichstag but they will have to be of the city lights instead of the city sights.
It’s now 8.30pm and not more to tell except we got the wrong night for the Reichstag!!!! Joy thought she had booked for tonight but when got there, via a line we haven’t used before on the S Bahn (as opposed to the U Bahn), the lady at the entrance point couldn’t find our name on the list of bookings and we opened the email confirmation on the iPad that we had taken with us because we couldn’t print the confirmation out, and guess what?????we are booked for the 28th!!!!
However not a wasted trip as we got some great night time photos of the Brandenburg Gates and the Reichstag and the surrounding areas. We wandered down the Unter Den Linden, the main road leading away from the B Gates on the old East Berlin side and looked at some souvenir shops and other shops along the way before heading back to the apartment and having a sandwich of German sausage, gruyere cheese and tomato finished off with some grapes for dessert, really exciting eh!!!! But we did have a nice restaurant lunch at 2.30ish so didn’t need anything much for dinner.
That’s the last couple of days – slightly quieter pace but still seeing a lot and taking in the ambience of this quite different and very historical city.

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