Berlin & Prague

Yay, time for a reasonable trip! We took a week out for Andrew's 30th and headed to Berlin then across by train to Prague. We flew out of Gatwick on the 3rd and made our way into Berlin via train from the airport, not the easiest one we have done as couldn't find anyone who spoke English at the station, had trouble making sense of the timetables and discovered that the service we were on was also using buses half way along due to track works. Pretty unprepared on this trip we hadn't thought this through or brought a phrase book - we knew no German whatsoever!

Eventually we found a girl to follow who was heading our direction and spoke some English, nearly lost her when the buses we transferred to halfway were full and ended up on another bus but tracked her down again at the next station to follow for the last train section of the trip - we are good stalkers when required. I booked us onto a hostel boat for this part of the trip, right next to the Berlin Wall, but it was a surprise for Andrew so when we saw it behind a graffitied wall (yes we really weren't thinking at this stage as that would be the Berlin wall we realised later), both were a bit unsure as to what had been booked. Turned out to be excellent though, close to all the cheap eat bits of Berlin and not a bad walk into the centre.

Wondering around that first afternoon we couldn't get over (apart from how cold it was) how deserted it seemed. With a Fat Tire Bike Tour booked for the next day, excellent as always, we discovered that Berlin is about nine times as big as Paris, hence the deserted feeling. There is so much history here and the bike ride took us all over Berlin, including to Checkpoint Charlie, the university of the book burnings, Reichstag, the Jewish memorial and a hell of a lot of other places including a beer stop in Alexanderplatz for some banana and coke flavored beer - banana one actually not too bad!

Didn't have long enough in Berlin, but saw what we could fit in. Went back to Checkpoint Charlie and the open air museum near it - Topography Of Terror. Trekked around a lot, including over to museum island though by the time we got there was too late to get into any of the museums. Found ourselves spending a lot of time watching these gangsters (as described to us by locals) con tourists. Very well organised, if you sat and had a few coffees like we did and watched them you could pick them all out, from the couple playing the game to the fake players playing to bring tourists in, to others acting as lookouts - all really normal looking people if you hadn't followed their movements. When the police came past they were all up and gone in seconds.

So we sorted out tickets across to Prague after a couple of days and took the train across on the 6th - about a four hour journey. Had to change to a local train to the centre and then find our apartment, but a lot easier then the Berlin end.

As you can see, our apartment was awesome. Really really nice, right in the centre and a treat from hostel living for Andrew's birthday. Ordered a nice brekkie up to the apartment for the next day to have a lie in as a substitute for the missed birthday lie in this morning.

Prague was crowded, especially after coming from Berlin but we had a good time. After doing the main tourist things like the Charles Bridge and the Castle we found some of the lesser known areas to checkout - Strahov Monastry, Petrin Hill (we didn't know there was a tram up from the bottom until we had walked all the way to the top), Vysehrad. Had a night cruise on a Jazz boat as well for Andrew's birthday. The con in Prague - paying for entry to the castle when you can just walk on in - yes, we were suckers again!

Found our way to Prague airport via bus & train for the flight home.

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