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Published: July 14th 2010
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From Hannover we took the train to Berlin. We had originally planned on spending only 3 nights in Berlin but after 3 rainy days of exploring we decided to make it 4 so we could fit in some more sightseeing and hopefully see the city in some sunshine!
On the night we arrived we stumbled across a really cool grungy gallery area. At first it looked like a junkyard or squat but on closer inspection it turned out to be an area where different artists hung out and displayed their work from huge metal sculptures to paintings. Very cool!
The next morning we did a walking tour. It was the first day of summer and it was 10 degrees! No fair! In the 3.5 hour tour we saw heaps of sights including the Brandenburger Tor, remnants of the wall, checkpoint Charlie (named not after a person but as the 3rd checkpoint - i.e. alpha, bravo, Charlie), the site of Hitler’s bunker, Museum Island, the book burning memorial, Berliner Dom (Cathedral). We leant a lot about Berlin’s fascinating history and especially loved hearing stories about the wall and how it fell.
That night we decided to take it easy
and we found a cinema that shows non-dubbed English movies so Lysh dragged Richie to see SATC2 (Sex and the City 2). This was met by a few grumbles! The movie ended at 1:45am but there were still plenty of people out and about (even on a Tuesday) and we had no problems getting a bus back to the hostel.
The next day we went out to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp which is now a museum and memorial. It was a very chilling visit and especially moving standing in the roll call area, being in the barracks, prison and at the mass graves. We both felt sick when we went to the execution trench and Station Z where so many innocent people’s lives were taken. This wasn’t a pleasant visit but very interesting and an essential part of visiting Germany.
The sun did come out on our last day!! In the morning we went to the famous East Side Gallery. It was fantastic! We (yes Lysh too) enjoyed a beer and pommes frites (chips) at a riverside biergarten and watched the boats go by.
After lunch we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
and the museum underneath. The memorial is made up of 2711 concrete blocks (stelae) all unique in size and shape. Walking through the walkways is quite eerie. We found the memorial to be very effective and though evoking. At the museum there were postcards and secret notes from people to their families which were their final goodbyes. This was very difficult to read and also seeing photos of whole families who had been wiped out. The displays brought us and other visitors to tears. The other unthinkable thing is that the names of many people killed weren’t even recorded. They just ceased to exist. We learnt that the victims weren’t only Jews but also other groups including gypsys, homosexuals and basically anyone who didn’t conform to Hitler’s regime. Luckily there are researchers working hard to identify all the victims.
We needed a break from history so decided to go up the TV tower for a view over Berlin. Lysh’s fear of heights may be cured after the Eiffel Tower as she didn’t find this scary at all - even at 207m high! Maybe this is because you’re taken up a lift rather than stairs and it is also fully
sealed. Fingers crossed it’s cured - we’ll see at the next tower we face!
We couldn’t get an extra night at the hostel we were staying at so had to move to another suburb for our final night. When we arrived we weren’t out of place just because of our big backpacks but because we had ended up in the very obviously gay area of Berlin. It was a nice area though and much nicer than the brothel ghetto we had ended up in Bilbao. Richie just felt a little vulnerable walking down the street!
We had heard from a few people that Berlin is a very cool place. We agree! We loved the grunginess of the city, it’s affordability and were also impressed at how open they are about their shocking history.
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