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Published: October 5th 2010
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And so our tour experience came to an end in Berlin. After travels through the Baltic States, Russia and Poland, Berlin was the first place that one of us had been to, and that was more than a decade ago. Arriving in Berlin late in the afternoon, we checked into dorms in the Wombat Hostel, and spent our first night of the trip in dorm rooms rather than sharing a twin room.
We had our final group dinner followed by some horrific karaoke and drinks in the Wombat's bar upstairs. No one present would like to relive Lara and Krystal's version of Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'! After some "dancing" in a bar around the corner followed by some amazing kebabs our official Topdeck tour was over.
The following morning we checked out of the Wombat Hostel and into the Park Inn Hotel, the tallest hotel in Berlin, with amazing views over Berlin from our room on the 27th floor.
After checking in we met up with some of the other guys that were on the tour and did a bit of a walking tour around Berlin covering the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall
before giving in to our exhaustion and having an afternoon nap.
We met up with more of the tour group for dinner before heading back to Brandenburg Gate for a night stroll before retiring back to the Park Inn. Our aim in staying in the Park Inn was to relax after a hectic tour and maybe have a sleep in, however German efficiency was too much for us, and we were woken up by 3 different cleaners by 8am - apparently in Germany you actually need to use your ' Do not disturb' card!
On our last morning of the trip we headed across town to see the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which is a combination of the ruins of a church bombed in the Second World War plus modern additions. And from there we met up with Krystal who coincidentally was on our easyjet flight home and headed for the airport.
And so our Russia and Baltic State tour had come to an end, and what did we think?.....
It was a beautiful part of the world but touring is far too rushed for us, if we had a similar amount of time on
our own we would never have covered the same area, we would have spent more time in all of the countries getting to know the countries better, getting out of the main tourist areas and visiting the countryside.
We struggled with not being able to make decisions for ourselves, not being able to change our itinerary as we went along and generally being spoon-fed information about where we were supposed to see and do.
However, saying all this we see the benefit of these trips for people new to travel, single travellers who want company and people who like to take it easy on holiday - we just aren't those people. But we made some great friends, went to some amazing places and are as enthusiastic about travel as we ever were!
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