Summer Trip 2007: Berlin

Our first stop on our summer trip was Berlin, we were stayed in a fantastic apartment on the old east berlin side of the city. It turns out that there isn't a big difference between the two sides of city and there are very few sections of the wall still standing as the majority of it has been torn down.


One of the first things we did in the city was hop on a bus tour which took us to many of the interesting sights of the city.




The Brandenburg Gate




Holocaust Memorial





Reichstag Building (The German Parliament)





The Hauptbahnof Train Station





The Viktoria Victory Column





A church that had it's roof destroyed in ww2





A small section of the Berlin Wall





Checkpoint Charlie





The Berliner Dom





The Fernsehturm TV Tower



And a few other places...



We decided to go back to some of the places and check them out in more detail. We also bought an iAudioGuide of Berlin which you stick on your iPod and listen to as you visit different places along the way.


Checkpoint Charlie was one of three checkpoints between East Berlin (The Soviet GDR) and West Berlin (American, French, British) I guess some people were allowed to pass from west to east (Foreign diplomats perhaps) however people from the east side were not allowed to travel out of their side hence the wall. Norm and Sue Nat's parents traveled into the East side back in the 80's I'll ask them more about it when we see them in about an hour.



Anyway the checkpoint charlie museum was filled with information about the Berlin wall and how many people escaped from East Berlin into West Berlin. Many forged passports. Some west berliners stuffed their girlfriends in the truck of their cars or in hollowed our music equipment etc. Some people dug tunnels and others made chair-lifts. Thousands of people escaped and others died trying.



We also ate many delicious foods and I drank many tasty beers. The Germanys are experts on pickling I ate many pickled beats, pickled pickles (sweet and sour) and pickled herrings with dill sauce! Another tasty thing I ate was CurryWurst which is Bratwurst in a sweet curry sauce. You could buy CurryWurst and many other Germany Sausages from carts on the street. One guy had a BBQ strapped to himself. The propane tank was a backpack and the grill was crotch high so I'd imagine he'd have to be careful not to burn his sausage.



We went back to the Brandenburg Gate and walked through it. The Berlin wall had enclosed the gate into the Eastern part of the city and until 1989 people were unable to use the gate. The gate is designed after the acropolis in Athens and was built for a Kaiser (German Emperor) who fancied Greek things back in the 1700's.



The Holocaust memorial was completed in 2004 and is a city block which is filled with a whole bunch of grey cement blocks anywhere from 1cm - 5m high. The ground the blocks are built on is uneven so as you walk into the centre you disappear. The museum that accompanied the memorial was closed so I didn't really understand the significance of why it was a holocaust memorial, However it was interesting to walk through.



The Reichstag (Germany parliament) Building was built in the 1800's and severely damaged during WW2. After the city reunified in the 1990's the The building was fixed and a glass dome was built to replace the old one.



Then we were off to the Alsace in France...