Late Summer Holiday 2012 - Part 1: Berlin
Sunday, 23 September 2012 15:40![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iguanaIn the last week of August Emily and I jetted off to Berlin for three nights, then Vienna for two nights. When we got back, we went to EMF Camp, a nerdfest in Milton Keynes, for the weekend.
Saturday
We arrived in Berlin at around 1500 local time and checked into our hotel, Gat Point Charlie, one of a small chain of hotels, this one very near to Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of a crossing point along the Berlin Wall. Once we'd checked in, we took a long walk through the city, from the Zoo in the West to Alexanderplatz in the East.
We walked through the Großer Tiergarten, a huge green area to the West of the the Bundestag, which leads up to the Brandenburg Gate. We saw red squirrels in the Tiergarten, and had a great ice cream for the surprisingly low price of €1 while walking along a lake.
Going through the Brandenburg Gate, we walked along Unter den Linden and through Museum Island, where there was a little market place selling lots of arty products, including some pebble art from an artist who had collected all the pebbles from the Rhine. We ate with a riverside view at a restaurant near Museum Island.
Sunday
There is a flea market at Mauerpark every Sunday, so we went there to have a look see. There were stalls selling all sorts of things, and I bought a nice t-shirt from an artist's shop there. We also had lunch there; I opted for Currywurst and Emily had falafel. The Currywurst was less impressive than I'd hoped, but acquiring some had been one of my aims from the Berlin trip.
After exploring the flea market, we went to Museum Island and visited the Pergamonmuseum, which was filled with ancient Near East architecture and artwork, such as the steps and some of the walls of the Pergamon Altar. There was also an exhibition of Islamic artwork, with recreations of rooms entirely lined with carpets.
We ate at Potsdammerplatz, an area that had been recommended to us by several people but failed to impress us (it was a modern cinema and eatery complex, rather than anything old and grandiose), then went to Alexanderplatz and took in the view of Berlin at night from the top of the TV-Tower there. It was a little difficult to see out of the tower, because there was a big information panel in front of the windows, and lighting from behind reflected quite a lot.
Monday
The day started quite early when I regretted yesterday's Currywurst in the middle of the night. This continued until early morning, and Emily went to see Check Point Charlie while I was catching up on some sleep. The recreated checkpoint in the road is augmented by a nearby museum, which had lots of information about the wall and its history. Afterwards, we both went to the East Side Gallery, the longest stretch of the remaining wall, which had been graffitied while the wall still stood, and had recently had the artwork on there renewed by the local authorities comissioning artists to repaint the art there.
We had read on Time Out's guide to Berlin that dotted around the city were severeal old black and white photo booths, and we found that one of them was near the station for the East Side Gallery. The photo booth took four photos automatically in fairly short succession as soon as you put your money, without any prompting, so we got caught by surprise the first time around! The next set came out much better, and after a few minutes the photos popped out of the booth and we tucked them away safely.
One thing we had discovered about Berlin is that there was absolutely nowhere to find Black Forest Gâteau, and although the Black Forest isn't really very near Berlin, we thought there might have been somewhere selling it for the sake of the tourists. We ended up in an Einstein Café on Under den Linden, which had rubbish service and cake but a reasonable hot chocolate at least!
Nearby, at the Brandenburg Gate, there were lots of wacky tourist bikes waiting for custom. Each one had seats for about six to eight people, arranged in a circle around a central handrail, with the tour guide in charge of the steering wheel. They didn't seem to be that busy so we were able to have a bike to ourselves on a quick ten minute tour of the area. It was a really useful tour to take because it showed us a lot of attractions that we went to afterwards.
First there was the Holocaust Monument, a grid of various height grey monoliths spread over an undulating concrete surface. The monument was designed to represent the graves of those who died, but it didn't have too sombre a feel about it, because everyone was playing hide-and-seek amongst the monoliths. I did quite a good job at finding Emily for the most part!
After that, we came across the site of Hitler's war bunker, which had now been turned into a car park, in what we assume was a deliberate attempt to belittle Hitler and the site. Nearby was also the Gay Monument, the memorial to gay people persecuted under Nazism.
We sat in the Tiergarden for a while, then during the golden hour we walked to Bellevue Palace at the other end of the Tiergarden, then caught the S-Bahn back to Friedrichstraße after sitting by the riverside for a while. We walked down Friedrichstraße in the shopping district to Check Point Charlie so I could have a look at it, then went back to our nearby hotel.
Tuesday
In the morning we went to Bernauer Straße, where the Berlin Wall Memorial is situated. It's the remains of the Berlin Wall along one of the roads where most escape attempts were made, and the routes of some of the escape tunnels are marked along the ground in metal. The position of the wall itself is marked using metal poles, allowing you to see the path of the wall while still being able to walk through it, as if it were just a ghost of the original.
There was also a short preserved section, complete with guard tower and tripwire power unit, that you could peer at through gaps in the concrete in the inner wall. It really brought home what the place would've been like during the Cold War.
For lunch we took a picnic to Charlottenburg Palace, which had a lovely garden and estate, before grabbing our bags from the hotel and heading to Tegel Airport. Next stop: Vienna!
SaturdayWe arrived in Berlin at around 1500 local time and checked into our hotel, Gat Point Charlie, one of a small chain of hotels, this one very near to Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of a crossing point along the Berlin Wall. Once we'd checked in, we took a long walk through the city, from the Zoo in the West to Alexanderplatz in the East.
We walked through the Großer Tiergarten, a huge green area to the West of the the Bundestag, which leads up to the Brandenburg Gate. We saw red squirrels in the Tiergarten, and had a great ice cream for the surprisingly low price of €1 while walking along a lake.
Going through the Brandenburg Gate, we walked along Unter den Linden and through Museum Island, where there was a little market place selling lots of arty products, including some pebble art from an artist who had collected all the pebbles from the Rhine. We ate with a riverside view at a restaurant near Museum Island.
Sunday
There is a flea market at Mauerpark every Sunday, so we went there to have a look see. There were stalls selling all sorts of things, and I bought a nice t-shirt from an artist's shop there. We also had lunch there; I opted for Currywurst and Emily had falafel. The Currywurst was less impressive than I'd hoped, but acquiring some had been one of my aims from the Berlin trip.
After exploring the flea market, we went to Museum Island and visited the Pergamonmuseum, which was filled with ancient Near East architecture and artwork, such as the steps and some of the walls of the Pergamon Altar. There was also an exhibition of Islamic artwork, with recreations of rooms entirely lined with carpets.
We ate at Potsdammerplatz, an area that had been recommended to us by several people but failed to impress us (it was a modern cinema and eatery complex, rather than anything old and grandiose), then went to Alexanderplatz and took in the view of Berlin at night from the top of the TV-Tower there. It was a little difficult to see out of the tower, because there was a big information panel in front of the windows, and lighting from behind reflected quite a lot.
Monday
The day started quite early when I regretted yesterday's Currywurst in the middle of the night. This continued until early morning, and Emily went to see Check Point Charlie while I was catching up on some sleep. The recreated checkpoint in the road is augmented by a nearby museum, which had lots of information about the wall and its history. Afterwards, we both went to the East Side Gallery, the longest stretch of the remaining wall, which had been graffitied while the wall still stood, and had recently had the artwork on there renewed by the local authorities comissioning artists to repaint the art there.
We had read on Time Out's guide to Berlin that dotted around the city were severeal old black and white photo booths, and we found that one of them was near the station for the East Side Gallery. The photo booth took four photos automatically in fairly short succession as soon as you put your money, without any prompting, so we got caught by surprise the first time around! The next set came out much better, and after a few minutes the photos popped out of the booth and we tucked them away safely.
One thing we had discovered about Berlin is that there was absolutely nowhere to find Black Forest Gâteau, and although the Black Forest isn't really very near Berlin, we thought there might have been somewhere selling it for the sake of the tourists. We ended up in an Einstein Café on Under den Linden, which had rubbish service and cake but a reasonable hot chocolate at least!
Nearby, at the Brandenburg Gate, there were lots of wacky tourist bikes waiting for custom. Each one had seats for about six to eight people, arranged in a circle around a central handrail, with the tour guide in charge of the steering wheel. They didn't seem to be that busy so we were able to have a bike to ourselves on a quick ten minute tour of the area. It was a really useful tour to take because it showed us a lot of attractions that we went to afterwards.
First there was the Holocaust Monument, a grid of various height grey monoliths spread over an undulating concrete surface. The monument was designed to represent the graves of those who died, but it didn't have too sombre a feel about it, because everyone was playing hide-and-seek amongst the monoliths. I did quite a good job at finding Emily for the most part!
After that, we came across the site of Hitler's war bunker, which had now been turned into a car park, in what we assume was a deliberate attempt to belittle Hitler and the site. Nearby was also the Gay Monument, the memorial to gay people persecuted under Nazism.
We sat in the Tiergarden for a while, then during the golden hour we walked to Bellevue Palace at the other end of the Tiergarden, then caught the S-Bahn back to Friedrichstraße after sitting by the riverside for a while. We walked down Friedrichstraße in the shopping district to Check Point Charlie so I could have a look at it, then went back to our nearby hotel.
Tuesday
In the morning we went to Bernauer Straße, where the Berlin Wall Memorial is situated. It's the remains of the Berlin Wall along one of the roads where most escape attempts were made, and the routes of some of the escape tunnels are marked along the ground in metal. The position of the wall itself is marked using metal poles, allowing you to see the path of the wall while still being able to walk through it, as if it were just a ghost of the original.
There was also a short preserved section, complete with guard tower and tripwire power unit, that you could peer at through gaps in the concrete in the inner wall. It really brought home what the place would've been like during the Cold War.
For lunch we took a picnic to Charlottenburg Palace, which had a lovely garden and estate, before grabbing our bags from the hotel and heading to Tegel Airport. Next stop: Vienna!
