Hello! We made it to Berlin after a long train ride which was extended from 7 hours to 8 hours due to delays. As I write this, I’m sitting on the floor of a 4 hour train to Prague which has been overbooked. We are travelling on trains with Eurail passes and what they don’t tell you is that you can book seats on every train even if it doesn’t say they’re required. All good though – I’ve got my spot on the floor at the end of the carriage and there are 6 others here with me! Adds to the adventure, right?
Back to Berlin! When we arrived we got to our hotel and then headed out for some food! We found a little place called Curry 61 which sold sausages in curry sauce with fries. Sounds German and perfect to us! It was delicious. We then got some ice cream and went and sat in the park. Was a nice intro to Berlin.
Day One
Wednesday was our first full day in Berlin. Currently there is a special on the monthly transport pass which gives you unlimited local and regional travel for €9 within a calendar month. This is crazy cheap considering each trip would have been €3 usually! We did find that public transport was pretty fragmented in Berlin though. Usually we would need to catch multiple forms of transport (bus, train, underground, tram) and still have to walk 10 minutes or so to get places. Seems like a small thing, but compared to other cities it was much more difficult to get places!
It was Jordan’s birthday so we started the day at a cafe for some breakfast. We then started walking towards Checkpoint Charlie.
Checkpoint Charlie is one of the places along the Berlin Wall where people (with very good reason) were able to pass from East to West Berlin. The original checkpoint was removed, but a replica has been put in its place. Ironically there was a big sign that says “you are now entering United States territory and there was a KFC and Maccas right behind it.
We started walking towards a museum called The Topography of Terror which is built on the site of the former Gestapo headquarters and documents the terrors of Nazism. There is a lot of information in this museum and it is horrible to read of the things done during the Second World War.
One point that stood out to me at the end was where it mentioned that the grounds were covered in gravel – “grass will never be allowed to grow over this part of history”.
We moved on and went to the mall for some lunch (at 4pm). We were all pretty hungry and there was way too much choice in the mall food court! We managed to find a great burger place.
We noticed in the mall that there was a slide that went from the top floor to the bottom and then we forgot to go down it before we left! Doesn’t seem worth mentioning, but we were all highly disappointed when we realised!
From the mall, we walked to the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. We didn’t really spend much time here because it was quite busy and we had read a lot of information about various things in Berlin throughout the day! We walked towards Brandenburger Tor to check it out before getting the tram back to our hotel.
Later in the evening we found a park to go for a walk in at sunset. It was nice to get out somewhere quiet for a walk.
Day Two
We started Thursday with a trip out to the East Gallery which is where a significant portion of the Berlin Wall has been painted with murals. It was amazing to walk down a path and see all the artwork. There were various breaks in the wall and it was strange to think that it is only just over 30 years ago that people couldn’t see each side of that wall as they pleased.
From the wall we walked over to Markthalle which is essentially a food court area. We found what was pretty much macaroni & cheese for lunch. Apparently it’s a traditional German dish. It was yum!
We then head over the other side of Berlin to Tiergarten. This was on one of the lists of things to see in Berlin so we thought we had better check it out! The park was pretty nice. We walked through it for a while before coming to the massive column in the middle of it. Right by the column is apparently where all the nudists hang out (based on the fact that there were a significant number of naked people lying in the grass). We decided that wasn’t really for us and moved on!
We had a look through the rose garden which was cool and we were starting to get pretty hot and thirsty!
We eventually made it back to Brandenburger Tor and found a place with some water before heading back to the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe. This time we had plenty of time to check out the museum.
It’s pretty mind blowing to see the stories of so many families (yet only a tiny portion) who were affected by the terrors of Nazi Germany in World War II. It’s hard to even explain how terrible it was.
I haven’t done much study on World War II and didn’t realise how widespread the murdering of Jews and others was across Europe. I knew it was a horrific event in history, but when you see it all laid out like this it’s really obvious how extremely bad it was.
From here Miriam and I headed to a place for dinner. Miriam’s only request was that they served schnitzel so she was happy! It was a great dinner (we both had schnitzel) and it was nice to sit in a German beer garden to eat it.
We then went over to Tempelhofer Feld for a walk in the evening around sunset. Tempelhofer Feld is an old airfield that was used to bring supplies in during WWII and later during other conflicts in Berlin. It has now been turned into a massive park and it seems to be where loads of people hang out!
It was pretty cool to walk down the runway and dodge all the cyclists shooting down as fast as they can. There were people dancing, people on rollerblades, people playing music, plus a massive dog park. It’s an awesome use of a space for the people of Berlin!
We enjoyed watching a hazy sunset and then headed back to our hotel.
Next we were on the train which brings me back to where I started! Although I’m no longer sitting on the floor of a train – it was too hard to concentrate on writing, so I’m now sitting in the outdoor area of our hostel in Prague.
Bye for now! 👋🏻
