We spent four days in Berlin, and fortunately for us we were blessed with some amazing weather. Berlin is very friendly and laidback (public drinking a-ok), cheap (well, comparing to London) and feels quite big and sparse (huge boulevards and quite spread out city centre) History is obviously a big attraction of Berlin, and we took a walking tour to learn more...
Brandenburg Gate - Berlin's most iconic landmark where we started our 4-hour walking tour.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is made of 2,711 slabs of concrete of various height. A haunting memorial with stark contrasts in the solemn grey blocks, sunlight & shadows.
Walking amongst the taller blocks of memorial.
This playground was once the site of Hitler's bunker. Our walking tour group stopped here for a nice little picnic of beer and ice blocks, and our guide told us about last days of Hitler.
Our tour ended at the book burning Memorial near the Humboldt University - where the Nazis, with help of students from the university burned 20,000 books in 1933.
The weather was so good! This was in-front of the Berlin Cathedral.
We had to try currywurst - bite-sized sausage chunks smothered with ketchup and curry powder... tastes like how it sounds really... ok but not spectacular.
The roof of the Sony centre looks like a hot air balloon.
Berlin landmarks were lit up with massive projections as part of the Festival of Lights.
The East Side Gallery - where a 1.3km stretch of Berlin wall was painted over by artists after the fall of the Berlin wall.
Joe attempting to escape East Germany with the hordes.
Graffiti near the East Side Gallery
Near the East Side Gallery. Berlin's cute boxy yellow train is in the background.
The Jewish museum has some interesting memorials/installations. Very big inside, took us four hours to get through the exhibits.
This is the reception of our hotel. We stayed at the "Wall Street Plaza" hotel which has a fantastic tongue-in-cheek capitalism theme.The hotel hallway carpet looks like a stock market listing, the carpet in our room looks like a giant US dollar bill. The wall in our bedroom had this quote "Buy stocks and then go to sleep for a long time" Lolz.
There was a lot of construction site in central Berlin. The infamous East German TV tower is in the background.
Check out my new bag.
Autum is magical!
Roast pork & saurkraut - yummmo
Beers - mine was beer mixed with apple juice which was actually pretty tasty.
We had an awesome time in Berlin, and I really enjoyed learning more about the history. History was everywhere you look - from the Berlin wall markings on the ground to the filled in bullet holes on the Brandenburg to the war & holocaust memorials... If you're ever there, take a walking tour, it's a must-do.
