Week 11 (Part 1): Berlin

Berlin! We rented an apartment for 4 nights in Berlin and on the 22nd floor it had marvelous views of the city below us. Our apartment was right around the corner from Checkpoint Charlie, and from there we followed the remains of the Berlin Wall. At the Topography of Terrors we saw the remains of the Gestapo headquarters and a fascinating display that walked you through each step of Hitler's Nazi Germany. We saw the holocaust memorial of stone pillars of different shapes and sizes that absorbed you within their maze. A homosexual memorial stood defiantly not straight on the corner of the city park, with pictures of same sex couples kissing. 

Checkpoint Charlie

Topography of Terrors

Holocaust memorial

We saw some more pleasant things too: buildings that somehow survived the wars, monuments covered in gold, plenty of cranes and the bears that are spread throughout the city. The pedestrian lights in many parts of Berlin are the great pictures shown below, and there is a store devoted to their story: The Ampelmannchen.

The Gendarmenmarkt (square) was filled with tourists on walking tours and we took our photos nice and close to hear some of the history while we watched. The square holds an impressive concert hall, which is flanked by two churches: first they built a French one, but Germany couldn't have a French church without a German church so now there are two very similar and equally impressive buildings.

French?

German?

A memorial to the book burning that happened on the site is a window into the ground showing a room of empty bookshelves. We followed the Unter den Linden (once Berlin's most important thoroughfare) and found a statue of Helmholtz (#physicsrepresents) outside part of the university, and right outside was a book stall than ran the length of the gates, and a young art student selling very impressive paintings that her and some friends had done.

Across the River Spree (bring it on, quiz night) we saw Berlin's most famous cathedral, and the museum buildings surrounding it. We found some more bears here too.

Berliner Dom

In the Jewish quarter we got lost between the synagogue and the Berlin wall memorial, but it lead us past a church where Martin Luther King had given a sermon once before. We found buildings covered in bullet holes. At the Berlin Wall Memorial we saw 'no mans land' between West and East Germany, and listened to accounts of people that had worked the patrol.

Berlin was filled with history and we learnt a lot about Nazi Germany. Many places had a sad vibe about them, but in the same way it felt like modern Germany was holding its head above the bad times, determined to invite us in and focus on the successes of the country and developing the modern world. We'll leave you with some of the views from our apartment....

Following Berlin comes Prague, then Budapest!