Berlin, Germany

This is going to be a long one. We spent three full days in Berlin and that certainly was not enough time to see even close to everything. Berlin is an incredibly exciting city, packed with history either rebuilt or well-preserved. It is also very spread out with sprawling neighborhoods connected by the best underground rail system we’ve seen so far. Each neighborhood looks similar to the next, but Berliners will surely disagree with this claim.


We met up with my friend Lydia who lives in the city. She graciously gave us a grand walking tour which lasted almost ten hours. We met across from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was bombed during WW2 but the destruction was preserved. It’s amazing and strange to see remnants of the war, preserved and memorialized, across the street from shopping centers and fast food chains. On with the tour: we boarded a bus that took us through scenic Tiergarten and stepped off in front of the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament. Across the street is the infamous Brandenburg Gate, towering over what used to be East Germany. If anything has become the recognizable symbol of Berlin, it’s the Brandenburg Gate. In an area between the Reichstag and the gate is a line of darker colored bricks that symbolize where the Berlin Wall once stood. Placards along the way indicate the location of the wall. We continued on through a large square that housed two Protestant churches, one French and the other German, and a concert house. Both of the churches look exactly alike, aside from some of the reliefs and statues, to show tolerance for both of the Protestant beliefs. However, it’s rumored that the German church is slightly taller, but it has not been confirmed. Apparently, according to Lydia, a very famous German actress was walking her dog right in front of us in the square, but we wouldn’t have recognized her anyway. We stopped by the Ritter Sport store, which happens to be my favorite German chocolate company. After loading up on my favorite bars, dark chocolate with marzipan, we moved on toward Checkpoint Charlie. Now a complete façade, the check point was once a gateway between East Berlin and West Berlin. The guards standing at the post are not military but actors who want money to have pictures taken with them. The day was getting on and we decided to stop for lunch. We were really hoping to have something authentically German since most of the food we’ve been eating since we started this trip has been from train stations or grocery stores. Lydia took us to an out-of-the-tourists area shop that we would have easily passed up ourselves, not knowing much German to begin with. The food was delicious and we were ready for another rest at a biergarten. Taking Lydia’s advice, Mark tried a Berlinerweizen, a typical drink in that area, which is a mix of beer and sweet syrup. Lydia and I enjoyed lattes and we sat in the shade for a bit. Afterwards, we walked along a river path until we came upon an open-air flea market. To our surprise, Johnny Cash was being played throughout. We decided to make out way toward the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. Along the way, we found an intact Wall watchtower which overlooked what used to be the death strip. That term is very literal as anyone who made it over the first wall would certainly be killed trying to get over the second wall. And between that were barriers, barbed wire, sand to track footprints, armed soldiers and guard dogs, and sometimes explosives or self-firing weapons. To say the least, death strip seems like an accurate name. We met up with Lydia’s boyfriend at the East Side Gallery and walked down the mile long path past still intact pieces of the Wall. This segment is considered an art gallery with all portions painted by several different artists back in the nineties.From this point we were able to have a good view of the TV tower, a looming ball with a spike on top that can be seen from most anywhere in the city. Not far from the gallery was a world clock, which was considered a gift to the people of East Germany. Some gift; the clock allowed the people to know the time in countries they were never allowed to travel to. Near the clock was a very informative exhibit detailing the beginning, disenchantment, protests and ultimately the fall of the Wall. The evening was upon us and we decided to make our way the Museum Island. It’s exactly what it sounds like, an island filled with museums. There are several giant buildings housing all types of art and history. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to browse through one on this trip. Across from the National History Museum is the Berliner Dom, an impressively large and old-looking cathedral. I say old-looking because it was built at the turn of the twentieth century and designed to look old and classically baroque. It fooled us, I thought the structure could have been hundreds of years old. After dessert and then dinner, in that order (I love the Germans), we said goodbye to Lydia and Ilko. We were so thankful to have them show us around Berlin. We were able to see the city outside of the tourist areas, which is always refreshing.


In addition to what we saw on Lydia’s tour, we also learned a great deal of Berlin’s history through the New Europe walking tour. Just down the street from the Brandenburg Gate is the Holocaust memorial. Walking through hundreds of giant rectangular structures placed alongside one another on uneven ground gives you the feeling of oppression. The artist’s meaning is up for interpretation, and there are a lot of theories about what the boxes represent. Some say graves, others say train cars carrying prisoners, and many other interesting suggestions. Not far from the memorial is the above-ground site of Hitler’s bunker. On top of the site are modern apartments and a parking lot, so there’s nothing worth taking a picture of. As it’s told, the bunker was about fifty feet underground and was the place of Hitler’s death. I’m sure many have heard the story, but it’s interesting anyways: The Russians were closing in, and everyone in the bunker knew that inevitably they would be captured. Hitler decided to marry his long-time mistress Eva Braun, symbolizing his divorce from Germany, and then they planned to commit suicide. He had heard about what happened to Mussolini and his mistress after they were executed: they were hung by their feet on meat hooks and their bodies were beaten and spat upon by civilians. He did not want this to happen to him, so he instructed his remaining soldiers to take his body to the surface and burn it until it was unrecognizable. They both took a cyanide pill, Eva first, and Hitler also shot himself in the head. The Russians found the charred remains and confirmed dental records to prove the identity. Some say that his remains were buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in northeastern Germany. Another claim is that his ashes were flushed down a toilet. I think the latter is fitting. Continuing on the tour, we stopped by the former headquarters of the Luftwaffe, the Nazi air force. When communism took over, it became the center of the East German government. Early on, a mural was painted on the wall depicting what a wonderful life everyone was sure to have under Communist rule. Not long after, a photograph was taken outside of the building during a protest over a raise in work quotas with no raise in wage, and undoubtedly moral had been crushed. The photo is juxtaposed with the mural to show how ideals and reality are often quite different. The building is now used as the German version of the IRS, so citizens still don’t care for it. Apparently, the awful Tom Cruise movie “Valkerie” was filmed there and the building was once again adorned with Nazi flags and symbols, much to the dismay of Berlin’s citizens. I can’t imagine what it would have been like for them to wake up and go to work and see that. How unfortunate. Around the corner is the now hollowed out SS headquarters. Running alongside it is a remnant of the wall, broken and beaten, rebar showing and tagged with graffiti. This part of the wall is meant to look the way it did for almost four decades, oppressive and disheartening. We found our way to a square between a library and an opera house that was the site of the Nazi book burning. All Jewish literature and anything considered “non-German” was burned in an open fire in the square. Many first editions and original texts were destroyed, and some were the only copies in existence. There, too, is a memorial located under the square, visible by a small window in the ground, of a room with empty bookshelves representing the amount of books lost at the hands of the Nazis. Across the street is Humbolt University, where Albert Einstein taught for several years. We went to an incredibly sobering memorial of a statue carved by a woman who lost sons in both World Wars. It depicts a mother covering her dying son with her cloak, shielding him from the cold. There is a large hole in the ceiling of the room where the statue is kept; therefore the statue always endures the elements. It was quite a troubling yet moving memorial. We passed by the old armory building, which was covered with reliefs and busts of warriors from the past, onward to the Art History Museum. We passed by the museum earlier with Lydia, and she pointed out the columns just outside of the building had bullet holes in them from the war. I’m glad she mentioned that because our tour guide did not. We finished the tour three hours later and we were definitely beat.


We spent the whole next day wandering throughout Potsdam, a half hour train ride from Berlin. Potsdam, once the city of the Prussian kings, is a quaint town boasting numerous ornate palaces and generously proportioned citadels. Strolling through the forested trail we came upon the ruins of an old fort that were under construction. I suppose they want to make them look more ruined? We saw quite possibly the smallest Russian Orthodox church, filled with all sorts of knick-knacks that allowed for little parishioner space. The Sanssouci Palace is certainly the main attraction. It sits upon a hill with large cascading stairs flowing from the top. At the bottom is a fountain surrounded by several marble statues and gardens. We were fortunate to have had good weather on this day and it was nice to get out of the city and into some green space.

By and far, Berlin has been the most exciting city we’ve visited. The history of the city is incredibly fascinating and worth taking extra time to absorb. It’s obvious that no one can get everything they want out of Berlin in only three days, but we feel satisfied with our time spent. We both hope the return in the future and stay for a bit longer.

Moving right along to: Dresden, Germany

So it goes.