Germany - Berlin

We left Krakow at 7am and arrived at Berlin around 3.30.  We went to our hotel in Apenoverplatz to freshen up and then headed into the city to visit the Brandenburg Gates constructed somewhere is the 1780's to 1790's from sandstone,and represented the separation between east and west Berlin.  But of course now things have changed and the Berlin wall has come down, it more represents unity.  Walked through the beautiful Pariser Platz and then went to book for the Parliament Building visit. We started walking to St Victoria’s statue, on "Golden Lizzie" in Berlin slang.  But we caught bus in the end as it was too far with our sore feet!  Massive huge bronze statue standing 8.3 m high, weighing in at 35 tonnes.  It represents Victoria wearing a helmet and holding a laurel wreath in one hand and in the other a staff bearing an iron cross. The reason it was built was for Prussia's victory in the German-Danish war in 1864.  Apparently it has been added to and changed a lot over the years, but it looks impressive and you can see it for miles.  Had a nice dinner at a local restaurant and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Brandenburg Gates

Pariser Platz

St Victoria's statue

Looking from St Vic's towards the Brandenburg Gate

Next morning was off to an early start as we had to line up for the tickets to Reichtag building,  we stood in line for around an hour and then this guy came along and said if we wanted to go in right now we could.  Yay!  So with no passport check or id check, we headed through the security 

screens, this time Murray got to hand in his pocket knife and get it back on the way out – no need to hide it like at Vatican City. We didn’t actually get to see much of inside the building, but pretty much got ushered up to the roof terrace and the dome.  Which was the best part anyway -  the Reichtag building is really old, not sure how old but it was re-vamped in 1894 when the Federal Government moved from Bonn to Berlin and it became the capital, but it has been restored and the historic shell kept intact while the inside is very modern, loads of glass and light inside,  it has a huge plenary chamber with its floor measuring 1,200 sq m and the height from floor to ceiling is nearly the full height of the building.  The interior of this is visible from every floor and courtyard.  Above the third floor is the roof terrace.  It has a dome with diameter of 40m and reaches 47m high.  It is open at the top to allow hot air to leave and open at the bottom for a view of the plenary chamber and apparently to make it look as if it is floating.  All the Reichstag (government) offices are in surrounding buildings and are built with the environment in mind.  With the dome even there is a cone shaped sculptor with 360 mirrors at the core of the glass that funnels daylight  into the building, and it also has a heat recovery system that uses energy from the spent air rising.  On the south side of the roof there is 300 sq m of solar panels.  Awesome stuff!

The magnificent Dome on top of Parliament building

View from the top

The roof - or should I say the hole in the roof.

A cowboy !

bottom level of the dome

We then visited the memorial to the Jewish people who were killed.  It consists of 4.7 acres with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern.  There are all the same length 2.38m and same width .95m but are of different heights from .2m to 4.8m.  It is supposed to create an uneasy, and confusing atmosphere and it was kind of airy.  It cost around 25 million euros to construct.

Also visited Hitler’s bunker, Berlin Gartenmarkt square, Dome, Berlin Museum, buildings on our way to Charlies Checkpoint. This was interesting but so much info to take in, there were huge big board’s displayed on a fence that you could read and lots of photos to look at, and then the actual checkpoint was still there too. Basically a border crossing at which everyone had to register and inform then as to there movements when crossing through. It was a lucrative kind of escape for some; usually low ranked and paid embassy staff who wanted a bit more income they simply hid fugitives in their cars and drove them over the border demanding high cash sums in return.  It was easy because the embassy workers were not checked at the checkpoint.  Another loop hole was the offering the fugitives a diplomatic passport which were as false as they were expensive.  It is still unknown of course how many people managed to get through in this way.

In the square

An old picture of Charlies checkpoint - somehow seemed more real than todays image,
with souveniers every and you had to pay to take a photo of it anyway.
Today the regular traffic passes by in between the public which makes it quite a busy place. The white hut in the middle is still there, but the streets are narrower and some of the buildings have changed.

These on the right are the billboards about the checkpoint
- really interesting but loads of reading.
Ended up by buying a book about it, Murray has nearly finished it.

Next stop was the East Berlin Wall; we walked and caught a tram for what seemed like ages before we came to it or at least the only part that is still standing.  It was surprisingly thin and not that high at all.  It had bright graffiti all over it. Towards the end of the day we headed back towards the city to Alexanderplatz to see the square, and the World Clock and also went to the city beach and used the deck chairs for awhile - random in the middle of the city here is this area with deck chairs and a bit of sand tossed around the place - yep had to double take thought I was at the beach!  Then jumped on a random tram to see where we could get too.  It went in a north east kind of direction – not very interesting so we headed back to do some planning for tomorrow.

The only bit of wall that is standing today.

Berlin Beach - third row back! 

Found out the cheapest way to get to Lubeck was via bus, so went to get ticket and had a couple of hours spare so heading to the shops.  Not much shopping done though.  Caught the bus at around 11.45am and we were off.  Great trip and very comfortable bus – thanks Berlin Linen Bus Co.