Berlin: The not so German capital of Germany.

Due to a busy sightseeing schedule, lack of internet, and pure exhaustion I have fallen quite far behind on my posts (as many of you have probably noticed.)  Thankfully Josh has stepped in to help.  He was very generous and wrote the following post on our visit to Berlin. 

With its history, relatively low prices, and seemingly endless places to go, Berlin was more than worth going to.  Although the city spent most of the twentieth century divided in half, due to its growth and recovery in the last twenty years, East Berlin is arguably more developed and has more to do than the western half.  The city itself is essentially a museum of its own history.  Berlin has restored several of the important buildings that were destroyed in World War Two, intentionally left some other buildings in post-war condition, preserved certain structures from the communist era, and nevertheless continues to be developed with modern architecture that can be difficult to find in many European cities.  Although the city lacks the aspects of German culture that were much more prevalent in Munich, it has transformed into more of a cultural melting pot. Our four days in Berlin were busy but we managed to go to most of the important spots in the city.

On our first day in the Berlin, we went on the New Europe free walking tour, as we’ve started doing in most cities.  The tour started near the Parisier Platz (Parisian Square).  The most famous structure on the square is the Brandenburg Tor, which used to be the gate between East and West Berlin, before the wall was built.  On the top of the gate there is a statue commemorating victory.  According to our tour guide, the statue was put over Parisier Platz to symbolize victory over Paris.  Ironically, one of the other significant buildings on the square is the French embassy.  Another notable building is the hotel on the square that was made famous by Michael Jackson when he held his child over the balcony on the third floor.  As our tour continued, we saw the Reichstaggebäude, where the German parliament is held and the Jewish memorial.  The memorial is about the size of a city block and is full of densely packed gray concrete blocks that randomly vary in height. Later we went to Hitler’s bunker, which is no longer accessible because an apartment complex has been built over it.  Lydia and I both think it’s interesting that people actually live in that location.  We also saw the Nazi book-burning memorial, which is a set of empty bookshelves, only visible through a window in the ground. Later on we saw Checkpoint Charlie and the Berliner dome, and the Berlin TV tower.  The tower is the tallest structure in Berlin, and the second tallest TV tower in the world.  Needless to say, this was probably the most comprehensive tour we have been on over the course of our entire Europe trip.

On our second day we went back to the area near Parisier Platz and walked through the Tiergarten park.  First we went to the glass dome in the Reichstaggebäudegebäude.  Although the skyline in Berlin is not that impressive, we liked the Reichstaggebäude Dome, and it provided us with a nice view.  Also, entrance was free, so it was definitely worth a half-hour wait.  Later we walked through the park, which is huge and nice.  There we saw the Victory column and the “Pregnant Oyster”.  The latter is a really strange building.  It’s in our guidebook, but the book doesn’t say what it actually is, and we couldn’t really figure it out since the building does not seem to be in use.  Later that day we went to the recently rebuilt Neue Synagogue.  To our surprise, it is only used as a museum, and only the front half of the synagogue had been restored.  We also went to Tacheles, which is a bombed out building that used to be a department store.  The entire building is covered with graffiti on the inside and there are art vendors on the third and fourth floors.

To start our next day, we went to another building that has been left damaged after being bombed in World War II.  This time it was a church.  It is free to go inside where there was a museum.  We both thought that the church made a really good anti war memorial.  Later we went to the Topographie des Terrors, another free museum.  The museum documented the Third Reich and didn’t really have any information that we hadn’t already learned about at this point in the trip, so we did not stay for very long.  Later, we went to the Jewish Museum.  This was definitely one of the better museums that we saw in Europe.  The first part of the museum consisted of three axes to walk down: the Axis of Holocaust, the Axis of Exile, and the Axis of Continuity.  The Axis of Holocaust ended with the Holocaust tower, which was a large, dark tower with a small light somewhere near the top of it.  The Axis of Exile ended in the Garden of Exile, which was a lot like the Holocaust memorial we saw on our first day in Berlin.  The Axis of Continuity led into the part of the museum that describes the history of Judaism and Jewish life.

Our last day in Berlin was not quite as ambitious as the other three.  After sleeping in, we went to see the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining portion of the Berlin wall.  It was interesting to see all of the artwork on the wall, and while we were there, a stretch of the wall was being restored and repainted.  We also went to a mall to get coffee and read for a while.  The mall was considerably more normal than those that we have seen in other cities and it was relaxing to stay there for a while.  On the way to the mall, we saw a group of people with candles having a memorial for Michael Jackson.  Also, we saw a large group of women chopping wood in a plaza near the mall.  It was really random.

We definitely did a good job making Berlin one of the least expensive cities that we went to.  As soon as we got there, we went to the grocery store and bought enough food for our entire time there.  We pretty much ate sandwiches every day for lunch.  Also, we avoided most of the sites that charged admission, and we stayed in a really cheap hostel.  The hostel was really not that great.  Our room had terrible lighting and the entire hostel was dirty too.  There were hairs all over our room, and the showers were disgusting.  The worst thing, however, was that our room was overlooking the courtyard, so it was loud and hard to sleep.  However, our accommodations weren’t all bad.  Our room was large enough for our over-packed bags, and it was easy enough to get around the city because we were close a few public transportation lines.

Overall, Berlin was an entertaining city and was very manageable as a tourist.  The public transportation was good, everything was labeled well, and most people spoke English.  Even though it wasn’t as clean as Munich, it had plenty of nicer areas and was a large enough city to have a little something for everyone.