Berlin, Germany

John's blowing up the air pillow! 

"German Police, passports please" an unfriendly voice yelled from the front of our almost empty bus at 1:56am in the morning, abruptly waking us from our slumber. 

We had bounced our way through the Netherlands waking periodically as the overhead lights went on and off or as the enthusiastic Russian speakers at the front of the bus talked over each other. In neighboring rural Germany somewhere close to the Dutch border our bus had been pulled over by police for a random identity check. 

Photos from the photo booth! 

The cold air penetrated the bus as three well armoured and stern police officers slowly checked our passports one by one. Taking twenty five minutes to move through 15 people, eventually those with luggage then had to disembark the bus and claim their bags from the undercarriage.

While the other passengers stood awkwardly in the dark icy rain collecting their bags and standing in single file we sat inside quite pleased we just had our hand luggage. That done, the bags were returned and we were back on our way, returning into a fitful sleep.

Fast forward several hours of unconsciousness, our ten hour overnight bus arrived into the German capital Berlin and even a little earlier than scheduled. With John starting full time work next week we were taking a last minute impromptu trip into Germany. 

We were raring to go and far more rested than we had imagined we would be, especially after our disastrous experiences of overnight buses in New Zealand and India. So off we went to find the underground metro and to begin our adventure into a) reading a German timetable and b) the wonderful efficiency of German transport.

Waiting for our photos to print

Berlin street art 

After dropping off our bags, we set away from the hostel towards the city centre. It was a cloudy cold morning but when we squinted hard we could see some blue sky peeking through so we left our rain coats behind and marched on. Berlin, the capital of Germany, has a very old history. First written about in the 13th century, it was situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes. In 1417, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and then in 1701 the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1871 it became the capital of the German Empire and by 1933 was the capital of the well known Third Riech. 

We had read online that the capital isn't all lederhosen or industrious, hard working, upper class people but more full of artsy creative types and offers a more of a take it or leave it vibe.  'The city of Berlin is one giant sea of eclectic, swirling, shaking, skint neighborhoods surrounding one dull, boring, bombed-out-and-rebuilt-in-commie-concrete centre' and that exactly summed up our first impression. In fact the city mayor, the burgermeister, first sloganned the city as: “Berlin: Poor. But sexy.” Something about that made us look forward to hitting the streets. 

Standing by the Berlin Wall

Our first stop was at a remaining section of the Berlin Wall. The wall was built as barrier that divided East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It certainly isn't what we would think as sexy but plays a vital role in the city's tourism. At the end of WWII Berlin was divided by countries that helped liberate it – America, France and Britain got the West and the USSR got the East. People could move freely but millions of educated youth were leaving the communist East side for the 'westernized' West side. 

Everything's good

Escaping through the gaps

Tourists looking at the wall

Interesting murals

So in August 1961, East German soldiers rolled out miles of barbed wire to create what they called the ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier’. Soon after this came a concrete wall which surrounded West Berlin and which became internationally recognised as a symbol of oppression. Although the wall was still in place when we were born, it was torn down shortly after allowing people freedom of movement again. As we followed the remaining 1.3km section of wall into the old town we wondered how it was ever even allowed to be built. How it tore up families, relationships and communities was devastating.

This statue is a man fighting a dragon! 

Close up of the carnage

The part of the wall that remains intact, and which we walked alongside of, has been turned into an open-air art gallery with over 100 murals painted by international artists. Sadly the walls have recently been graffitied over and now there is fencing to stop people getting close. But we looked nevertheless.

Off to St Nicholas in the background

St Nicholas

Exploring the Neukölln neighbourhood

The city had a very dark feel about it this morning and it seemed the temperature was dropping. We walked on into the neighbourhood Neukölln. This part of the city was meant to have survived the WWII bombings making it some of the oldest residential housing. 

Berlin Cathedral

We loved the village type feel and the way the houses directly surrounded the St Nicholas church. From there it was a short walk to Berlin's largest Cathedral. By now though we were absolutely busting to use a toilet and hopping into a building we managed to get a great view of the cathedral. 

The cathedral dates back to 1451. In that year beloved Prince Frederick II (Irontooth) of Brandenburg ordered the construction of a parish church. 

Over the years the church grew and as different denominations took hold the church was remodeled. 

The Cathedral from above

However, in the 19th century the original church was demolished and the present church, in exuberant forms of high Neo-Renaissance style was built. In 1940 the church suffered under the allied bombings but in 1975 reconstruction started, simplifying the building's original design. 

Typical Currywurst

As we walked down the Unter den Linden, Berlin's premier promenade, it began to rain and it began to rain very hard. 

Stopping quickly at what looked like a street market we bought a small curry wurst (pretty much a sausage with curry sauce) and between the both of us finished it in seconds! 

We then dived into several stores to warm up and shake off the large wet drops. 

Kara (in the rain) by the
Brandenburg gate

They just kept falling. With our heads toward the pavement we marched on, missing many of the classical buildings which line the street, offering them only the tiniest of side way glimpses. We aimed for the large Brandenburg gate at the end of the road, one of Berlin's showcase pieces! The iconic gate stands as a symbol of European history and of unity and peace but today everybody standing around looked miserable, cold and wet. It was hard to appreciate its size and beauty because of the weather.

So we took a quick photo as the rain played tag on our face and as it began to seep into our jackets we pushed onto the large and neighbouring Reichstag. 

The big German parliament building offers visitors free tours in its rooftop dome. Having pre-booked our tickets online we were able to get quickly inside and spent some time walking around the dome.

Frolicking around the Reichstag 

Even though we were 45minutes earlier than our scheduled time they let us in- perhaps it was our wrung-out look. It was an interesting tour (you're given an audio headset) which contains commentary about the parliament and Berlin. The building itself was quite artistic and we enjoyed time to dry off and we could even see over the grey horizon for quite some distance! On a sunny day the view must be amazing! 

One wet view of Berlin

John's plugged in

When we were finished, it was still raining! Well past ready for a late lunch we set off to find a schnitzel. The hunger helped us make some wrong decisions and soon we were making a detour through the large city Tiergarten.

The golden chick on a stick, Tiergarten

Russian war memorial, Tiergarten

The park was actually quite nice so it worked out ok and just as we nearly were at our wits end we made a final stop at the Berlin Holocaust memorial, which thankfully was the last before lunch. The memorial is a small area covered with almost 300 odd concrete slabs which are arranged in a grid pattern. 

Berlin Holocaust memorial

They are organised in rows, set slightly askew. The memorial is designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. Although we didn't quite feel too disoriented by the blocks we were surprised at how easy you could disappear from sight. This resulted in some awkward interactions as we kept running into other tourists. 

Lunch finally followed and the world was good again. Our last visit was at the famous Check Point Charlie. This small intersection was once the designated single cross point between the East and West, armed by American forces. Since its official removal it has played part in many war and spy movies like the recent Tom Hanks film, Bridge of Spies. There wasn't a lot to see, it was more of a 'look and imagine place' and so after a quick photo we moved on.

Checkpoint Charlie

Between parts of the original Berlin wall

It was around 4.30pm when we walked back to our hostel our feet almost dragging behind us. We had seen a lot of the city and all-in-all had enjoyed ourselves. 

Later we planned to sit down with a currywurst and a large glass of beer. For now, we were cold and it was still raining so we moved quickly, our wet shoes sloshing against the pavement 'kadonk, kadonk' and occasionally jumping in a small puddle!

Tot siens,

John and Kara