We arrived in Berlin on a Wednesday late afternoon and had an easy trip into our hotel via bus (trip was even easier with no luggage to worry about). We stayed at a great hotel/hostel near the zoo so a bit outside the city center (Berlin Mitte). We enjoyed both the area, very active but safe and the hotel (We had a private room.) It allowed for good walks, was a nice hopping area, and the staff were super friendly and supportive as we awaited luggage delivery.
Before arriving in Germany, we had reserved a time to visit the dome atop the Reichstag (Germany’s capitol building). Our walk there took us through a lovely park.
The Dome Tour was self-guided with headphones that started automatically when you began ascending the dome and as you reached specific points on the way up and down. It mostly discussed the buildings you were seeing but also the construction of the dome, the fact that it’s open at the top, and how rain and snow are diverted when they come in so that people in the plenary chambers below the dome don’t get wet.
After the Dome Tour, we had a picnic near the Brandenburg Gate before doing a “free” walking tour that we had also reserved. We’re not normally group tour people, but Berlin has such an interesting history and we had such a short time there that we wanted to learn as much as possible. The tour was great. It was led by a former history teacher, and we got to visit sites you wouldn’t normally find (like the bunker where Hitler killed himself at the end of the war) as Germany doesn’t want Neo Nazis making a shrine out of anything tied to the Nazi government. All but one Nazi governmental building have been razed, and the aforementioned bunker is quite a few feet under a non-descript parking lot with no signage. it was also cool to see the remaining sections of the wall and the stones in the street marking where the rest of the wall stood.
Beautiful Berlin Opera House
One of my favorite stops was Gendarmenmarkt Square. The Square itself represents the multi-culturalism and progressiveness of Germany prior to 1900 symbolized by the buildings that surround the square — a university and two identical churches. One Church is the German Church and the other is the French Church. The fact that they are mirrors of each other indicating that immigrants were no less important to the state of Germany than their native-born citizens. Unfortunately it also was the site of Nazi book burning and proves a cautionary tale that if the Holocaust could happen here it can happen anywhere.
This quote is by Heinrich Heine and was written about the Spanish Inquisition but certainly fits the Holocaust.
After the tour we rested for a bit at the vibrant Sony Center, a mix of restaurants and retail.
Peckish Travels 