Three Nights in Berlin – We got off to a rough start as our flight out of Montreal was just a little late leaving due to snowy conditions and our connection to Berlin from Frankfurt was pretty tight.   We rushed through the Frankfurt airport which, as many of you know, is not an easy thing to do and, with permission, broke through the lineup at security which caused us to be the receivers of some disgruntled looks.   All to no avail as the plane was taxying the tarmac as we arrived and off to Lufthansa Services we go to get rebooked.   This seemed to be an issue for many, many others as the lineup was quite long but fortunately we were able to catch a plane three hours later.

Berlin, the capital of Germany, has a population of over three and a half million. This time of year, ie. early spring, the temperature can range from 0 to 10 and that’s about what we had these past few days with occasional showers. Fortunately we were prepared for this and kept reminding ourselves when it rained that no one had to shovel – life is good!! We spent our time being typical tourists visiting the parliament buildings, Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial and one of the highlights was a free concert at the Berliner philoharmonica. During the summer they have a concert series at lunch with over 1500 people using the lunch hour to relax, eat their lunch and listen to music. Off-season there is still a free lunch concert every Tuesday at 1pm sometimes with students performing and either they are always fabulous or we just lucked out – a wonderful 45 minute break from the hustle and bustle of being a tourist.  You have to get there early to get a seat on the floor or stairs or stand up – only people with a disability get a seat.  Remember all pictures are unprofessionally taken with my ipad so no complaints are welcomed as that is not about to change.

Lunch time concert series during which you are not allowed to take pictures but I didn’t know this, and many others were, so I did, but a very firm, yet kind, security person came and told me it wasn’t allowed but I thought I would insert it here as the damage was already done, so to speak. A wonderful  Concert and although it looks as though it wasn’t a great view, it wasn’t bad, and of course the view didn’t impact the sound which was fabulous.

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Marilyn and I at the Brandenburg Gate which according to the guide is a symbol of German unity and one of the city’s most famous landmarks

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. There are 271 concrete slabs, organized in rows, 54 going north-south and 87 heading east-west.  Although it doesn’t look like it in this picture the slabs vary in height and you can walk between them which we did and sometimes you feel as though you are underground because the ground is slanted.  Inside the “place of information” are the names of approximately 3 million Jewish Holocaust victims. Of course we have heard so much about this over the past number of years but walking through these concrete slabs was eerily confusing and drove the reality home to this typical tourist. Very much worth the visit!

No trip to Berlin is complete without a visit to the Berlin Wall which divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. We arrived here later in the day so did not do the whole walk or visit the Museum but of course if you want to know more than this there’s always google!! No trip is complete without the picture either so here’s Jim leaning against a portion of the wall.

We also visited the Reichstag Dome, top of the parliament building, where you have to have a reservation to go in and security is super tight.   We were pretty impressed with the 360 degree view of Berlin, as were the hundreds of students visiting, and the audio guide was super informative.   The picture below is not mine but is credited to wikipedia.

Next stop Museum Island where I/we got ‘museumed out’……but glad we did it!  I am not going to write much about the museums here because you can easily google for more info but the Pergamon, the Neues and the National Art Gallery took most of the day and as you can imagine we were moving along pretty quickly – the way I like to do museums!  The other one we did that I believe was our favourite was the Berliner Dom Cathedral so I’ve included a few pictures here.   It has a very long history and was restored after the second world war and truly is magnificent.   Here we walked up the almost 300 steps to the top so we could see the 360 degree view – “oh legs don’t fail me now” was my prayer all the way up and then again all the way down – not for the faint of heart but definitely worth the hike.

Jim outside Berliner Dom

Fabulous organ

Looking towards the Dom and those tiny spots on the top are people walking

So that’s our fast and furious tour of Berlin and it’s been a great city to spend a few nights!  We found the people here to be very friendly and whenever we were stopped looking at our map, which was very frequent, someone approached us with a smile to help……and usually spoke English, thank the Lord!   Language was never an issue nor was transportation – we used the tram, the U-bahn(underground train) and S-bahn(above ground train) and of course our legs walking over 15km per day.   All that walking helped(I hope) to work off the German food which we totally enjoyed on two nights and this was a surprise to me because when I have had German food in Canada I haven’t been crazy about it – here it was delicious and that makes sense!   One night we had Korean barbeque which our air bnb host recommended and it too was delicious…….and our air bnb was great!   So much more to add but exhausted so headed to bed as we have an early start in the morning to catch our train to Prague – stay tuned!