Today’s exploration of the city started a little later than yesterday, at least considering when we had to get up. As I’m starting to carve out a path, so to speak, for this post, it’s just after 8 o’clock in the morning and I’m getting ready to leave the motel to see some more of the city. Main focus for today are going to be some of the historic buildings and landmarks of Berlin, so I’ll try to present to you some of them that will be the most intriguing to me, but also the ones that are really worth visiting.
Continuing to write this post in the evening, after coming back to my cozy hotel room, the first thing on our plan for today was visiting the East Side Gallery, where you can still see a really well preserved part of the former Berlin Wall. You can get right up to the remains, and there’s also a museum right next to it, The Wall Museum Berlin. We didn’t decide to go in, also, because it was still closed when we were there.
There’s also a small souvenir shop next to the Wall, where we bought a small passport with some historic stamps from the Wall era inside. It cost 5€, but the effect it had on my dad is almost undescribable. Even though he didn’t really have much to do with the Wall itself, although just being there and seeing what it was like when it was completely functional and feeling that dividement of the city all those years ago, and being here now, when all that’s left are the memories, and some physical remains, of course, can be pretty overwhelming.
We continued on our way to Alexander Platz, again, and on to the foot of the TV Tower. The initial plan was to go up the tower, reaching the 203-meters-high observation platform, unfortunately in the end, we decided not to go for it, since the waiting time was a bit too long for us. We would have to wait in line for 2 hours to be able to take the 40-second elevator ride to the platform. If you do decide to go up, you can decide whether you want to go only to the observation platform, or get some food at the restaurant on top.
Our plan then lead us to another part of Berlin dedicated to the Wall and its surroundings, the Berlin Wall Memorial (Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer in German).
This was another fascinating thing for me to see, because I always try to imagine what it was like back then and what effect that had on people’s lives. When you get to see the stones marking some paths of the underground tunnels going underneath the Wall at the time, when people were trying to flee the Eastern part of Berlin, it does give you some chills, especially when you connect that with the photographs displayed on the buildings on the edge of the Memorial. The Memorial itself is located along Bernauer Straße, and it includes a Chapel of Reconciliation, the Berlin Wall Documentation Centre, a 60-meter section of the former border, a window of remembrance and a visitor center.
The next stop was one of the most important ones for my dad. He said he won’t be going back home before he visits the Palace of Tears (or Tränenpalast in German). The Palace is located on Friedrichstraße, right next to a public transport station. People can easily enter the Palace free of charge, but even if they did charge an entrance fee, my dad would probably pay whatever it would cost to get inside. It brought out a lot of memories of the time when he was passing through that exact building, going from one side of Berlin to the other. Palace of Tears originally wasn’t on my plan for our trip, but I’m not sorry that we added it, because it does present the history of crossing the border back then in a different light, where you really get to see how strict everything was. Maybe that was also the case because of my dad’s stories and experiences but nonetheless.
Next up, was the Brandenburg Gate. As it’s one of the most iconic buildings and sights in the city, the square in front of it was pretty crowded. We didn’t spend such a long time there, just took a few photographs and moved on to see the Reichstag, which is just a couple of minutes away.
When you get to see a bit more of the city, even though we haven’t really seen that much of it, you start noticing a twin row of bricks on the ground. At first I didn’t really pay attention to that, because I didn’t even think it was relevant, but later when I found out that those bricks are marking the spot where the Berlin Wall once stood, I started to notice that all the time along those places that we saw today. And that line lead us from Reichstag to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Now, this isn’t really connected to the history of Berlin or the Berlin Wall, but it was also one of the main things I wanted to see here. Although there isn’t really much to see at the Memorial, just a maze of passageways in between big concrete blocks, but the history behind this is quite tragic, as we all know.
With that behind us, it didn’t take long to walk from the Memorial to a parking space, where the entrance to Adolf Hitler’s bunker once was. They built the parking space on top of it on purpose, and the people here don’t want to remember that part of the history so they didn’t even put any signs up, stating that that’s where the entrance was. Also, because of not wanting to give any person a reason to mourn the person in public.
After returning back to Alexander Platz for a short while, we continued our tour towards Potsdamer Platz. Honestly, I wouldn’t really recommend visiting that, because there isn’t really much to see. There is the line of bricks showing where the Wall once stood, but that’s pretty much it. From there it was quite a walk to get to another one of our points on the plan, Checkpoint Charlie. For a small fee, you can even pose with two “American” soldiers in front of the checkpoint, and I’m sure it’s a fun thing to do, but we were already pretty tired then so we weren’t in a mood to wait in line just to take a few pictures.
From there, it was time for us to call it a day and head back to our hotel, get some refreshments before meeting up with my aunt and her friend once again. We spent a nice evening at the place they are staying at, had a few laughs and just relaxed after such a long day. Since we completed most of our plan by now, there’s only one major thing left for tomorrow, which is THE most important one for me, like my dad said for the Palace of Tears, I won’t be going home if I don’t go to the ZOO! 😀
So thank you for bearing with me till the end of this long(er) post, tomorrow’s post probably won’t be as long as today’s, but who knows what’s going to happen during the day. We may discover some spots that we forgot about in the first two days here, but stay tuned and see for yourself! 🙂
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