Berlin

Berlin is totally gay! Well, that’s not strictly true, it’s not totally gay, but it is the third largest gay city in the world, behind (heh heh) San Francisco and Sydney. Somehow we managed to visit on the weekend of the annual gay pride walk, and suffice to say, there were some interesting characters about!

Queerness aside, I have to say that of all the places that we’ve ever been to, nowhere makes me wish I’d have paid more attention in Modern History class than Berlin. The amount of history crammed into the one city is nothing short of spectacular, and we did our best to learn as much of it as possible while we were there. To this effect, we signed up for a walking tour on Saturday afternoon, which was led by a rather upbeat young Swede named David. He reminded me a bit of John B, but Kristy didn’t really agree.

He was rather passionate about Berlin, and consequently he made for a really great guide. And the tour itself – though clearly well worn, based on the number of other groups that we bumped in to – was excellent, and I’d highly recommend it to any visitor. Truth be told, we tried to get ourselves onto a Segway tour, but it was booked out!

We covered loads of historic sights in our four hour walk, and David taught us loads of things about the city. I particularly liked the outdoor exhibition about the Berlin wall which he showed us (near Checkpoint Charlie); so much so that we came back on Sunday so we could read it all in detail. To commemorate the wall, two rows of cobbled stones have been laid along the path of the outer wall, and it was cool to see it weaving around throughout the city. What a different place it must have been.

Admittedly, our guided walk made us double up on a few of the sites, since we had spent the morning exploring on our own. On our flight over, I had read that the glass dome on top of the Reichstag was best visited either first thing in the morning, or last thing in the evening, in order to try and avoid the crowds. We heeded this advice and went along shortly after they opened at 8 AM, and even then we were greeted by a fairly lengthy line.

After about 10 minutes, a large tour group was let through in front of us, and we were stopped right in front of the next security barrier. Upon seeing that Kristy was pregnant (and perhaps with a bit of emphasis by Kristy rubbing her stomach) the security boy took pity of us and sent us straight in via a secret side entrance! Score!

The walk up and down the giant dome provided us with a great view over the city, and the accompanying audio guide did a pretty good job of pointing out some of the city’s sights. Best of all – it was entirely free!

The Brandenburg Gate and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe are both close to the Reichstag, so we paid them both a visit too.

The Hotel Adlon is also fairly close to The Reichstag, but it wasn’t until the conclusion of our guided tour that we learned of its significance. It turns out that loads of famous people have stayed there over the years, but perhaps none more famously than Michael Jackson, who proudly showed off his baby to the world by dangling it over the balcony!

One thing I particularly like about visiting Germany is the food, and, Berlin was no exception to this. On the beverages front, Kristy fell in love with apfelschorle; however I stuck to the safety of beer – bless those Germans and their purity law! We also enjoyed many fine meals, including bacon knuckle with sauerkraut, pork schnitzel, currywurst (pork sausage in tomato and curry sauce), and Zürigschnätzlets (veal in a creamy mushroom sauce). Yum!

I loved our time in Berlin, and our hotel was ideally situated thanks to a recommendation from Eva. Two days was barely enough to scratch the surface though; I think I’ll be putting it on to the list of places to visit again in the future!

View the Berlin gallery on Picasa.