Hilton Berlin

Hello Well yesterday was a very sad day for us, having to pack up and leave Lucca! To make us feel a little better the weather was horrible, pouring with rain and very miserable! We tried to call a taxi to take us to the station but only got a recorded message so had to arm ourselves with umbrellas and walk to the taxi rank and ask him to come back to our apartment to collect our luggage before heading to the station. As usual we gave ourselves far more time than we needed and so spent 20 min...

Hello We were on a 5.15pm flight out of Berlin, so after packing up and checking out, we left our bags at the Hilton and walked to "The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe". It is the most amazing place, above ground it is a small city block filled with 2,711 concrete stalae, approx 1m by 1.5m (from memory) which you can walk through from all directions (a bit like a concrete maze) All the stalae (black concrete blocks) are different heights(from flat to 2.2m high) and separated by a walk...

We arrived in Berlin on Saturday morning. On Sunday, Randy and I went on a six hour, total city tour with our guide, Jeremy. He is originally from the U.S., but he lives in Berlin now. He is a total riot, and we had a great time with him. We saw the Brandenburg gate, part of the Berlin wall that is still standing, lots of really interesting buildings and architecture. We had no idea that so many buildings in Berlin were ten years old or less. Berlin's a happpening city! We also saw lots of mo...

So, 6:00 am came oh so fast, as I couldn't actually fall asleep until around 3:00-4:00 am. The night before, while in Munich, we took a taxi and went downtown to eat dinner. The restaurant was quite interesting and the waitresses wore the typical german long frock dress, which happened to be forest green, with a white shirt underneath, some quite lower cut than others, and the waiters wore the typical high-waisted pants, also forest green, with white shirts. And it was very loud. We asked for...

Ok so I know I'm DAYS behind in my blogging. I’ve NEVER done well at keeping a journal. So I’m going to write as much as I can as fast as I can and see if I can catch up.

On Sunday, we took a guided tour through Berlin to learn about the history of the Third Reich, when Hitler took over and the Nazi reign of terror was in charge. Basically, it was a day of memorials. I will pause here to let you know that history is my worst subject. Always has been. It is closely followed ...

So Monday, we decided to take another guided tour (with the same company, New Europe, which is great by the way) to this town called Potsdam. Now, before the tour, I had never heard of Potsdam, except when my friend Wendy told me to visit because she had been and loved it. And I'm SO glad we did. Potsdam is filled with royal palaces from the Prussian era. But let me just tell you, we only THOUGHT we walked the two days before. Yea right.

So we were to meet at the Starbucks again over b...

Very long drive today. Spent almost all day on the bus from 7am till 7pm! And bad traffic too! Did have a stop for lunch and a look-see at Poznan. Was so excited that I got to go to Poznan-have heard about their town hall clock and really wanted to see it as it doesn't go every hour-only at noon-and we only just made it in time!! First you need to know the story of the clock. The story goes that a young boy (goat herd) of Poznan, lost control of his goats and they ran amok through the town. O...

Today started with an optional excursion to the Reichstag Dome (on top of the German Parliament building). Went through an awfully strong security check just to go to the roof to look at the views. And their wasn't much to see because of the fog. Not really worth it. We then went over to the Jewish Memorial. At first it just looks like a pile of concrete blocks-but once you walk inside you realise the ground slopes or 'undulates' and the blocks are different sizes and heights from small to re...

Berlin - Saturday, May 14

Our escape from Dresden wasn't nearly as painful as the arrival. We figured we might have missed a turn or two coming in. You think!?? We found ourselves on the Autobahn and on our way. We encountered construction and congestion about 50 kilometres into the trip. We came to a complete stop on a bridge. Oh happy day for me! Judy was calm and collected as usual. We continued on in stop and go traffic for quite a while. It did give me time to take pictures of t...