Berlin
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
23
47
Trip End
Nov 22, 2007
Berlin,
Germany
Friday, August 31, 2007
I have decided to write separate blogs for each day that we are in berlin as I there is so much to see and therefore so much to say.
Yesterday (thurs 30th aug) we checked out of our Hotel in Mainz and headed to Frankfurt airport about hours before our flight, insane you might think, well you are right but we had nothing else to do and I thought there may be some duty free shops I could browse through but we flew out of the smaller terminal 2 which had 1 shop, boring. They did have a terrace that you can go out on, just like the old one at Tullamarine airport but this one you had to pay 4euros to enter. Our flight left on time and we arrived in Berlin at 8pm, we took a bus into the city which was easy and only took 25 mins and then the subway for 2 stops and we were at our Hostel by 9:30pm. The Hostel is probably the nicest we have stayed in so far, extremely clean and nicely decorated. We are in our own room.
Today (Friday 31st August) we started the day with a very nice and cheap buffet breakfast from a funky café up the road, we hadn't eaten anything since around 2pm the day before so we were starving. At around 1pm we started a free guided tour where the guide came and picked us up from the Hostel and we walked around Berlin for around 4 hours. The tour was excellent and mostly because the guy was a fantastic guide. We saw most of the main sights including Check Point Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, Hitlers Bunker, part of the Berlin Wall to name a few. Now some of you probably know this but I'll give you some facts about the Berlin Wall. I always thought that the Wall was there as a barrier between East and West Germany as in it split the country in 2 however that is not entirely true. Germany was indeed split in 2, one side being the West was the demographic American side and the other side being the East was the Communist Soviet side however Berlin was located entirely within East Germany but because it was the capital the US and the soviets (after WW2) decided that it was only fair to cut up the city aswell, so within East Germany you had Berlin where half was under West Germany and half was under East Germany, follow? Anyway the Berlin Wall was built to entirely surround the West Germany side of Berlin so that the East Germans could not get out of East Germany and go into West Germany, which is what used to happen before the wall was built. The people from West Berlin could travel to the rest of West Germany but obviously had to go through East Germany to get there. Its kind of like if the ACT and Victoria where the same country and NSW was a different one however the ACT sits within the borders of NSW. You know what I mean. The wall itself was not just 1 wall, it consisted of two walls that ran parrellel to each other in sort of a big 150km circle and within these walls was called the death strip, or no mans land. In some sections it was only 20m wide but in others it was 200m wide. Within the 2 walls would be troops and other decoys to stop people escaping over the wall, many people tried and didn't make it. Its all very fascinating, imagine living in a city where you had this ugly wall that separated you from your friends and family and you could never go to the other side. Imagine living right where the wall was erected, your life would have been turned upside down in an instant. WE also visited the sight where Hitlers Bunker once stood underneath, it is now a carpark of an apartment block and the bunker has been filled in but its still a bit weird knowing that you are standing on top of the spot where he took his own life (thankfully)
Check Point Charlie is a sight where one of the checkpoints used to be funny enough. It was checkpoint C, hence the Charlie bit. There are some interesting information boards around the area and also a museum that we did not go into which has some stories about escape attempts etc. This was the most central checkpoint around the wall within central berlin which is possibly why they have it as a tourist sight.
Although Berlin has a lot of history and pretty bad history at that, it is now an amazing city and the highlight of our trip so far. Tomorrow we have many more sights to see including the longest remaining strip of the Wall, the Jewish Museum and maybe some nightclubs
J
Me
Comments
Hello
Hello that is so facinating and sad in one sence but happy its all over and people can now be free
Have fun
XX Mommy