We enjoyed a weekend in Berlin in October and were lucky
enough to stay with friends in their apartment, giving us a local take on this
small city. Arriving early on the Friday morning, we raced in from the airport
to join a Fat Tire Bike Tour which is an excellent way to see a city (having
done this in Barcelona too, we reckon it’s far better than a walking tour). And
what better place to cycle than in Berlin, where there are bike lanes
everywhere and cars give way to cyclists so we felt super safe.
The tour took us to all the main sites, as well as our
kiwi guide offering an excellent history of the city. The tour included Checkpoint
Charlie, various parts of the wall, the Reichstag, and a nice beer garden for
lunch (would be better in summer!). Post
tour we went to the DDR museum that gave us a good insight (and a few laughs)
about life behind the Wall for the East Germans. We then visited a local restaurant
with our friends, Arema – excellent food and value.
We had enjoyed cycling around so much that we borrowed
our friends’ bikes the following day to do more. We visited the museum for the
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was an excellent, and very
personal and emotional, memorial museum set underneath the memorial itself. The
memorial has a fascinating history, with the chemical used as an anti-graffiti
substance on the concrete blocks that form the memorial produced by the same
company that produced Zyklon B used to poison people in the gas chambers during
WWII.
We then visited the Topography of Terror, the German
History Museum and rode down Karl Marx Alee to see more of the East of the City
in person.
Sunday we were up early to catch the All Blacks v
Argentina (in the Rugby World Cup) at an Irish Pub before taking a look at
Mauerpark fleamarket and the Berlin Wall Memorial, an excellent open air strip of land
where the wall once was, looking at the lives of those on either side, and some
of the escape attempts that took place. Finally, we took in the East Side
Gallery, a 1.3km of the wall covered with art.
We had some problems getting back to the airport,
assuming the train lines would all be running which was a mistake. Ongoing
works meant we had to decipher German to get off the train, get a bus, then
another train, and put a sprint on to catch our flight. Think we’re becoming too
relaxed with flights, so we need to leave more time in future. Life ain’t the Amazing Race, von Yarralls!
