Up a bit late this morning, but didn't need to rise too early as we'd booked in for a city cycle tour which kicked off at 11:00am and as the museums didn't open until 10:00 we couldn't visit a museum beforehand. We left the Hotel around 10:00 and walked to the meetingplace for the tour, got there at 10:25 which was too early so we walked around the corner and sat down for a coffee.
The cycle tour was an excellent way to get a potted summary of Berlin, WWI WWII and the cold war and how it impacted Germany and particularly Berlin, we visited Checkpoint Charlie, bits of the Berlin wall, Hitlers bunker the holocost monument the Brandenburg Gate and quite a few other lesser known attractions around Berlin.
First up were some of the older Berlin buildings (or where they used to be standing anyway) because of Germany's multiple changes from moinarchies to capitalism and socialism, quite a few of the important buildings were torn down as different groups came to power as they weren't particularly fond of keeping reminders of the previous rulers. The original Berlin Palace was one such building, and all that remains of it today are the stables and one Balcony where the Russian who conquered berlin pronounced Germany to be a socialist state.
Next up was a pair of churches built opposite one another, one was a protestant church and the other was a christian church, both look exactly the same and stand on opposite sides of a square that's about 100m wide, they were built by the ruler at the time who had to build both so as not to upset either group. The Humbolt university was next, it's situated in a group of buildings that have been used for a large number of things pver the years, but are also on the site of the "book burning" carried out by the Nazis, there's a monument built under the main square, which is a set of pure white empty bookshelves underground, which can be seen through a perspex window which is in the middle of the square (on the ground) so you look down into the empty bookshelves, there's enough shelves in the monument to hold all of the books that were burnt.
We left Humbolt museum and headed for checkpoint charlie, unfortunately we didn't have time to go into the museum here, which I think I would have enjoyed as it's full of successful and unsucessful escape attempts which would have been interesting. The checkpoint itself was a little dissapointing as it doesn't look anything like it used to, I guess it's a bit hard to have a functioning city and leave some of this stuff too much intact, it was of course designed to stop anyone passing through and is now in a busy part of the city as it's quite near the city centre. From there our guide took us to show us part of the Berlin wall that's still standing, first impressions are that's it's not quite big enough to keep people in. But that's before you understand the fact that there was also an inner wall on the Eastern side, along with quite a number of additional "deterents" to ensure that the East Germans stayed put, we then went to an area where you could get a better sense of how much blank space the East germans had on their side of the wall to make sure they had a clear shot at anyone trying to escape, it's pretty daunting really. From there we headed off to see Hitlers bunker, which now of course is a car park with no real indication of it's existence except for one small sign. The German government has made the decision not to make this any kind of tourist attraction as they're a little worried that the extreme right might turn it into a shrine or mecca of sorts, quite understandable really, the rumour is that they've only erected the sign to stop the local residents from getting visitor at their doors asking where exactly the bunker is. Funnily enough the area around the Bunker now houses a Mosque, a gay sauna/spa and some Jewish run shops, all of which I'm sure would please Mr Hitler no end.
From there we went to the Holocaust memorial, which is quite a sobering place, just to know that you're standing in/around a memorial that's dedicated to such misery and pain is quite an experience, worth a visit and I'd probably like to go back there and spend some more time walking around as we weren't there for very long. From here we headed to a much happier place, not only did we cross into West Berlin, but we headed for a Beer Garden for some good ol German fair, and of course a liter of beer. From there we headed to the victory monument, which the Germans erected after beating the French (yeah I know not really all that hard one would argue now!), interestingly, Hitler had the monument moved just before WWII as part of his planned remodelling of the city "Germania" which was going to be the captial city for the whole world once he was finished (history shows that he wasn't that far off getting there either). From here we went to the Brandunberg gate, which is an impressive structure and is now surrounded by a number of foreign embassies, although I didn't spot the Aussie embassy. This was pretty much the end of the cycle tour, I'd recommend it for numpties like me who knew very little, it would probably be good for those of you who know a little history as well, the cycling is actually minimal, it just means that you get to see more things as you get there a little faster, the guides are really knowledgeable and quite good fun as well.
Once the cycle tour was over we decided to walk back to checkpoint charlie to have a look at a holocaust museum that was nearby, this was very interesting as it showed a more in depth view of exactly how Hitler came to power and the stages that we went through during his quest for world domination, we didn't have enough time to view this properly either, and by the time we called it a day we were absolutely buggered! We walked back towards the Hotel and stopped for a bite to eat along the way.
We found Berlin to be a great city, I'll definitely be back to have a better look around and the general "vibe" of the city is also really good, it's a really friendly city and you seem to always feel safe walking around, it's also quite spread out, quite a bit of that is due to the east west split and the berlin wall as quite large areas of Land were left barren after WWII so the East Germans had a good view to protect their side of the wall.
Some pictures from our travels around Berlin
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