Skip to main content

Day 6: Berlin!!

Image
By
Where we stayed 
We were tired today! Alto ought we were relaxing out in the countryside with Kati we squeezed a lot in and we also did a fair bit of exercise too! So, a combination of that and the hostel dorm being too warm!! It was warmer in that room than it was outside!! A cold shower in the morning and at night helped us keep cool (and smelling relatively nice!). 

What we explored
We got the train into town and headed straight to the Brandenburg Gate where our walking tour was setting off from. There we met 'tall posh Rob' from Durham and he was our tour guide for the following three hours!! We learnt a lot about Berlin's history, some of which we already knew but a lot that was new to us and very interesting! We saw some of the key sites along the way too....another fantastic thing about these free walking tours!

The Holocaust memorial

Check point Charlie

Hitlers bunker (not the actual thing as it was destroyed and is now noting more than a 'glorified' car park) 

The Berlin Wall,


We also passed by the Nazi book burning memorial which was spectacular, a window in the ground on the site of where the nazis burned over 260 books. So under this window is a sculpture by a Jewish artist of a small room lined with enough book shelves to hold the estimated number of books destroyed that day. 

We also passed by Museum island and several beautiful sculptures and statues. After the tour though we were pretty exhausted from three hours of walking in the sun and so we headed to a place that had free wifi and something to eat, and of course some cold beers! We'll show you what we are below! 

After lunch we got the we're to the east side gallery, the longest piece of the Berlin Wall that still stands. It was wonderful to see that the locals had turned what was such a somber place into a creative and colourful area. Art and graffiti on the walls and as it happened the day we were there they were holding a small free music festival with several small acoustic stages, some food and drink vans and places to sit and relax in the sun while you listened to some music :) it was very pleasant! 


What we ate...
For lunch we went to spreegold where we had some of the best salad we've had since we started traveling! 
(Photos to follow)

In the evening we wondered around Alexanderplatz, around the square and round the spectacular tv tower! We managed to score a place to eat dinner under the TV tower there and ate some of the yummiest Currywurst!! (Much better than last night!!!) A couple of glasses of beer and we headed back to the hot-as-hell-hostel! 

Comments

  1. Unknown30 August 2016 at 14:02

    Brings back happy memories! Loved Berlin! Shame about your hostel - hope you get some sleep tonight! :) x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12 hours in VENICE: pizza, ice-cream, coffee ...and elasticated waistbands!

By
WE'VE REACHED ITALY!!! Yippeeeeee!! I think Claire and I have been looking forward to this leg of the journey since we started off!! Th e land of pizza and pasta and cannoli and biscotti and COFFEE!! We have checked off at least three of that in our first day here as we've been exploring the beautiful Venezia!  We were originally hoping to have a few days here in Venice, or at least two, but unfortunately our wee pockets couldn't fulfil that...we arrived to the tail end of the Venetian Film Festival and so the price of accommodation, which is usually in the top end of our budget, was skyrocketed! Therefore with the the flexibility that the interail pass gives you, a wee change of plan, we spent the day in Venice and in the evening we headed to Florence for a couple of nights.  But first I'll tell you about Venice.  Arriving early off the overnight train (which claire may have mentioned was a LOT more comfortable that the first one we did) we got started in Venice shortl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 9: Prague to Budapest

By
Day 9: Prague to Budapest We managed to wake up relatively early today and were packed and fed by 9 o'clock. We then chilled in the lovely Advantage hostel lounge for a couple of hours and used their free Internet to plan our route a bit more and to book some further accommodation. Last night we also confirmed dates with the two friends that we'll be staying with. We are a very excited to see  Zoe in Switzerland and David in Italy and explore their beautiful countries with a couple of locals!  But for now, goodbye Czech Repubic, we are heading to Hungary!!  After we checked out of the hostel we had a wonderful stroll through a local park (Riegrovysady) as we headed to the train station. We grabbed some food for the train and had lunch at a European classic ;)  (Last nights dinner was a bit expensive so today we're allowed to  be cheapskates!!!)        After fighting with a cash machine at the train station trying to figure out this new money ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vienna day 2

By
The rain is here to stay, making today another good day to visit a gallery. We left our big heavy bags at the hostel after checking out and made our way to the Belvedere gallery which is one of Vienna's many great places to absorb some culture. We bought tickets to see the Gustav Klimt exhibition which was just amazing. The paintings are huge in real life. 'The kiss' was the centre piece, taking up an entire wall top to bottom. A lot of the works on display were unfinished as he died before he could complete them, but there was something nice about seeing his work from a more deconstructed perspective.    Along with that we got to see some of Egon Sheile's stuff too, which is an artist our life drawing teacher always used to rave about. He's a big deal when it comes to drawing naked bodies and even some not so naked bodies. A lot of the work we saw was (relatively clothed) family portraits and embracing couples which were similar in subject matter yet very different...
Post a Comment
Read more