Dresden to Berlin - Best Western Hotel City Ost
Our next stop after Dresden was Berlin, so this post summarises our few days there. Overall we found Berlin to be one of our favourite cities in Germany, due to the amazing history and its more cosmopolitan nature (and the fact that there were some decent restaurants near our hotel that didn't just offer schnitzel, bratwust or pizza certainly helped)!
Day 177 - Just as we were getting the hang of speeding along the autobahn it's time to hand the car back! On our way to Berlin we visited the nearby city of Potsdam. The most impressive sight there was Sansouci, the old summer palace of Frederick the Great, where we spent a little time wandering through the gardens.
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| Sans Souci, Potsdam |
Driving into Berlin was a bit of an ordeal, the fact that we were in peak hour traffic didn't help, nor did the route the GPS selected, as it seemed to take us past (and even through) every tourist infested attraction in Berlin! We needed to get to our hotel, drop off our luggage, return the car and get a train back to the hotel. Three hours later we had finally achieved it, M ended up with a headache, and K was totally stressed and she wasn't even driving!
Day 178 - Against our normal way of travelling we signed up for a walking tour of the city. We'd read it was rated very highly. and as Berlin is so big and there is so much history we thought we'd try going with the experts, and at least it would save us all the hours that we usually spend lost.
We found the tour great, the guide was entertaining and informative. We walked by all the major sights from Checkpoint Charlie to the Brandenburg Gate and we learnt so much about the whole post-WW2 period when the Berlin Wall was erected. It was also surprising to hear that Berlin is a poor city with unemployment at 14%, with all the wondeful buildings it gives a different impression, though we did encounter a few pushy beggars.
Even though the majority of the wall has now gone the route has been kept at road level marked with different cobblestones, so as you wander the city you cross the line in the street umpteen times which reinforces so well the path that it took. We also saw a wonderful WW2 memorial which was a sculpture of a mother with her dying son in her arms, the skylight in the roof above her is not covered over so when it is raining it appears as if the world is weeping with her and when it snows her cloak is covered in a dusting of snow. On a different note the tour finished opposite the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled the baby from the balcony. The rest of the day was spent revisiting some of the areas we visited earlier that had piqued our interest during the walking tour.
Day 179 - We are getting to the stage where we have stopped visiting the insides of every church, palace and museum but rather choosing just the ones that appear special. In Berlin we chose the Pergamon Museum. The ruins of Pergamon are close to Troy, which we visited in Turkey. The museum is designed brilliantly with the friezes and temple pieces structured to the original building sizes and plans. Exhibits included the Pergamon temple, and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon. Despite the amazing number of people there it was brilliant a place to visit, but once again we wonder why some of these artefacts are in Berlin and not in their home country (then again, it would be quite difficult to see the Ishtar Gate if it was back in Iraq ....).
More revisiting after that, including a closer look at the Berlin Wall and the nearby exhibition, as well as a bus ride to one of the main shopping areaa where we watched a pole vault competition in the square.
Day 180 - We decided we needed a break today from sightseeing and to catch up on some chores. The internet in Germany has been appalling even though we have been booking hotels that advertise free wifi it never seems to have a decent enough signal to maintain any reasonable connection, but finally in Berlin we have good wi fi. This meant we could do some banking, answer emails, finally get our tickets booked for Carnival in Rio next February, as well as arrange a train and accommodation for Prague, and of course do some catching up on the blog.
Also, as we are preparing to now leave Germany, there a few German oddities that we would like to mention:
1/ Every bakery has wasps swarming in the cabinets over the food. They don't seem to have any way of controlling them so it's just normal. They seem completely harmless, but every now and then you see someone violently trying to shoo one away.
2/ They have a really odd way of making the bed, and weird shaped pillows. The pillows are like massive floor cushions and the bed is made by folding up the doona and placing it in the centre of the bed, and we've encountered very few real double beds, they are usually two single beds pushed together. Also instead of chocolates on the beds they place little bags of soft lollies.
3/ There seems to be a ridiculous custom of using hiking sticks for just walking down the street (this was quite common in Bavaria). We found it hilarious to see people walking along paved footpaths with a pair of hiking sticks. Now we have nothing against the sticks and they were helpful when we were gorilla trekking through impenetrable forest - but why does anyone need them to walk down the street (we've even seen someone using them to walk inside a railway station!).
4/ Finally we can confirm it isn't a myth, but some Europeans do wear socks with their sandals - generally black - which is such a charming look, especially on young children!
We travelled back into Switzerland today to visit Basel, another picturesque city, that had a bakery with wonderful raspberry tarts (according to M) - why don't all tarts contain this much jam? It was also kind of weird (in a nice way) - first we saw some strange performance going on in a cafe where people were walking around singing to themselves, then while we were trying to figure out what was going on, two scantily clad girls walked past done up completely in black skin paint (we had no idea what they were selling). 
