Thanks to Virgin Money we got a free weekend trip to Berlin (part of which was to take part in the Marathon but luckily I didn’t have to do that bit!) as I’d won the Grand Prize from one of their prize draws just for using my credit card! We’d had about a year to look forward to the trip so were very excited about it!
Despite our excitement, we still managed about 4 hours sleep (which was better than nothing) before being picked up by the taxi at 4am (far too early!). Shortly after we were pulled over by the police as they were looking for someone and wanted to check that the taxi hadn’t just picked them up – we hoped that the rest of the holiday was not so exciting! We got to the airport in plenty of time, but I didn’t feel too well and we were both tired throughout the rest of the day so I don’t think we’d do such an early start again – but at least we’ve tried it now and know for the future. The flight (on Easyjet) was full due to all the people going to Berlin to take part in the Marathon but went fine and its only a short hop really so we were soon in Berlin.
Travel around Berlin via train (both under and over ground) is very easy and there was a station not far from our hotel so we went straight there from the airport. We couldn’t check into the hotel straight away as we were too early but we could leave our luggage with them which enabled us to explore the area and get a feel for Berlin as a city.
We’d bought a small Lonely Planet guide book and used it to pick a local restaurant which was very good – in fact all of the guide book recommendations were very nice so we’d definitely use them again in future (particularly as we are exceedingly rubbish on holiday when picking decent places to eat!). Revitalized we visited the biggest department store in Europe (apparently) called KaDeWe and then a local museum called the Story of Berlin which was very interesting and we’d definitely recommend it to other visitors. The museum itself had a wealth of information (though watch out for some uneven floors!), and the admission fee also included a tour of a 1970s nuclear bunker which was technically still available if needed! They hadn’t thought through a lot of things when they’d built it though (i.e. you had a go down a narrow stairwell to get to it so would be a crush when everyone dashed to the shelter, not enough sanitation, etc) so it wouldn’t be much use in an emergency!! We were there for a few hours, so made our way back to the hotel to check in and have a little sleep before having dinner at the hotel and an early night.
Our plan for day 2 was scuppered almost as soon as we started – we had planned to get a bus tour all the way round the town which we could then use to hop on and off throughout the rest of the day. However when we found the bus stop for the tour we’d chosen and the bus came along they let us know that they were only running till 2pm due to the Marathon – something which we hadn’t realised! Instead we used the trains to make our own way to Charlottenburg Palace which is one of the older palaces in Berlin.
We decided to take the audio guide as we went round which was just as well as there weren’t many signs up. It was very interesting and definitely worth getting (though not everything in each room was described which was a little frustrating) if a bit tiring as it took 2 hours to walk round and there wasn’t anywhere to sit and towards the end we found we had absorbed all the information that we could as there was just so much of it! We had lunch at the palace before having a look and the gardens and then making our way back into town to Checkpoint Charlie. From here we did a walk from the Lonely Planet guide ‘along’ the path of the Berlin wall (most of which is not there anymore) with the guide helpfully pointing out interesting things to find down a few side streets. On the way to Checkpoint Charlie we discovered why the tour buses had stopped – they actually had a marathon for inline skaters! We didn’t even know they had competitions for them but they were all taking it very seriously and were very fast!! We ended our walk at the Brandenburg Gate and had dinner nearby before making our way back to the hotel.
As I’ve already mentioned it was very easy to get around Berlin due to the trains and underground, but you could also buy a combined day ticket for them and the buses and trams so we used that a lot on our third day (and somehow managed to completely avoid the actual runners marathon). We visited the bombed ruins of Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church (though it was surrounded with scaffolding as they were stabilizing it so we couldn’t see it properly) and its modern replacement before heading to the DDR Museum which was very very interesting but a bit cramped as there were so many people in there as it is a very interactive museum so therefore very popular (our Science Museum take note – physical interactions are very popular not just computer simulations)!
Having ambled around Museum Island looking at the buildings (but not going on), we made our way to the Nikolaiviertel (Nicholas Quarter) as we wanted to see the oldest church in Berlin (St. Nikolai-Kirche) which is now a museum. We did come across a statue of St George and the Dragon there too! Most of the church had been rebuilt after having been bombed in the war, but the audio guide helpfully pointed out the remaining medieval sections and that they had used the rubble to make exact replicas of stones and tiles so the building could be recreated as close to how it might have been as possible.
Leaving central Berlin behind we traveled to one of the suburbs (to a station and area where we didn’t feel entirely safe for the first time during our trip) where a 1.3km section of the Berlin wall had been moved to and been used as an art project (the East Side Gallery). Each section had been painted by a different artist and we felt that some didn’t make any sense but some were very good and/or thought-provoking so we were glad we had made the effort. It was a shame that a lot of them had been vandalized with graffiti though that may be partly to due with its out of the centre location.
On our final day we left our luggage at the hotel after checking out which enabled us to (finally) do a tour bus of Berlin so that we could see the bits we had missed but there wasn’t too much as we’d made a good stab of it ourselves! We took the cheapest tour which meant the audio guide was a recording first in German, then in English so there wasn’t any opportunity to ask questions or get information when we were stopped in traffic so we would definitely recommend doing one with a live guide in future. For our final Berlin experience we ate in a typical german beer house (another very nice guide book recommendation), before collecting our luggage and heading for the airport and catching the Easyjet flight home.
All in all it was a great trip, though we were very tired by the time we got home and I’ve come down with a bad cold probably as we got cold at times walking around Berlin! I’m not entirely sure we’d go back as its a bit concrete and sterile as it was bombed so much, and theres a lot of war stuff as you’d expect but thats not very uplifting. We’re very glad that we’ve been though and experienced it all!
As always, a slideshow of our trip can be found on Flickr.