Berlin

Berlin ….. where to start? A city with still some at least psychologically divided barriers – not so much in the young people but a little more in the older generations. It is a beautiful city in summer – so much that is old and so much new.

Monument: Winged Victory

History [some good and some not] smacks you in the face particularly in the eastern zone. There have been some attempts, even under occupation when Berlin was divided by the Wall, to modernise with ‘power’ architecture such as the Communications Tower, but it is only slowly being absorbed into one with the western zone. Still signs of it’s being run down, particularly when you get to the outer suburbs but the inner city zone is showing signs of economic development.

         The Berliner Dom

What an amazing rail system. Right across the city the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn runs efficiently and smoothly. Miss one train – and another will be along within 5 minutes.

A four hour walking tour with Original Walking Tours of Berlin, gave us the  orientatiin we needed to find our way around at various times over the next three days. Would never have considered as a young person growing up in NZ that one day we would be standing in front of the Reichstag, made infamous by Adolf Hitler; or walking through the Brandenburg Gates (Tor) along Berlin’s equivalent to Paris’ Champs Elysee, Unter den Linden; how could we have ever considered the [possibility of standing on top of the bunker in which Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun died in the last days of WW2.

But there is far more to Berlin than its infamous past. The quiet sombre feel in the air around the memorial to the Jewish dead of WW2; becoming disoriented amongst the stone slabs and the passage ways between  - an attempt in part to recreate the lost, disoriented feeling that many of the displaced peoples of Berlin would have experienced. One of the most poignant architectural experiences we have felt - it was far more than just observation from afar.

                             

     The Memorial to the Jewish Dead of Germany's WW2 Holocaust

 The architecture of Berlin Dome and the Humboldt Museum; the Library and the [    ] where students burned the books during the days of the rise of the Nazi Party to support the regime.

The Brandenburg Gate - once the divide between East and West

Our accommodation was in the west of Berlin. Only 10 minutes from Hauptbahnhof and the Hackescher Markt nearby Museum Island where the big museums are centrally located.

Once we became familiar with the S- and U-Bahn we were able to move around the city very easily. But we still managed to get ‘lost!’ On occasions we discovered places we intended to visit unintentionally! Other  times we had no idea where we were.

The Reichstag on a warm summer afternoon

One of the highlights of Berlin was our visit to the Stasi Museum with its history of service to the Soviets. With that came the fear and mistrust of many East Berliners who were spied upon by all manner of means to ensure they did not contravene the party line.

The remains of Kaiser Wilhelm Church on Kurfurstendamm

Western Berlin is also where we went to Mass  - in the wrong church.  A last minute rush to what we thought was the Catholic Church saw us end up in an Ecclesiastical Church – late to get in and the guy at the door was not helpful in at helping us to exit. The church portico was dark; there were no signs on the doors; push – or pull, neither of us knew but we finally managed to get out into the Sunday morning sunshine. A .long walk from there took us through Tiergarten (lunch on a park bench next to a homeless woman – they always seemed to have the best places to themselves) through to the Winged Victory and back down 17 June Strasse. 
And then of course there was the wall of separation.....

Part of the Berlin Wall remains - the concrete slabs at the base meant it couldn't be 

pushed over