Revisiting Berlin

At last!

I have no idea why it took us so long to get to Berlin after the wall fell, but some of it was due to having a very young family at that time and also not having an easy way to get there.  But 30 years?  Really?

Anyway, I used to live in Berlin and always hoped I would return one day, and this week we finally made it! Thanks to Easyjet for making affordable flights and easy connections, one flight from Glasgow to Schonefeld and there we were!


The last time I was in Berlin, my first stepfather was based in the American Sector and I was 10 years old.  We stayed about 3 years. The wall had only been up a few years and I was told there were at least 4 incarnations of the wall. The one I saw was certainly not as massive as the last one, but it was impressive enough even for a 10 year old.

We stayed overnight in the Courtyard Marriot at Glasgow Airport so we could easily catch the 7:45 am flight to Schonefeld.  For £50 we got the room and 4 days' parking right there. Then we could walk to the airport to check in.  Not as short a walk as staying at the Holiday Inn Express, but the convenience of leaving our car right where we parked it sounded nice.

My tradition is to have breakfast at Wetherspoons - I always get porridge!  I simply love porridge. Then it was time to board the plane. In less than 2 hours, we were in Berlin!  Of course, the majority of Berlin we were in was very new to me since much of the city was/is in the East! In my previous residency here, we were restricted to the West side of Berlin and mainly the American Sector.

this is what you use to validate
your ticket

Arriving at the airport and not sure if we should buy the 72 hour Berlin Welcome Card covering all aspects of public transport. Considering we also intended to purchase the 2 day hop on/hop off bus, was buying all those tickets overkill?  After realising we should get a discount on the tour bus,  along with many other things found in the Berlin Welcome Card, we went ahead with buying this.  What a great thing to have!  All we had to do was validate it once and never had to worry about what bus to catch, where we were going or anything!  I highly recommend doing this.  We did time it as late as possible, waiting for the S9 train to Friedrichstrasse to virtually be visible before validating the tickets.  This was a good thing because the timing worked out perfectly for our return journey to the airport.  I think we had about 10 minutes left on the Welcome card when we arrived at the airport to check in for our return to Glasgow!

At Friedrichstrasse, we changed to the U-bahn, U6, taking us to either Koch Strasse or Stadt Mitte. Which is where we needed to get off in order to find our hotel.  We chose Koch Strasse first since this was where the replica Checkpoint Charlie is situated and we knew our hotel, Hotel Gat Checkpoint Charlie, was close to this.  Very easy to get into Berlin and find your way around and I don't think you really need to speak German to do this, although I feel being able to communicate in German, or at least make the effort, smooths things along the way. Plus I just like to make myself understood if at all possible.

First view of "Checkpoint Charlie"

I think it costs 3 Euro for these "soldiers" to pose with you.

Our first experience of Berlin was the Checkpoint Charlie replica.  It didn't look exactly right to me, but I was only 10 or so the last time I saw it.  (next time we visit, I need to go see the actual one which is housed at the Allied Museum. )   This museum is housed at the location of the American base housing - where I used to live!  Unfortunately, the massive size of Berlin was too much for us to add this destination to our packed 2 and a half days. So this will have to wait until my next visit, which I hope will be next year.

After leaving our bags at reception, we literally ran to the Brandenburg Gate!  But in between was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  There is no gate and you can enter and spend as much time as you like. It really doesn't look like much as you enter but keeps on going and going and the 2711 stones get higher and higher, although they are uneven and so is the ground. So while in the middle of it, you have no idea exactly where you are or when this line of stones will end.  It is a very odd and disorienting feeling.  Considering what the designer was intending, I think he represented what happened to the Jews very well.  We had a walking tour the next day and our guide explained that there are other monuments in Berlin representing other victims of the genocide such as the Roma people and Homosexuals.  

These are also close to the centre of Berlin.  Our guide said these memorials are not meant to be hidden but be visible for all the world to see so that we don't forget what can happen so easily if people don't pay attention.

Ever since the wall went down, all I have wanted to do is walk under this famous landmark and I finally got to do this!  And I did cry!  What an amazing experience and we went from East to West.... Then it was finally time to sit down and eat!

There is a Starbucks right in the Parisien Platz but I don't like to frequent franchises if I can help it. And right next door was a local bakery, the Backer Wiedeman, which looked amazing. The girl behind the counter did not speak English either, which is unusual but nice for me to use my German for a change!  Alan got a ham and cheese panini and I got a brown roll with salami and no idea what else, but it was delicious!


After this, we found ourselves at a loose end since this first day was not a "full" day and we had no other plans. So we decided to go back to find a landmark Alan was interested, but we got off a station early because I was hungry (again!) and spent the rest of the evening there.

When we first passed this station, Hackescher Markt,  on our way into the city centre, there were market stalls and it looked like a busy place to visit.  The stalls were gone by the time we got there, but it was interesting to just walk around. The Markt is around the station and there are outdoor tables and chairs and signs with offers of various things. Grand Rocka offered cake and coffee for 5.50 Euro!  Other places were much more expensive, so in we went!

And the cakes were divine!  The coffee not so much.  It was not until right now I looked at a photo with the cakes and noticed for .50 extra we could have ordered latte or cappuccino!  Oh well....live and learn.

Being about 4pm now, we went back to Koch Strasse station and checked in to our hotel.  Threw our cases in and headed out again, back to the Brandenburg Gate for a few more shots and then back to Grand Rocka for dinner!  (See the beauty of having a travel pass?  It didn't matter how many times we went back and forth on trains and U-bahns!)

Grand Rocka

Our server from earlier remembered us and that was so nice.  We both ordered the Berlin Meatballs, having no idea what they were like.  Alan also ordered a Currywurst.  He said it was ok. The meatballs were interesting. At first I was not sure, but once I got used to the different taste of a meatball, I decided they were delicious!

After this long day of travel and discovery, we wandered back by Checkpoint Charlie and collapsed in heaps in our hotel room!