21,000 steps on our third day in Berlin

Me at the Reichstag 2019

Me at the Reichstag approximately 1965

We had our day all planned today....catch the hop on/hop off bus at Checkpoint Charlie, head up to Alexanderplatz and change to the other bus. The red bus did Brandenburg Gate area and more western Berlin, the green bus concentrated on East Berlin and the wall.  Great plans...didn't work out though.

Again, the problem of not knowing exactly where the tour bus stopped made us stop waiting at Checkpoint Charlie and catch the U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz because we at least knew where the bus stopped there!  Unfortunately, I needed to make a necessary pit stop and could not find any facilities, not even in the many Starbucks all over this area.  I finally went back to the train station.....causing us to miss the green bus, we actually saw it leave.

So we got back on the train and went to the Reichstag since I wanted to retake a photo taken when I was about 12. The we went back to the Hauptbahnhof to catch the tour bus there and that strategy worked!  Those travel passes!

This part of Berlin is totally foreign to me and I really enjoyed learning about the wall and the lifestyle in East Berlin. Another benefit of this particular bus was that there was a human tour guide! So many of these tour buses offer a taped commentary in a variety of languages.

 I noticed this one said German/English and had no idea what it meant was the "real" tour guide was actually speaking to us and asking questions and answering our questions.  Her name was Eleanor and we made a point of not getting off the bus where we had planned so we would not lose her.  There were two stops I really wanted to visit - Bernauer Strasse and the East Side Gallery.  I had read about Bernauer Strasse in the third book of the Century Trilogy I am reading at the moment by Ken Follett called "Edge of Eternity".  (I think everyone should read this trilogy since it really helps understand so many aspects of history that seem to be over simplified when learning these in class, like the cause of WWI, that was in the first book though.  Not just the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand!  But I am not going to talk about this anymore, except to say the third book has really helped me understand what was going on in Berlin and the cause of the wall.)

East Side Gallery

The East Side Gallery is a unique art gallery considering the basis of the paintings are on the actual remaining walls of the East side of East Berlin.  There is also a bit of it with the second wall.  Unless you saw the wall when it was in operation, you possibly would not realise, there were actually two walls, one they had to get over first, then a death zone with sand and other hazards.

Here is the space between the two walls.

These spaces could be between 20 and 100 feet wide, before the people would get to the second wall and presumably to freedom.  However, with the East Side Gallery walls, not only were there the first and second walls, there was then the River Spree to swim across.

We learned from yesterday and made certain we grabbed something to eat so we didn't miss lunch this time.  After walking along the East Side Gallery, we stopped at a bakery and Alan got another ham and cheese sandwich and I got a cheese pretzel to eat on the bus.  Just what we needed before letting the bus take us back around until we got back to Bernauer Strasse!

Lots of respectful silence as this class walked around the site

Part of the wall at Bernauer Strasse

There was a class at this location apparently learning the history of the wall and looking at the monument to the people who died crossing the wall. That was a very sad monument, most of them were so young, early 20s and 30s, some children and one man who died only months before the wall went down.  There is a museum across the street and these stories are displayed.  Very sad reading.

Overlooking a portion of wall that has been protected
so the two walls and the death zone and guard tower are
easy to see.  

But some people also survived the crossing.  There was a 57 year old woman who followed in the footsteps of her son to escape East Berlin by going through a tunnel under Bernauer Strasse.  Unfortunately, her adult daughter was not able to escape and they did not see each other for over 20 years, until 1989 when the wall fell.  By then, her daughter was at retirement age.  There is a photo of the two of them on vacation together in Tenerife.  The raincoat she wore while escaping is also on display.  Just one of many stories you can read there.

This building is across the street from the Hauptbahnhof.
The side of the is building is all graffiti though.
Very well done! 

There was no point catching the tour bus again so we went to the Nordbahnhof and returned to the Hauptbahnhof. Who knew this train station was going to be such a huge part of our trip!

We thought we were going to have a few hours to wander around and possibly return to the Brandenburg Gate for a better sunset. However, we spotted storm clouds on their way.  Same as yesterday, the clouds can be seen from quite a distance so you should take heed and not get caught like we did yesterday.  We were close to the Mall of Berlin so we decided to look for a food court. And what a food court we found!

One of the signs on the mall said "Welcome to Berlin's greatest food court"! It appeared to be huge and so many choices I think there would be something for everyone.  And we got the perfect dinner - Alan got McDonalds and I got a gorgeous pasta dish complete with red wine in a stem glass!  While we ate, it stormed and rained almost like pre-hurricane.  But when we were finished, so was the storm - lucky!   As much as I would prefer to eat at interesting restaurants, the fact we can escape the weather and still find good food in places like food courts whether at the train station or the mall makes me happy.

I would prefer to be dry and eat dinner than suffer for looking for something more "suitable"!


Another super day in Berlin, who could ask for more?