A month ago, I spent my last weekend in Germany (for now!). During this weekend, another Lübeck language assistant and I travelled to Berlin. This was the first time I have ever been there, which a bit sad having been in Germany for over 6 months and having visited the capitals of Sweden and Denmark before the capital of the country I was living in!!
Putting the stresses of the situation we were in at the time aside, it was a great weekend; beautiful weather, visiting the tourist hotspots and catching up with old friends!
As with most of my trips in Germany, this one started the same way: with a FlixBus journey. The journey from Lübeck to Berlin was around 4 hours direct and only cost around 20€ each way per person, which we thought was great considering we only booked it a few weeks before!
When we arrived, it was around 4:30pm, so we headed straight to our accommodation. We were staying in these bedroom cube things (I think the proper word is lodge, but they were literally cubes!) Ours had 2 single beds, a small bedside table in between and a shelf, but in reality, that was all we needed. The showers and toilets were shared but they were all clean and tidy, so no complaints! And this again was cheap, as we booked last minute, and its location was pretty central: only a couple of metro stops to the centre.
That night we headed to Vapiano, which we seem to visit in whichever European city we visit, but I love it! I had this pasta with beef fillet, prawns and veg in tomatoey sauce. It sounds a bit weird, but it was honestly so good.
After this we had a gander around the corner to see the Brandenburg Gate. It was so amazing to see it in real life. Especially having studied divided Germany before, so this was somewhere I always wanted to go. It is such a historically and politically significant place! At this time of night, there was only a smattering of people there, so we managed to get some decent photos.
We then walked through the gate itself and towards the Reichstag building. This is the home of the German parliament, at the heart of the country’s capital. It has a glass roof on top, which is meant to represent a level of transparency, because visitors can visit this dome, which is situated above the debating chamber. This means the public can see their politicians in action.
Sadly, the viewing platform was closed to visitors so we couldn’t go up there and see for ourselves. But it will definitely be on my agenda, if I get to visit the city again.
Next morning, we headed to East Side Gallery: where remaining parts of the Berlin Wall still stand. They are covered in murals and paintings, which has become an iconic photo spot in Berlin. In particular, the mural of Honecker and Brezhnev kissing. So many people were crowding this painting and taking photos in front of it so I’m pretty proud I managed to take this photo and glad I did.
This was another mural I liked. The German sentence means ‘You have learned what freedom means and you will never forget that’ Obviously this message is referring to divided Germany. However, I think that this message still rings true today and especially now we’re all staying home.
Our next stop was Checkpoint Charlie. Another key historical landmark of Berlin. This checkpoint was the most famous crossing between East and West Germany. Many people risked their lives sneaking from one side to the other, whilst the wall stood, and this was one of the sites where thousands of people fled to the West after the fall of the wall.
Afterwards, we stopped for lunch and headed back towards to the centre of Berlin. The next sight we visited was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
The memorial is a collection of concrete slabs and they were all at different heights, lengths and spacing. The site it is on is huge. When you are walking through, it’s all you can see all around you. There is no entrance or exit to this site, you are free to wander throughout and reflect.
We then walked back through the Brandenburg Gate on this lovely sunny day, which was a lot more crowded than the previous evening. Our next stop was somewhere I had been looking forward to a lot. Since living in Germany, I have eaten a lot of Ritter Sport chocolate and brought a lot back as gifts for family and friends. In Berlin, there is the Bunte Schokowelt, where you can make your own chocolate bar, visit their café and buy chocolates in the shop. It is such a colourful and unique place! The chocolate bar I made was milk chocolate with biscuits, smarties and marshmallows – like an even less healthy version of Rocky Road!
After our busy day exploring, we had a quick kip back at the cube and later that evening met one of my old friends from uni, who had recently moved to Berlin, for a catch up over a happy hour cocktail or two!!
So, the next (and our last) morning, we headed out for a last bit of sightseeing, suitcases in tow.
The first stop was the Fernsehturm (TV Tower), which is an iconic part of the Berlin landscape. We sadly didn’t have time to go up the tower, because the queues were quite long, and we were on a countdown until our bus back. It is definitely a landmark I would love to visit again to have the chance to see the view of the city.
Around the corner from the tower is the Museum Island. We saw the Altes Museum, which Katrina told me was where Hitler made speeches to millions of people and because of this, it is banned to stand on these steps and proclaim anything.
Our last sight of our trip was the sight of the Nazi Book Burning, outside Humboldt University. Here there are plaques on the ground explaining what happened there on 10th May 1933. The works of hundreds of writers, publicists, philosophers and scientists were burned by National Socialist students.
I would really like to visit Berlin again! Despite us having seen a lot of important and interesting sights, I would love to come back without any of the lingering stresses of flying home soon after getting back to Lübeck. Berlin has a great mix of historical and modern attractions! It is the biggest capital of Europe, so plenty to see and do! I would recommend people to visit, including myself! (Not at the moment mind!)