First stop Berlin

I arrived in Berlin mid afternoon Tuesday after seeing off my happy life in London. My friends, my job, my sister and my happy home. Shattered from the chaos I found a hostel next Alexander Platz and settled in, making a single jaunt out to replace my forgotten towel and purchase a lock to bemuse me for a while (I have it figured out now!). I had a delicious feast of Vietnamese which seemed to be prevalent in the neighbourhood and tucked up early for an Admin night (really this just meant a good nights sleep only to be woken by my pub crawling drunk room mates who had forgotten their keys).


I headed out the next day for the City Walking tour which is reknowned as one of the best things to do in Berlin. Having missed the 11am group I joined a later tour (they go ever 2 hours from Starbucks by the Brandenburg Gate). My Liverpudlian (I still think this is the greatest word in the English language so I will use it in this blog as often as I can. Cameo appearances will become like rock stars if and when I come across a Scouser) guide James guided us through East Berlin with charismatic charm being giggled at by some people reading the plaques as his stories were slightly inflated - but decidedly entertaining.


We took in

• The Brandenburg Gate - the most famous structure in Germany (and it made me think of those who have run the marathon here....wicked finishing spot)
• The Holocaust Memorial - which despite having "no meaning" was a trip to experience.  Emotional. Clean. Interactive. Germanic in its order and structure. Quirky. Dark.
• The car park where Hitlers bunker is sealed underground and was the site of his suicide in the closing days of the war
• We went on to the famous Luftwaffe Building one of the last remaining Nazi buildings in the city formally housing the air force. After the war the country went through mass de-Nazification this was followed in East Berlin by communist buildings which again in recent times have been demolished, making for a very bitsy architectural landscape with new buildings popping up. The Luftwaffe is to remain due to its indestructability (thought to have survived the war simply as a gentlemans agreement amongst internation airforce - or so Liverpudlian James tells the story!) and how expensive it would be to demolish it. Interestingly it is now used as the central Tax office.
• At the side entrance of the Luftwaffe building sections of the Berlin Wall still remain and a outdoor museum I would have liked to look around is there. What is interesting about the wall is its sudden rise (overnight and to the surprise of most Berliners) and its structure with an J shape on the East side with huge sewage piping at the top making it almost impossible to jump. It sits maybe 10ft high and is not a patch on the Barrier in Israel.
• Up the road is Checkpoint Charlie renowned for it being the one point where Soviets and American troops interacted during the Cold War. It is a HUGE TOURIST TRAP. Knowing this made it more bearable but I wouldn’t recommend this site to anyone.



Written by German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine of whose books were burned in the 1920's. "Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people" Ironically this quote was made in 1820!

• We walked some more to the Bebel Plaza where book burnings took place in the early 1920's during the start of the Nazi influenced regime. Much construction is underway to rebuild those buildings left in disrepair during the cold war in the square
• One highlight was the memorial for the fallen soldier. Formally the Palace guard house the space was transformed in the 1930’s to commemorate the war dead. Today a statue rests in the centre of the bare room with a mother resting her fallen son. A hole has been formed in the roof likened to the Palatine in Rome and allows the statue to change with the seasons. The sky was crying when I visited.

This concluded my day and with a move across town required due to overcrowding at my hostel I decided to take it easy. More fool me for not making the most of the dry weather!!!


The following morning bought rain rain and more rain. I made a bee line for the German Museum where I was able to see the German perspective of the wars. It was enlightening to see it from the flip side of the coin. With a refusal to take blame for the First World War despite heavy penalties agreed at Versailles. The images of the WWII were heart breaking and as I walked along the streets I couldn’t help but want to ask the elderly of their own stories. Unlike anywhere I have ever visited Germany is the place I personally lay all the blame for this tragic period of history. And the car park I had just been, the site (very un-memorialised!) of the death of the most evil man I have ever heard of.

German Museum

Enthralled and appalled I took in one final exhibition which was of two German photographers during times of war namely the Cold War and images of East Germany during this tiresome period and then the struggles in the former Yugoslavia which gave me a little insight into the stories I will be uncovering in 2 weeks.

With news that my good friend Partho was in town working at Universal Music I headed for the East Side Gallery to have a look at the art exhibition on part of the last section of the wall. After Israel I was bitterly disappointed with the imagery. I’ll let you be the judge of this. Although I guess Israel is a dispute of my time where the struggles in Berlin were before my understanding.

After a lovely evening catching up and philosophising with Partho, Manesh, Laura and their new business partner over some Sri Lankan, I headed back to the hostel. I had planned to meet Laura for lunch the following day but I tried to book my Krakow bound train and found the only way I could secure 2 days in Krakow would be to leave at 2.40pm Friday. With rain still dominating the skyline I decided the escape was probably a very good idea….although the idea of lunch with friends was incredibly hard to turn down.

So with some confusion I boarded a train bound for Warsaw.