We spent all of Friday, March 28 exploring Berlin. We starting by heading to a restaurant to purchase breakfast since none was included with our room. Then we headed out on a historic walking tour of Berlin. It was actually a cold overcast day that seemed to constantly threaten rain, which made the walking tour a bit less enjoyable than it might have been otherwise.
We started by going to the Pariser Platz (Paris Square). A number of government buildings used to be here that were destroyed in WWII, and now the U.S. embassy is here among other things. The famous Brangenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) is also here, which was built between 1788 and 1791 as the entry to Unter den Linden, a road lined with linden trees that once lead directly to the palace of the Prussian monarchs. During the Cold War, the gate was closed off and was inaccessible for 28 years until 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. The gate was referred to in President Reagan's famous speech there when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Brandenburg Gate
Next we walked over to see the Reichstag, which was the building where the German parliament met when it was first built at the end of the nineteenth century. However, it was destroyed in a fire in 1933 and was not rebuilt until the 1990s. Today it is used again for parliament, and it is topped by a large glass dome that can be reached by elevator. Going up to the top is free, but we decided to pass on the long line and security check to get in to it.
The Reichstag
Building where today's Germany parliament, the Bundestag have offices
Next we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is supposed to commemorate the Jews who died in the Holocaust and is made up of about a block of rectangular cement slabs. I don't know that it is actually very effective at all as a memorial; it seemed to lack much that would identify its purpose in any obvious way. Furthermore, I didn't really feel the weight of those deaths as we walked through it. In fact, it looked and felt to me like an ideal set up for playing a number of games such as tag or capture the flag. I honestly think they should build other structures like it elsewhere to use as playgrounds. Austin apparently thought so too; he had a great time running between the slabs.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
From there, we walked down the Unter den Linden and saw the statue of Frederick the Great, which was created in the mid 1800s and became a symbol of Prussian military might.
Frederick the Great Statue
We continued on to Museum Island where we ate lunch at the square in front of the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). After lunch, we decided to go inside.
Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)
The Cathedral's organ has more than 7,000 pipes
Along with viewing the inside of the cathedral, our tickets allowed us to climb the stairs to the dome, from which there are some nice views of Berlin. The views were nice even if it wasn't the best day for visibility. As with a number of other places we have gone, we seem to have caught Berlin in the mist of a lot of construction. Consequently, we saw a lot of cranes everywhere too.
After leaving the cathedral, we headed to the Palace of Tears. It took us awhile to find since it wasn't marked right on our map. This was a museum located at a border crossing from East to West Berlin, and it highlighted the history and process of trying to cross the border during the Cold War. There were also lots of audio recordings there of personal stories from those who managed to escape East Germany in the area. It was quite interesting.
After seeing the museum, we headed to the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) hoping to see the best work inside before it closed. All tickets for all the museums in the immediate area were sold in the same place, and we accidentally bought tickets to the Neues Museum instead, which houses various artifacts from ancient Egypt. Realizing our mistake after we were inside the Neues Museum, we rushed to see if we could exchange our tickets for what we had intended. Luckily we could, although we lost even more time in the process and had less than an hour to spend in the Old National Gallery.
Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery)
Altes Museum
After the museum closed, we set out to see some other points of interest related to the Berlin Wall. The place of the wall is marked by a narrow stone path winding through the city. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, the checkpoint used by foreigners, diplomats, the Allied Forces needing to cross the border. In October of 1961, soon after the wall was put up, a standoff occurred at this point between U.S. and Soviet tanks. A number of escape efforts happened here, and a series of informational boards detailed much of the history of this point and of the Berlin Wall in general.
Stones marking old divide between East and West Berlin
Checkpoint Charlie
Not far from Checkpoint Charlie is a small section remaining of the Berlin Wall. Sections of the wall are missing because many people gathered pieces of it for souvenirs soon after the end of the Cold War.
A remaining section of the Berlin Wall
Last of all we searched for an original watchtower used by East Germany to monitor the border. After that, we found a restaurant at which to eat dinner and then returned to our hotel.
Next we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is supposed to commemorate the Jews who died in the Holocaust and is made up of about a block of rectangular cement slabs. I don't know that it is actually very effective at all as a memorial; it seemed to lack much that would identify its purpose in any obvious way. Furthermore, I didn't really feel the weight of those deaths as we walked through it. In fact, it looked and felt to me like an ideal set up for playing a number of games such as tag or capture the flag. I honestly think they should build other structures like it elsewhere to use as playgrounds. Austin apparently thought so too; he had a great time running between the slabs.
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