Booyah...Berlin at last!

Yes, we've lived in Germany for almost three years.  Yes, we know the first place many people think of visiting when in Germany is Berlin.  Yes, we know of the deep and meaningful history of this large and important city.  No, we've never been to Berlin...until now!

We have known since the day we moved here that Berlin was definitely on our list of "must see's".  The problem was that I think we kept in the back of our mind that it was there and would always be there and for some reason other destinations always seemed a better choice.

Well we realized that our port city for the Baltic cruise was only three hours from Berlin and with Berlin being a 6-7 drive away from our house, we thought this might finally be the perfect time to stop by and see one of the most historic cities in Europe. 

We left Kiel on Saturday morning and made the fairly quick drive to our hotel in the Charlottenburg borough of Berlin.  The hotel was only a block from the subway, so we dropped our bags and headed for the Stadtmitte, or city center.

This is the Ampfelmanchen....used in East Germany on their  streetlights.  It has become a symbol of E. Germany and they are everywhere and on everything in the souvenir shops.

 It was a really HOT day!  We walked and we walked.  We were trying to make our way through the city to see Checkpoint Charlie and waaalaaa....we found it!

 This is a real tourist zone in every sense of the word!  Anything to make a buck!  There are several little museums, a McDonalds (of course!) and a lot of tourist shops.  We had heard that you could have you passports stamped with some interesting stamps here, Travis and I really wanted to do it, so we joined the other tourists and shelled out some Euro and now have some fun stamps!

Checkpoint Charlie gained its name from the phonetic alphabet; checkpoints "Alpha" and "Bravo" were at the autobahn checkpoints Helmstedt and Dreilinden respectively. Checkpoint Charlie's atmosphere was not improved at all on 27 October 1961 when the two Cold War superpowers chose to face each other down for a day. Soviet and American tanks stood approximately 200 meters apart, making an already tense situation worse.

This is where you get your passports stamped

 This double brick line marks the spot throughout the city where the Berlin Wall once stood. The wall was built to divide East Germany from West Germany and to surround West Berlin which was essentially an island inside of East Germany.  Did you know that Berlin was divided into four sectors, West Berlin belonged to the French, American and British Sectors and the East to the USSR?

A piece of the wall

Travis and Mike in front of the Brandenburg Gate

 Located in no-man's land between East and West Germany during the Cold War, the Brandenburg Gate was built during the 18th-century reign of Friedrich Wilhelm II, has long been a defining symbol of Berlin

A memorial to those who died attempting to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin

The Reichstag Building

 Dating back to the Holy Roman Empire, used during the Nazi regime and even in use today, the Reichstag is a building that has literally been through transformations. The building was built "To the German people"; a saying etched into the very foundation of the building. It was a historical edifice, held meetings during Nazi Germany, housed the German Democratic Republic and today is the meeting place of the modern German parliament, the Bundestag. It is also the most visited attraction in Berlin; especially with the large glass dome at the top with a 360-degree view of the Berlin cityscape. 

The Victory Column

We finished our fast paced tour of Berlin with a real adventure trying to get ourselves to the Hard Rock for Travis to collect yet another T-shirt!  That has become such a fun part of our trips.  It makes us really figure out where in the city it's located and then figure out how to get there.  It's always an experience and makes for some great memories.  

We made it back to our hotel and after a great night's sleep we were up early and on the road back home to our little village.  

Next up...Auf Wiedershehen Deutschland!

-corri