Berlin, I never had any plans to go here but suddenly it seemed like a good place to start my Continental adventure. And Ryanair had a real good €65/$82 flight. A 2 1/2 hour bus from Waterford to Dublin airport was no problem since Kerrin at the Portree hotel had helpfully printed out my boarding pass saving me $50 had I not had a printed one, and then to Berlin. I bought a 5 day transport card at the airport that allows me to travel on all buses, trams and trains in the city including the hour ride in from the airport . €41/$48 well spent. The hotel is basic but clean with good ensuite and only a few hundred steps from the Hauptbahnhop main train station. And there is an Aldi’s real close too. Where, at €1.99/$2.35/£1.75 a bottle of Merlot is as good as one could expect a merlot to be. Perfectly drinkable. And you can get pints of beer for €.29!
In the morning I headed to the rail station to head into the city. My eye was caught by this building (and the 15 large cranes indicating a building boom) across the street. What part of the building is real and what part is a painting of buildings?
This is a massive rail station. Multi-leveled with shops all over. Dry but open so it can get cold. Trains fly in and out every minute or two.
And these vertical wind turbines don’t take the space of normal ones and because of the way they spin, birds see them as solid objects and tend to avoid them more.
I’m staying in what was once East Berlin so the first thing I wanted to see was the East Wall Gallery by the River Spree
I couldn’t tell if these giants were fighting or dancing
Some of The Berlin East Side Wall Gallery
This instrument sounded like it looked. Weird. And apparently people here don’t like walls!
The West Berlin side of the wall.
From here I jumped on the train to Museum Island. There are so many museums (over 33) in the city, I realized that today was a day to wander and tomorrow I’d secure a pass. There is one for €29/$34/£25 and by the time you’re in your third museum the rest are free. The Berlin Dom is the short name for Berlin Cathedral is the short name for the Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church finished in 1905 it is located on Museum Island. With the sun out and long lines I skipped the inside today.
Next to the Dom is Altes Museum
I went in to the lobby which could be a museum in itself
Continuing down Unter den Linden
First I saw The Reichstag
The the Brandenburger Tor or Gate
And a plaque on the sidewalk commemorates the best words Ronald Reagan ever spoke
Further along there is a memorial and graveyard for the 2000 Soviet troops that died in the spring of 1945 taking the city from the Nazis.
And then in the Victory roundabout, the Victory Column that was relocated to this spot in 1938 by the Nazis. This could be a tough place to cross if there weren’t tunnels gong unto to the center and to the opposite sides of the circle.
6.78 miles.
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