Berlin - Back to the DDR

The outside of our hostel

Me, when I lived in the DDR (inside the DDR museum)

Brandenburg Gate

Leah in front of the Bundestag

Inside the Holocaust Monument/Memorial/Museum

Section of the Berlin Wall still intact

TV Tower standing on the Alexander Platz

After touring around Vienna for three days, Leah and I were then bound for Berlin. Unfortunately it took us over ten hours on a train to get there from Vienna, but we knew that we wanted to visit the capital of Germany. Other than a few of the major attractions, we didn't really know what to see and so booked ourselves only one full day in the capital. However, almost immediately after arrival I knew that I loved Berlin. In fact, Berlin is easily my favorite city of the trip so far (I know I keep saying that, so don't judge me if it changes again). Berlin blends historic buildings with ultra modern architecture, shopping and convenience flawlessly. The two museums we did see, the DDR Museum and the Holocaust Memorial and Museum are easily two of the best museums I've visisted. Once we arrived and looked at the map and saw some of the tours and attractions; we certainly had many options to choose from. Since we arrived quite late in the evening (around 8:00pm) we grabbed a quick dinner at the main train station and then onto Berlin's metro system to the stop nearest our hostel. The directions given by the hostel on the website had changed slightly as, instead of a parking lot there was a massive building, but after asking two very nice Berlin ladies we were shortly on the correct route again, and after less than five minutes walking from the metro station we were at our hostel. The hostel was in a superb location, within walking distance of the major attractions, while also being less than five minutes from a metro station. It is in a converted factory and was very clean and modern, furnished almost entirely with Ikea (or Ikea wannabe) furniture. Having learnt our lesson in Krakow, we again had a private room with very comfy beds and fluffy duvets. The only downside which we found on our last night there was the noise from drunken backpackers crawling in around 4:00am from the organized pub crawls, but this is to be expected when one stays in hostels.

The next day, and our only day of touring started quite early, as we wanted to make the most of the day. The weather for the whole day was gorgeous, bright and sunny around 20-25 degrees. We ate at a nice little cafe, near the hostel and then made our way to our first attraction of the day - the DDR Museum. DDR in German stands for the German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany from the time of 1949 - 1989. It was the DDR who erected the infamous Berlin Wall, and was a seperate country supported by the Soviet Union until its collapse. The museum we went to was amazing as it re-created life as it was in the DDR (not all bad) by showcasing everything from the infamous Trabant car, what school was like, commercials, music, parties, the Stasi (secret police), the wall, products and my personal favorite part was a recreation of a DDR apartment. The museum was unique in its approach as you could touch and look at everything. In the apartment portion you could turn on the tv and flick to different channels, which played programs from the DDR period as well as open the drawers, sit on the couch etc, it was great! (Ask to see the book that I bought on the museum). This of course was all housed in a sleek, modern concrete building right on the water. Oh, in Germany (at least in the former DDR areas) you can still buy some of the products that were available in the DDR period such as their own brand of Cola, pickles, coffee, candy as there are many people who are quite nostalgic for the DDR. After the DDR Museum we walked along one of the major streets to the famous Brandenburg Gate, walked under the gate and to the German Bundestag (like our parliment building in Ottawa), and then south to the Holocaust Memorial and Museum. The Holocaust Memorial and Museum is a fairly recent sight in Berlin, constructed not long ago. It is located on the former no mans land, the area that existed between East and West Berlin near the wall, and is on the sight of the former office and bunker of Goebbels (one of Hitler's close associates, who was the propaganda minister of the Nazi regime). The monument is almost impossible to describe with words, but it is on an uneven square, very large, covered in grey cement blocks, of varrying sizes, some come up to your knee, others are quite massive, which are arranged in rows. It's quite incredible once you're in the middle, as it is supposed to give an oppressive feeling to it. Near one of the streets on the outskirts of the square is a staircase which descends down to the holocaust museum. Again, it is quite difficult to describe, but it has a very cold, modern feel to it and chronciles the Nazi attrocities committed before and during the Second World War. Near the end of the museum it has a number of personal accounts, letters, postcards and pictures of individuals which make the holocaust much more personal. Of the eleven million Jewish people living in Europe at that time, around six million were murdered by the Nazis. We walked from the Holocaust memorial to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie, which was the most famous border crossing between East and West Berlin. We chose not go into the Checkpoint Charlie museum, but had a delicious lunch nearby. After lunch we walked to the war monument and took the metro back to our hostel where we deposited our coats and souvenirs. Leah and I then journeyed to an area of the city called the East Side Gallery, which is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall. Some of the paintings and graffiti on it are original to the time of the wall, but other sections are used as art projects and so are the host to modern paintings and murals. We walked the whole gallery and then took the metro to the Alexander Platz, which is the host of the massive TV tower in Berlin (you can see it from almost anywhere) and then went out for nice late dinner at one of the restaurants. After a long day of walking we then headed back to the hostel to get ready for our next adventure...to Paris!