Tag Archives: Germany

Berlin – Day 27

Today we set the alarm for 7:15am. We had to get organised and be organised and downstairs to get the bus to the walking tour which started at 9am outside the parliment house building.

The walking tour took us to some of the historic sites of Berlin. Some of these included Checkpoint Charlie, Topographie des Terrors, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Brandenburger Tor and Reichstag. Seeing the Berlin wall was not as impressive as I thought it would be. I expected this massive wall that you could not pass. However what remains is just a few sheets of 3.1 meter concrete. What you can see today that it was actually two walls with a coridor in the middle. This was no mans land. This involved trip wires, barbed wire and mines. If you got in here you either triggered a deadly explosion or shot by one of the 300 guard towers staffed with snipers pertrolling the no mans land. Over 100 people were killed on the Berlin wall before it was pulled down in 1989.

After the tour finished and a toilet stop at macas a group of us went back to the Topographie of Terror. This is were a section of the wall remains along with the footings of the buildings that once stood in its place. It is now an free outdoor museum detailing a range of topics about the Nazi rule over Germany and the role Berlin played.

After getting what we wanted out of this site Rhian I and Amy broke away and walked from the site to the TV Tower in the heart of the city. This was a fair walk but allowed us to explore the city some more. We reached the TV tower and could not buy tickets eletronicly. However we were still able to buy cheaper tickets by lining up. The only problem was we needed to wait a couple of hours to get up the tower. This worked out fine for us as we could buy the tickets then go looking for the I Love Berlin T-shirts we needed and get some lunch. We bought the tickets shortly after 1pm and were told to come back around 3:15pm. This is what we did.

We found a store that had the T shirts we were looking for and they were only $10 euros. We walked around a little more and ended up going to the toilets at a fancy hotel that had a huge massive elevated fish tank in the middle of it. After this we sat at a restraunt and had lunch. By this time it was pretty much time to go back to the TV Tower for our viewing.

We headed back to the tower only to find we needed to wait an extra twenty or so minutes to go up and admire the view. After some more time killing we were allowed through security and go up the tower in the elevator. We took a stack of photos up the tower which are mostly on the camera. I think a couple are attached below from the phones. After coming down the elevator again we made our way to the train station to catch the train back to our hotel. Tickets cost us $2.60 euro. This seemed expensive compared to what we have paid other countries. However this was the price.

Once back at the hotel Rhian went to sleep and I caught up on writing these blogs. Seven pm quickly came around and it was time to get ready for the pub crawl. Because of my blog writing and waking Rhian up we didn’t have time for dinner before the pub crawl. Our tour bus dropped us into the city for the start of the pub crawl where we were given a free beer upon arrival in the street. Drinking in the streets of Berlin is legal. Apparently.

We visited three pubs in total which I only had one beer at each. I didn’t like the beers they had on offer. Not compared to the one at the beer hall the night before. After the three pubs we caught the train back to the hotel area where we went to one club nearby the hotel. Rhian and I only stayed for one drink as we had had enough and were due to have an early start the next day on the bus.

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Massive fish tank in the middle of a hotel
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Rhian in front of the remains of the Berlin wall.
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View from the TV tower
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Nathan and Amy looking out at the view

Prague to Berlin – Day 26

Today was yet another travel day. We were up early to have breakfast and be on the bus for an 8am departure. On the bus we watched the movie Inglorious Bastards which is a movie Quentin Tarantino made while on drugs. If only the second world war went down the way he depicted it. Was good entertainment to fill the bus ride. Our lunch stop was in Dresden. After getting off the bus our tour leader gave us a short walking tour then we had around an hour and a half free time. This was also our lunch stop so that is what we all went looking for, food.

Krizite told us about a curry place that has really hot curry. We did find the place that she was talking about but it was not a curry as I had expected it to be. It was a saussage with a curry sauce. This is not really what I felt like so a small group of us went to a grill house just across the road. Rhian and I both had enchiladas and I had my first beer in Germany.

After lunch there was only enough to time to walk back to the bus. We reached the bus with only a couple of minutes to spare. We were then back on the road to Berlin. We stopped for a short service stop just before we reached Berlin. The bus had to wait an extra five minutes to leave because Rhian had not returned from the toilets but the Brazlian girls were just behind her so they got the watch for being late.

When we reached Berlin we went straight into the bus tour. We stopped at Treptower Park which is a memorial to the soviet soldiers killed in the war or conflict. Did not grasp the full explination. After getting on the bus we drove around and saw most of the sights that we would see in more detail on the walking tour tomorrow. We saw what remains of some of the Berlin Wall. I was surprised at how small it was. But you have to remember it was actually two walls and a no mans land in the middle. If you found yourself in the middle you would have been seen by a guard and shot dead.

After the bus tour we arrived at the hotel and checked inn. We have another four star hotel so it is quite nice and the WiFi works well in the room this time. We meet for dinner just before 8pm and the bus took us into town to a german beer hall for dinner. The beer hall was called HofbrÀuhaus Berlin and they had the true HB beer. I do not know what the full name is or if HB is the name. Almost everyone in the group had a 1L stein of beer and many photos were taken.

I even bought a propper 1L stein glass to bring home. The entree was some form of vegetable soup and the main course pork knuckle. The meat again was some of the best food we have had on the tour. Loved it. In the little over an hour we were there I had 2L of the awesome golden beer. The bus brought us back to the hotel then we all went out to one of the local bars.

We found ourselfs at one just around the corner from the hotel. It was empty before we got there and so only had one girl behind the bar. We pretty much took over the place. Rhian and I only stayed for one drink because I want to save myself for the pub crawl tomorrow night. I am sure the next blog will be interesting and probably a long one.

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