Germany ~ Berlin

We begin our tour in Germany with a 2.5-hour train ride from Rostock’s port through the Mecklenburg countryside to Berlin. We were served breakfast snacks and coffee. On arrival in Berlin, we met our guide and started our tour through Berlin. We saw the capital, and had a photo stop at the Gendarmenmarkt square, and the Charlottenburg Palace and Brandenburg Gate. What is a little confusing is, our guide called it Brandenburger Gate rather than Brandenburg Gate. I would have to assume she’s right since she’s the expert tour guide? Maybe both work? I was going to ask her but when we got back to the bus it seems a car had hit our tour bus and the police were on their way to take a report. Goodness. To our amazement, another bus arrived just minutes later to continue our tour so we were not sitting there the whole time. That’s service! So I forgot to ask her the Brandenburg Gate question. Anyway, other sights we passed were the famous East Side Gallery, the Tiergarten Park, and the Victory Column. Then we made a stop at the Berlin wall. It was a really quick photo stop, so we jumped out, took a good look around, then took as many pictures as we could before getting back on the bus. We actually saw it much better from the bus because the streets were loaded with tourists. Now we can say we touched the Berlin wall. See my pictures.

Next was 40-minute boat ride along the Spree River taking in the sights and sounds of the capital from the water. The route passed through the inner city with sights such as the Museum Island, the Berlin Cathedral, the Reichstag Building, and the new Government Quarter. These building are really amazing. I am drawn to the older style buildings rather than the “cool” modern buildings. There is just so much history and those walls have seen it all. Amazing. After the boat ride we went to a traditional 1920’s or brewery style restaurant. Our German lunch was delicious! We met 3 other couples and had a nice chat with them. Thankfully they were interesting people. I always sort of dead sitting down for a meal with people you don’t know….because, well….as Forrest Gump would say, it’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. But they were all nice and so we enjoyed our lunch very much. Then it was shopping time! We were given an hour to browse the every busy shopping district called Kurfürstendamm. This is the one thing I wasn’t so happy about. It’s a big shopping area with all the name brand stores. Greg and I were in the market for a cuckoo clock and this just wasn’t the area where you’d find that. It was mostly clothes stores and big department stores. Completely by chance we found a tiny little shop on the second floor of one of the indoor malls. On the back wall they had about 20 cuckoo clocks! We picked one out and I also got a very pretty little tea cup and saucer. We had them ship it to us. It should be here next week or the week after. I’m happy. I’ve always wanted a cuckoo clock ☺ Then it was off to see Check Point Charlie! In 1961 tourists from abroad, diplomats and the military personnel of the west were only allowed to enter East Berlin via the crossing point at Berlin Friedrichstrasse. Soon the US military police opened the third checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse. The other two checkpoints were Helmstedt at the West German-East German border and Dreilinden at the West Berlin and East Germany border. The Helmstedt checkpoint was called Alpha, Dreilinden Checkpoint Bravo and the checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse got the name Charlie. The main function of the checkpoint was to register members of the Western Military Forces before entering East Berlin. The German authorities in West and East Berlin were not allowed to check any members of the Allied Military Forces in Berlin and in Germany. Checkpoint Charlie was removed on June 22, 1990. The former Allied guardhouses are now located in the Allied Museum. The East German watch tower at Checkpoint Charlie was demolished by the property owner Checkpoint Charlie Service Company on December 9, 2000. A long section of the Berlin Wall was re-erected by the museum on October 31, 2004 and nearby, a field of 1,065 crosses represents all victims of the East German border system. Very powerful stuff going on in Berlin. On November 9, 1989, after nearly three decades of division, the fall of the Berlin Wall happened. What gets me more than anything is, that was only 16 years ago. The history of this country is just amazing.

But now to the pictures! Copy and paste the following directly into your browser:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=14i88s9b.oeyu8wz&x=0&y=uhqhos