Day 26 - Prague to Berlin

Our early morning train from Prague to Berlin required a quick transition from tram to metro to train as we were not surprisingly running a little late. However, we did manage to just catch the train and set off for a return to Germany to see its capital, Berlin.

We arrived into Berlin's main train station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and we thought we had been dropped off at a trendy shopping centre!!! It is an absolutely massive glass building with 5 floors from which trains pass through in different directions and on different levels, but what else would you expect in Germany.

Did you know that Berlin is about 9 times the size of Paris!! Neither did we but it is still only about half the size of London and Sydney. Anyway, in similar fashion to most places we arrive in, the sun was scorching as we headed for the Brandenburg Gate, Germany's most famous monument. The “gate” is a large archway which once formed part of Berlin's city walls before becoming a main point of crossing for the Berlin Wall and is now a major symbol of Germany.

This led us nicely onto The Reichstag, the German parliament buildings. There was heavy security around the building with multiple police escorted vehicles nearly knocking us down on the road but the buildings looked amazing with the glass dome roof. You can actually climb up inside the glass dome roof, but we decided against it due to the huge queue outside.

As Berlin is so big and has so much past history, there was a mountain of stuff for us to do and see and keep us busy so we consulted the map and walked on to Potsdamer Platz. This area was totally destroyed during the war and afterwards formed part of no-mans land when the Berlin Wall was erected when the East of Berlin was controlled by the Soviet Union and the West by the Allies. This year is the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with now only small parts remaining as a part of the past history of the city. Potsdamer Platz is now the new down town area with lots of office buildings (PWC) and fancy hotels.

We continued our walk up to the Memorial of the Murdered Jews. This memorial is basically lots of blocks of different sizes over a large area. There are some pictures below so you can get the idea.



Next on the hit list was Alexander Platz. This is a large area in the former East Berlin and it now contains a large TV tower which can be seen from almost anywhere in the centre of Berlin. There are also lots of bars, churches and museums nearby to see but today there had been a demonstration by students so much of the area was littered by fliers, posters and banners which was a shame.


Although we had already seen the Brandenburg Gate, we headed there again to catch a glimpse of it all lit up at night. The gate looks much cooler at night and there are some pictures below.