We stopped at the front desk to determine where the bus stop was. The night before we had gotten the train map and bus information from the clerk to get us to the beginning of the Hop on / Hop Off City bus tour.
It turns out we can buy our tickets for the bus and train fare right here at the front desk. It cost us an extra Euro but it was worth because we didn't have to worry about how or where to buy the bus or train tickets when we needed them.
It was a bit chilly and windy out on the short walk from the hotel to the bus stop. We were early and had to wait about 15 minutes. During that time, I read a little bit about Berlin's history. Berlin is older than I imagined dating back to before 1300! In 1307, the two Slav settlements that existed on opposite sides of the River Spree united to become a well-known trading town. By 1486, Berlin became the Royal seat. From 1642 on, every prince contributed to the growth of Berlin. It became one of the greatest German states. In the late 1700's, it doubled in its population and became known as the center for the German textile industry with its silk and cotton manufacturing.
Our bus, bus 623, finally came and we boarded. It had a closed captioned TV. The screen gave the time and the next three or four stops. It was a good thing because I would not have understood anything the announcer (a woman) was saying. We kept looking for our stop but it didn't come up right away. Finally we saw it and easily knew when it was time we got off.
Right across the street from where we were dropped off was the train station. When we got there we looked for our train. It appeared the train would be there in approximately 5 minutes. Perfect! We followed our route with the map that the clerk gave us. When we arrived at the main station, it was just starting to rain. I pulled out my umbrella and looked around for the address of where the city tour started. None of the street signs matched anything that was on my papers. I was starting to get concerned. In addition there seemed to be very few people around. It was starting to make me nervous!
Meanwhile Ted was looking for a restroom in the train station. Apparently there are none. They told him it was across the street but we didn't see anything. There was only an Italian bar which looked like it was open but not yet open for business. We stopped there and asked to use the "toiletten". I asked the woman if she spoke italian but she did not. I showed her the address but she didn't know where it was or she didn't want to help me. So we started to walk, in the rain.
We saw the "toiletten" that the train guy was talking about...these were free-standing public restrooms situated behind the train station. That's what the guy meant!
A little further and we found a place where we could buy the tickets for the City Bus Tour!! WOO HOO! But
After passing this sculpture (the photo was taken later in the afternoon when the rain stopped and the sun came out).
We finally come to the bus stop and had to wait a bit before the bus would be ready to depart. As we waited, we looked around. I snapped this photo (from across the street) of the Kaiser Wilhem Memorial Church built in 1895. It was badly bombed during World War II. They left it as is to remind them of how devastating war is and the harsh reality of war their city endured in WWII. The tower to the right was built after the war.
Our map showed us where the Berlin wall had been located but there is just a small piece of the wall remaining today because there has been so much construction since the wall came down in 1990. Interestingly, it was over 100 miles long, 4 meters high (about 13 ft) and had watchtowers every so often. The wall zig-zags along different streets. Men, in their arrogance and thirst for power, caused a 40 year separation of families and friends! It seems somewhat surreal to me. Most of the "dead zone" between the east and the west has been revitalized with new construction so there's very little of what once was. A portion of the wall has been preserved as a memorial for the 70 plus people who died while trying to flee. This photo does not do the wall justice but since we didn't stop, I had to take it through the window and with the rain.
There were 15 stops in all but our plans were to stop at only 5 of the 15 because those were the ones of interest to us.
The first stop was our hop on stop and the street with all of the stores. They were all closed, of course, it being Sunday. But there was one store (Stop #2) that is fascinating. It's called KaDeWe short for Kaufhaus des Westens. It is only one of Berlin's great department stores that withstood the bombing of WWII. Below is a photo of the entrance gate. I believe there are 10 floors in this department store.
Stops #3 through #5 were all plazas and we didn't get off at those stops. It was still raining, rather more like drizzling.
Our first stop, #6 on the list, was the Jewish Museum, one of Europes leading museums! The security was incredible. They must have had some threats. It was like going through the security at the airport. My purse and our jackets had to be checked, that is, we couldn't go into the museum with them. There were attendants with red scarves who had us turn around and go back. Once again, we got audio headsets to hear the information in English.
We had to go down a flight of stairs to view the holocaust artifacts and history. The floor was laid out in a certain way...it's hard to describe...you had to be there. At the end of one corridor was an all cement, unheated, triangular-shaped room with just a sliver of a window way up high! It's called the Memory Void. What an appropo name! It was over 25 meters high and evoked a very eerie feeling being in there. Ted had to get out of there right away.
At the end of another hallway was the entrance to an outdoor garden called the Exile Garden. This garden is the ONLY part of the artchitecture that is square. There were 49 (7 by 7) square cement pillars filled with dirt with Russia silverberry trees planted atop each pillar. What makes this garden extraordinary is that it is built on a 12% grade. While that does not seem like much, trying to walk through those pillars with that grade, left me feeling disoriented and claustrophobic...some people get nauseated, so we were told. The purpose of the garden was to evoke some semblance on how the Jews felt being ripped from their homeland (at least those who were able to escape). It served its purpose well.
At one point, I had to go to the restroom and told Ted I would meet him upstairs. He apparently did not hear me and waited there for me. I took the life next to the restroom, thinking I would meet him shortly. Wrong! I could not find him and add to that there were two floors above that lift, I didn't know which one he was on...not to mention there are no straight walls and rooms...everything is angles. I tried to find my way back to the stairs but could not. I finally asked an attendant to help me. He escorted me back to the information desk where I proceeded to give the clerk a detailed description of Ted and what he was wearing. I felt awful about it. It had been more than an hour! He told me they would quickly find him (due to everyone having walkie-talkies and they would bring him here.
And they did! He, of course, was angry at me and rightfully so but I thought he heard me tell me to go on ahead and I would meet him but instead he waited for me UGH!
We have decided to come back and spend an entire day here in the museum because we didn't even scratch the surfce of the two millenia that the museum covered! There was WAY too much to see and we only had a little over an hour at each stop.
As we were leaving there were children playing around the revolving doors. I was able to get out and thought Ted was right behind me. While I waited outside (for about 3 to 5 minutes) I figured he was giving me payback. Then I turned and went to see what was keeping him.
What happened was that he got got stuck in that revolving door which was actually a man trap, by those same kids that were messing around there when I went through. They were neighborhood kids who should not have been there in the first place. He was angry with them and tried to ask them where his parents were but the kids didn't speak English.
The architecture was amazing, to say the least. The photo below is the facade and doesn't even come close to what's inside!
While waiting for the bus, we met a couple from Seattle who were celebrating his 60th birthday. We chatted for awhile. I snapped a photo of a tower in the distance. I found out later it is a television tower.
Our second Stop #7 was Check Point Charley. This is the legacy of how Berlin was divided during the cold war. This was the third check point (a term used to describe where military personnel and diplomats were allowed into the Eastern section of the city. They used the military phonetics, Alpha and Bravo, for the other two check points and this one became Charlie! Ten days after closing the border on August 13, 1960, these checkpoints would be the only means by which people could pass from the West to the East for more than 40 years! The guardhouse pictured here is a replica of the original which is housed in a museum.
This is the back of the Checkpoint Charlie replica. It sits on a narrow section between traffic lanes, one going one direction and the other going in the opposite direction
This is the front of the Checkpoint Charlie replica. It's become a cheesy tourist attraction with men dressed in uniform holding flags. You have have your photo taken for 1 Euro with your camera. It was too cheesy for us to do that. But I did want a photo of the guardhouse.
This is a view of the street from the front of Checkpoint Charlie.
This phrase is on either side of the street leading up to Checkpoint Charlie.
After seeing Checkpoint Charlie, we decided that we needed to have some lunch. Since we didn't have a whole lot of time, it was lunch at Subway and besides, we didnt' see any Euorpean restaurants just a slew of cafes like the one below. We had lunch with the couple we met at the bus stop.
I snapped this picture because I found it funny that there would be a store called "Upside Down" in Italian in Berlin.
While we were waiting for the next bus, we popped into a museum in front of the bus stop and I snapped this photo of passports on the wall. It appears they are from every nation!
The bus came and once again we boarded. There were two more stops which we opted not to stop at.
The third stop, #10 on the list was supposed to have been the Berlin Dom, but that's not where we stopped. Unless, we had to walk to it and didn't know to do so. At any rate, we went to look at this church and the fountain in the square opposite the church.
Our fourth stop #12 was the Brandenburg Gate in what was once East Germany. It is the only gate remaining to enter the city and it was restored in 2002 by the East German authorities. Where the Quadriga (the statue at the top) sits is where the Nazi Swastica once stood.
The gate is so big that I couldn't take a photo of it with one shot.
This is the center of the gate. What we didn't realize was how thick the gate was.
This is the right side of the gate.
This is the left side of the gate.
Behind the gate is a large walking plaza. On either side of the plaza are various Consulates including the U.S. consulate which is located directly behind right side of the gate.
There were street musicians and Mimes along with carriages and Native American musicians in costume. The Native American music was eerie and very beautiful. We ended up buying their CD. (Yes,I know...very touristy). There was also a Kennedy museum on a side street. We popped in there to see what it was about. They had a display of Obama and how his Presidency compares to Kennedy. We thought it was in bad tasted and wanted to say so but we refrained because they just don't know any better.
Note that the musical instruments being played are handmade.
This bicycle was really interesting and we had never seen anything like it. We were hoping to see how it worked and what it looked like when six people were riding it. We were in luck and got to see it in operation. It was very strange, and yet very cool at the same time!
The flea market was stop #13 and would have loved to go there because it appeared while it probably is old stuff from people's homes, it looked to me that there was a LOT of antique glass etc from estates. We will definitely have to stop here the next time we are in town.
We passed by numerous buildings on the way to our next stop. Here are some of them.
Our fifth stop #15 was the Charlottesburg Palace but by this time my feet were killing me. Like my friend Vicki always says, "Dogs are barking". I did snap a photo of it nonetheless.
We had already decided that since we were gong to come back, that we would skip this and go back to the hotel.
When we got to the next stop...it was the beginning of the tour, and we were happy to see the train station which was aobut three city blocks from where we were.
A car was being towed and this is how they do it. They literally use a crane to lift the car onto the bed of a truck! It was really cool to watch. I missed getting a photo while the car was in the air. Too bad for that driver.
We were on one platform and then went to another platform and finally a third platform so we ended up awaiting 20 minutes to get our train. Now the question was, what was our bus stop? Luckily the clerk gave us a paper so we had the name written down.
We got on the bus and rested our very sore feet. We forgot to buzz that we wanted off at our stop so we ended up going one extra stop which was just as far as the other stop from the hotel but in the opposite direction. The hotel is located on the canal. Unfortunately we did not have a view of the canal from our room so I was able to get a photo of it from our vantage point on the bridge.
As soon as we got to our room, I immediately took my socks and shoes off to rest feet. We stayed in the room for a bit and then went to dinner. We knew we would sleep well tonight because we were very tired.
Sunday 09/06/09
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