Day NINETEEN
Right, three days in Berlin. No stress, but we have to see everything we possibly can in this short space of time. Also avoiding tourists earns you extra points. Lets go...
On arriving in Berlin we decided to walk to our hostel. This was sort of a Paris repeat as we had to walk across half the city to get there. This was totally fine though, because the route went past some iconic sites including the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz. It was quite surreal coming out of the train station, deciding which way to walk, arriving at an intersection, looking left for traffic (still hadn't quite got the hang of them being on the other side of the road), seeing a monument in the distance up the road, thinking 'that looks interesting' and then realising that I'm looking at the Brandenburg Gate. We stayed in the 'Grand Hostel Berlin' that was really good value for money on Tempelhofer Ufer next to the river Landwehrkanal, within walking distance to the Möckernbrücke U-bahn station. Having a comfortable bed in a big room can really help you like the city more! Although a pool table, like the one at the 'Heart of Gold' Hostel (further North in the city from our southern one) is always a plus! Shout out to Curtis and Maddy for hooking Tyler, Sebastian, some random girls from the middle-east, and myself up!
I wished I'd taken the time to get my real camera out of my bag instead of using my iphone, I liked the proportions of this man in a field of flowers taking a photo of the statue. The ratio and colour quality of my photo really doesn't do this justice. I had one job.
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Museum Island, Alter Museum and Berliner Dom
There is an island in the middle of Berlin, and on this island is a garden, and surrounding this garden are buildings; a museum with some amazing statues of a warrior and warrioress battling wild animals form horseback, and also one of the most impressive churches I've seen.
After thriving on some serious girl power imagery, I left Tyler sitting in the sun and climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom, and 115 metres and 270 steps later I was rewarded with a close up view of the beautiful statues playing musical instruments around the top of the dome, and an impressive view of the city. We were in Berlin at the right time for the festival of lights, but unfortunately when we adventured there at night to check them out we were too late :(
In May 1944 an allied forces bomb hit the top of the dome and caused a fire that could not be reached and therefore there was no choice but to let the roof lantern burn out and crash to the ground, consequently creating a hole in the domed ceiling. Photos from the time show the ruined dome and the beautiful organ sitting in rubble. A temporary roof was made, but it wasn't until 1975 that the real reconstruction started.
next: Berlin | Day 20
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