Yes bel travelled again. well, coz Minghui's here to visit and long ago I suggested going Riga (Latvia) in Eastern Europe, but somehow along the way it didn't feel like a very good choice, no idea why I felt that way. And then Minghui's next best choice which we booked only days before she arrived - Berlin. With it's rich history of the East vs West Germany divided by the Berlin Wall, it looks set to be a cool destination.
We were discussing about travelling within UK vs travelling outside UK and you might be surprised but prices do work out to be about the same! Travelling within UK is very expensive and comparable to a budget air ticket to some city outside the UK. She went to Manchester on her own and paid abt £60 for a return train ride! Ridiculous if you ask me. And air tickets to Berlin? Also around that price, maybe short of a few more £. Now you know!
Lunch was German sausage of coz (minus the beer coz Cynthia is not around haha) and dinner was at some random cafe/ pub place which wasn't fantastic at all. Perhaps we were both worn out during the 3.5h walking tour (Cin: but this is still much more bearable than our Vatican tour!).
DAY 2
Started our day with.... a McDonald's breakfast haha.. yea we wanted something "familiar" but sadly, it wasn't that great. I think the one in SG is much better! A 5min walk to the East Gallery of the Berlin Wall. Personally I love this part of the wall (there are 3 differnt sections of the wall remaining in the city) coz the graffiti makes it more interesting in echoing the people's thoughts about the Berlin Wall (minus those rubbish comments like "xxx was here"). We took a lot of pictures here as you can see and I love this phrase which I saw "Love Never Fails" taken from the book of Corinthians in the bible. Another personal fav was "No more wars, no more walls". Very meaningful and provokes you to think about the reality of what happened here.
After lunch we took another thought provoking tour called the Third Reich Tour revolving around Adolf Hitler's life and of course history of Berlin. Our tour guide was this hair-very-ruffled-but-cool guy and through it all he kept asking us to think about a controversial topic- should they preserve the places which are linked to the Nazis/ Hitler, say for example Hitler's underground bunker. Obviously the government has destroyed the bunker which he lived in the last days of his life and filled it up with rubble so we couldn't see any of it but just knew when we walked past it (above it is just a plain looking carpark). Some people would agree with destroying it coz they don't want pro-Nazis to come and light a candle to remember Hitler whereas the other school of thought would question on why we are erasing history and who knows, by preserving such a place, it could serve as an educational purpose in preventing history from repeating itself. There is no right or wrong answer at all isn't it? I think both are valid points!
Other than Nazi-related places, I think the city tries its best to have monuments/ things to remind them of their history. There was a period of time where they burned most of the books in Brandenburg University (Albert Einstein studied here I think!) so today outside the library they have a 3m x 3m see thru glass into the ground where it shows empty bookshelves to remember the event so that it wont happen again coz lots of precious books were lost in that fire.
We visited the Jewish quarters, and saw how discriminated the Jews were in Berlin (they were only allowed to use two gates in the city). There was another tour to a Jewish concentration camp but we didn't go coz of time. Very sombre and sad I think. We also visited this govt building where the East Berlin people gathered to protest against their long hours of work and outside this building was this huge wall mural showcasing how happy people were under Stalin in East Germany. Our guide told us it must have been such an oxymoron in itself coz on one side there were thousands of unhappy people protesting, fighting for their rights, etc and facing them on the wall are paintings of how happy the people were thought to be by their leader.
I thought it was a highly educational and informative tour for EUR12, very worth it but it could have been better if the group was much smaller. He said our group was by far the biggest group he has taken for any Third Reich tour and looking at how we even have to take the public transport around (S & U bahn), I think we did pretty well and didn't have much delays at all!
@ Berlin Wall
We were discussing about travelling within UK vs travelling outside UK and you might be surprised but prices do work out to be about the same! Travelling within UK is very expensive and comparable to a budget air ticket to some city outside the UK. She went to Manchester on her own and paid abt £60 for a return train ride! Ridiculous if you ask me. And air tickets to Berlin? Also around that price, maybe short of a few more £. Now you know!
Autumn is here
DAY 1
Our hotel was in a superb location, it is connected to the Ostbanhof train station so we don't even have to exit the station. Very centralised and near the Easy Gallery of the Berlin Wall. First day we joined a free walking tour as recommended by my friends. It was really v good n informative as we learnt a lot about the history in this place. It is a young city but full of history. We walked to all the sights and our tour guide gave a very engaging and entertaining description of the places and historical events, of how the Berlin Wall came crashing down reuniting the east and west Germany. We saw buildings with lots of filled-in bullet holes way back in WW2, and the sole survival of a Nazi building, and lots of historical stuff like the Ministry of Ministries (where it remains a much hated building till today).
Our hotel was in a superb location, it is connected to the Ostbanhof train station so we don't even have to exit the station. Very centralised and near the Easy Gallery of the Berlin Wall. First day we joined a free walking tour as recommended by my friends. It was really v good n informative as we learnt a lot about the history in this place. It is a young city but full of history. We walked to all the sights and our tour guide gave a very engaging and entertaining description of the places and historical events, of how the Berlin Wall came crashing down reuniting the east and west Germany. We saw buildings with lots of filled-in bullet holes way back in WW2, and the sole survival of a Nazi building, and lots of historical stuff like the Ministry of Ministries (where it remains a much hated building till today).
German sausages!
Lunch was German sausage of coz (minus the beer coz Cynthia is not around haha) and dinner was at some random cafe/ pub place which wasn't fantastic at all. Perhaps we were both worn out during the 3.5h walking tour (Cin: but this is still much more bearable than our Vatican tour!).
above: at Brandenburg Gate; the famous hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson dangled the baby out of the balcony. Remember? This is the most expensive hotel in Berlin btw
Holocaust Memorial downtown Berlin
our guide; @ Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint Charlie; sunset in Berlin
DAY 2
Started our day with.... a McDonald's breakfast haha.. yea we wanted something "familiar" but sadly, it wasn't that great. I think the one in SG is much better! A 5min walk to the East Gallery of the Berlin Wall. Personally I love this part of the wall (there are 3 differnt sections of the wall remaining in the city) coz the graffiti makes it more interesting in echoing the people's thoughts about the Berlin Wall (minus those rubbish comments like "xxx was here"). We took a lot of pictures here as you can see and I love this phrase which I saw "Love Never Fails" taken from the book of Corinthians in the bible. Another personal fav was "No more wars, no more walls". Very meaningful and provokes you to think about the reality of what happened here.
After lunch we took another thought provoking tour called the Third Reich Tour revolving around Adolf Hitler's life and of course history of Berlin. Our tour guide was this hair-very-ruffled-but-cool guy and through it all he kept asking us to think about a controversial topic- should they preserve the places which are linked to the Nazis/ Hitler, say for example Hitler's underground bunker. Obviously the government has destroyed the bunker which he lived in the last days of his life and filled it up with rubble so we couldn't see any of it but just knew when we walked past it (above it is just a plain looking carpark). Some people would agree with destroying it coz they don't want pro-Nazis to come and light a candle to remember Hitler whereas the other school of thought would question on why we are erasing history and who knows, by preserving such a place, it could serve as an educational purpose in preventing history from repeating itself. There is no right or wrong answer at all isn't it? I think both are valid points!
our tour guide explaining; the crowning glory of Jews in this synagogue (which defied the rules of building a Jewish synagogue at that time)
Other than Nazi-related places, I think the city tries its best to have monuments/ things to remind them of their history. There was a period of time where they burned most of the books in Brandenburg University (Albert Einstein studied here I think!) so today outside the library they have a 3m x 3m see thru glass into the ground where it shows empty bookshelves to remember the event so that it wont happen again coz lots of precious books were lost in that fire.
We visited the Jewish quarters, and saw how discriminated the Jews were in Berlin (they were only allowed to use two gates in the city). There was another tour to a Jewish concentration camp but we didn't go coz of time. Very sombre and sad I think. We also visited this govt building where the East Berlin people gathered to protest against their long hours of work and outside this building was this huge wall mural showcasing how happy people were under Stalin in East Germany. Our guide told us it must have been such an oxymoron in itself coz on one side there were thousands of unhappy people protesting, fighting for their rights, etc and facing them on the wall are paintings of how happy the people were thought to be by their leader.
See the people linking arms during the protest; the wall mural showing how happy are in East Berlin at that time
I thought it was a highly educational and informative tour for EUR12, very worth it but it could have been better if the group was much smaller. He said our group was by far the biggest group he has taken for any Third Reich tour and looking at how we even have to take the public transport around (S & U bahn), I think we did pretty well and didn't have much delays at all!
Comments