Two Wild Women in Berlin

Jane and I had 2 days in Berlin, not nearly enough, but still were able to fit in many of the sights we'd been hoping to see. This picture is Jane in front of Checkpoint Charlie and the museum, which was fascinating. We were expecting a quick stop there, but spent at least 2 hours learnig a lot about the wall and the attempts made to get over, under and through it during the nearly 30 years it was in place. We happened to be in Berlin on the 60th anniversary of the start of the Berlin Airlift, which made it all the more real.

We were both mesmerized by the Holocaust Memorial as well, both the interesting series of concrete blocks above-ground and the fascinating museum below-ground. We also enjoyed the Deutches Museum, although the waitress at the cafe there left a lot to be desired. It was very hot our first day in Berlin, but luckily a breeze kicked in the next 2 days and, even more luckily, our hotel had air conditioning - definitely not the norm in Germany. We were somewhat unimpressed by the Jewish Museum, but enjoyed walking the streets of Berlin from the Hauptbahnhof all the way to the Jewish Museum and from the Bradenburg gate to the Deutches Museum. There was a huge TV screen in place at the Bradenburg gate in preparation for the finals of the European soccer tournament, but we were able to negotiate our way around it to to get to the Reichstag, Postsdamer Platz, and back to the Topography of Terror, another interesting exhibit.

We had some great currywurst, a fun visit to a German beerhall restaurant on the night of the Italy/Spain soccer match, and teriffic pasta at a great little Italian restaurant. We saw a lot of police in Berlin on Tuesday, parked in front of the Russian embassy and also in motorcades at different times during the day, but never figured out what was going on. We walked miles and miles, and even took a half-day tour on the hop-on/hop-off bus, which gave us a nice overview of what we'd seen. We bought a lot of souvenirs and were thoroughly exhausted by the time we dragged ourselves to the train on Tuesday evening for the 4-hour trip back to Frankfurt. But, it was a great, quick visit and we had a great time!