Walking Berlin
Ugh. Slept in till half ten and didn’t leave the hostel till after midday. We went for a walk and had sausages in bread – they were 30cms long, and also had freshly squeezed orange juice.
We couldn’t do a lot because we were doing a walking tour of Berlin at 3pm. Our guide was great, the good ones always seem to have some eccentricity about them and this was no exception. Heiko is a Brit who had lived in Germany and seen the Berlin Wall come down in ’89. He only moved back to Berlin 2 years ago.
He said to understand its history in the last 100 years, you had to know how some of the earlier history evolved. Like how did the Jews get to Germany? The Romans brought them as slaves. We began in Alexanderplatz and made our way through museum island and across to Bookburning square. Below the square is a room with empty shelves, a memorial to show how many books were burned at the time. A single square window lets you look down into the empty chamber.
We walked past the city centre underground which was closed to East Berliners for years during the separation. We went past Checkpoint Charlie and along the wall, over Hitler’s personal bunker where he passed away and through the Holocaust Memorial and up to Brandenburg Gate. If I was to write down everything that Heiko said I could write a novel, but he did give us some good performances – several poems and jokes, and we even got a song out at the end. He likes his Monty Python too, making several references.
We didn’t finish till about 7 and so we went and had traditional meatballs for dinner. Lija’s were in gravy with mashed potato, and mine were served mith mustard and potato salad. I think I’m sick of potatoes.
We dragged Stuart out with is to see the Bourne Ultimatum, and didn’t get back till half past one. Good movie.
Tags: Travel
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