Day 20 Berlin

After our late arrival we didn't wake until 9am. After showering we headed to the railway station, which is like a giant mall, to look for something to eat. Nobody seemed to speak English but we managed to point at a cheese sandwich, a salami roll & ordered a coffee. It was ok as we were hungry, but not exactly full of flavour.

Now we had no idea where to start -wanted to save the obvious highlights to share with Nick & we find the maps and guidebooks so confusing, as all the words and place names are meaningless to us. Decided we should just pay up and get on one of the double decker bus tours for tourists.

One pulled up straight away so we hopped on and began the 2 hour circuit. You can hop on and off throughout the day, but we had a train ticket we could use to get around so really just wanted an overview of Berlin.

This turned out to be a good move as we got a useful commentary via headphones of what we were seeing and the place names began to mean something. The tour took us past the Reichstag (old Government building), KaDeWe (biggest department store), Potsdamer Platz (modern entertainment area), a section of wall, the Tiergarten

, many embassies, Checkpoint Charlie,

Kaiser-Wilheim-Gedachtnis-Kirche (tower ruins of an old church),

Kulturforum , Museum Island where many of the museums are, Brandenburger Tor (the famous Brandenburg Gate)...and many more sights.

Quite a few of them we will go to in the next couple of days and take better photos but it won't be possible to see everything.  The bus tour was definely worthwhile, but we got quite hot and sleepy, especially as it sat at some of the stops for 10 -15 minutes.

Once the full circuit was done we got off at our railway station and found a suoermarket.

It's always fun checking out supermarkets in a new country. We bought some drinks, interesting flavoured chippies,

yogurt & some chocolate to have in our room. Cam chose a drink called Mezzo Mix which is a mix of cola and orange - he says it's not bad.

We then decided to find our way to a Berlin bunker which we'd seen on a map.  Finding our train platform was incredibly frustrating - turns out the line number and the platform number are not related, and several different lines go through the same platform....and there are many many platforms. Eventually , almost by accident, we figured it out and got on a train. We had to change at the next stop & when we got off there, it turned out the train to our destination was being replaced by a bus...and the bus was about a block away. We were not liking Germany much again by now. Seemed to be nobody to help or ask. There were several buses to choose from so we tentively got on one hoping it was going where we wanted. It was a nervous ride but we had got it right. We found the bunker ticket office fairly quickly (thanks to my phone map) and then we were back in luck again. The next tour in English was starting in 5 minutes.

We later learnt there was only one tour a day which happened to be at 3:30pm in English & we'd fluked it arriving at the perfect time. We would have been pissed off to go all that way for nothing. I'd assumed you could turn up anytime.

Our tour was led by a very enthusiastic German guy called Dominic.

He took us underground into various tunnels & bunkers including some under the Berlin Wall.

Along the way there were many stops where he told us the history of the Wall and many many stories about life in the area from the 1940's through to the 80's.  The tour is run by the Society for Exploration & Documentation of Subterranean Architecture and he was a real history buff with such interesting stories. The 2 hours underground went really quickly and we learnt a lot about life in East & West Berlin, the sewer tunnels, train tunnels and tunnels that were dug from cellars.

A fantastic tour - just a shame that we couldn't take photos underground.  When we got out we were in a different area to where we started & it was getting dark.

We spotted an underground station and decided to brave it.  We did better this time and got a train to Alexanderplatz. We got off here and went in search of food.

We quickly came upon a sausage  kiosk & decided to try a currywurst & a bratwurst with fries.

Just what we felt like when cold and hungry. They were really yum and we gobbled them down. Didn't linger long as we had a mouse for company.

We then had a look in a shop, where I got a scarf, and back to the underground.

We managed to find the train back to our station and bought a selection of sweet treats to try tonight in our room.

Not sure what they were but we had a large biscuity type thing that was not bad, a nice soft donut with berry filling & a pineapple coconut slice , which was the best.

Also had a look at a few shops in the railway station...some lovely things

...its a very large station which apparently cost billions to build.

Now relaxing in our room updating the blog while Cam has a Pilsner & I have a Henkell Troken (both very cheap at the supermarket).

Our general impression of Berlin is there is lots of graffiti in many areas, and so many construction sights. Some construction is of shiny new buildings, but there is also some rebuilding of old style buildings.  Doesn't look like the progress is very fast as there doesn't appear to be lots of activity at the construction sights...just cranes, materials and mess.

Can't say the people have been particularly friendly yet, but we've felt pretty safe.