Berlin – Uncover the fascinating past etched into city’s architecture

Here goes yet another interesting pick from my Europe travel– Berlin, Germany’s capital. This city has a fascinating history dating back thousands of years packed with reminders of its former division during the cold war era, which saw East Berlin controlled by the Soviet Union and West Berlin under American, French and British control. You can immerse yourself in Berlin’s past as you pass through the museums and memorials in this city. On the other side, you will also get smitten with the cool urban vibe of the city with the amazing street arts, sidewalk cafes and lots of Beer J (Yes. Drinking beer in public places is legal here).

We planned this trip for a weekend and booked train tickets from Amsterdam to Berlin. The travel duration is 4.5 hours. We started on Friday evening and decided to return on Sunday night.

Travelling in Europe is incomplete if you do not stay in hostels where you will get to meet and interact with fellow travelers/backpackers. Hence, we decided to book a hostel this time – ONE80. This hostel is located at an apt location from where you have access to Subway trains, trams, hop on and hop off city tour buses hardly 300 meters away.

We reached Berlin on Friday night almost at 12 in the night. Checked into this hostel and yes the experience of staying in hostels is entirely different. Worth experiencing once in your lifetime for sure. You get to meet travelers with different mindsets share their experiences. If you are alone, you can even join them and explore the city. This is fun too.

Day 1

We woke up next day morning, had a good heavy breakfast in the hostel itself and started walking towards the most happening Alexandarplatz Square. This square is a popular landmark area and meeting spot for most of the tourists. We were to meet a friend who stays in Berlin and we had decided to see the city with her. She had asked us to meet her at around 11 am. We had some time now to walk around.

We reached Alexandarplatz square by 10 minutes’ walk and were deciding whether to take city tour buses or to explore on our own, first thing that caught our eye was this tall tower. When we walked closer towards it, we got to know that this is Berlin TV Tower and is the tallest building in the city.

There are tickets to go up the tower in order to get a panoramic view of the city. But seeing the crowd, we did not opt for the same.

We continued walking along the Alexandarplatz square and noticed a revolving world clock. You get to see the time for all the countries.

We got to know that there are happening places in and around Alexandarplatz itself. Hence decided to cover this place first and then explore other places.

Neptune Fountain - We next stopped by this beautiful fountain. This is a lovely spot to sit, eat, and relax.

Marx and Engels monument – We decided to explore some museums and started heading towards them. As we started walking, we saw two larger than life statues in a park that caught our eye. We stopped by to look and noticed these statues were of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who were the two most influential people in the socialist movement.

Berlin also has canal boat rides just like any other European city. However, here you will find your boat traverse through marvelous buildings, museums etc.

Deutsches Historisches museum – This is the German Historical museum. If you want to understand the German history, this is the place. This museum has two wings and it took more than an hour for us to explore. You will need to spare enough time if you have plans to visit museums and plan your city tour accordingly.

Our friend had asked us to meet her at Friedrichstrasse (strasse means “Street”). We were delighted to meet our friend and relieved that we do not have to take the stress of planning the city tour since she would do that for us J. She took us on a walking tour from here.

Brandenburg Gate – Our first stop. This is Berlin’s signature attraction and the only surviving historical city gate and it symbolizes Berlin’s cold war division into East and West.

Holocaust Memorial – Just a short walk from the Brandenburg gate, you will come across a place with lot of concrete slabs of different heights. Known as the Holocaust Memorial, memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. The concrete floor is uneven and is sloppy in few places.

Reichstag – This building is home to the German parliament and at the first look, you can easily guess. This is also very close to Brandenburg gate and you will see a vast lawn stretching out in front of this building.

We continued exploring the city and saw some more spots like Berlin Cathedral, Berlin Mall, Potsdamer Platz, DDR museum and many more (Not remembering all the places blame my poor memory for that L). Personally I felt walking tour is an awesome way to see any city and I love just how walk-able Berlin is.

Finally, it was lunchtime. It was almost 6 weeks since we were away from home and we were craving for homemade food. Our friend was kind enough to take us to an Indian restaurant – Vedi’s. We hogged a yummy Indian food here and took some rest since we were exhausted walking continuously since morning.

It was a much needed relaxation for us - listening to soothing Indian music and chit chatting, which is obvious if friends meet after a long time. After this break, our friend next took us to Berlin wall.

I really liked the transport system in Europe. Even in Berlin, the U-Bahn subway system is simple to understand and trains (Yellow color) come very regularly. Same with the trams also. Thanks to our friend, she took us around the city with all these modes so that we experience the same. 

East Side Gallery (Berlin Wall) – Most historic landmark of Berlin turned into artistic landmark. This is a former section of Berlin Wall. East Side Gallery is an open-air gallery with lot of unique graffiti’s on the wall. Each art explains the current political state of the world. You can take a stroll along the length of around 1 km section and admire each of the artist’s works. If you are a street art lover, this is the best place to visit in Berlin. 

At the end of the wall, you will find nice relaxing place along the waterside. You can rest here and take a small break if tired of walking.

We explored the rest of the city using trams and metro to get a feel of Berliner’s life. Finally, we bid adieu to our dear friend with a promise to meet next day and headed back to our hostel for a good sound sleep. 

Day 2

We checked out from hostel since checkout time was 12 pm to 12 pm and we had a train to catch at 5 pm in the evening.

Our friend had some work and she had promised us to meet during lunch. We started thinking how to pass the first half of the day. Since we had walked enough the previous day, we decided to take hop on hop off bus tour so that we can relax and get more information about the iconic landmarks. This tour also covered the canal cruise, which was a bonus for us.

Berlin Hop-on Hop-Off Sightseeing Tour – This one-hour double-decker bus tour covers top 10 Berlin’s attractions. This was also a different experience as we passed through each of the tall buildings and clicked pictures in full angle, which we could not do the previous day while walking. You also get an opportunity to explore the city at your own pace by hopping on and off at your leisure. In addition, the multi-lingual audio guide is an amazing feature in these city tours which is very informative and help us in getting deep understanding of these places.

We got down and then hopped on to canal cruise for yet another amazing experience.

Canal Cruise - One awesome thing about Berlin is that so many of the most impressive landmarks can be seen from the river too and I feel it is a great way to get different perspective of each of these places.

Post our canal cruise, we really needed some refreshments since the scorching summer heat was really hitting on our head. After getting down from cruise, we started walking following the rest of the crowd and came across some riverside cafes. There were seats placed along the riverside  and view from there was simply amazing.  We took soothing refreshments and relaxed there a bit until our friend called. 

We met our friend for lunch and she next took us to another famous tourist attraction of Berlin – Checkpoint Charlie.

Checkpoint Charlie – This was the best-known border Berlin Wall crossing between East Berlin and West Berlin during the cold war. At the height of Berlin crisis, US (Capitalists who supported West Germany) and Russian tanks (Communists who supported East Germany) faced each other. You will see signboards still present “You are leaving the American Sector”. It is today an iconic landmark of territorial boundary and is flocked by tourists.  

With that, we had covered most of the top attractions of the city. We strolled around the streets a bit and took some souvenirs back home. We bid adieu to our dear friend for taking us around the city and headed to train station in order to board our train back to Amsterdam.

I recommend this place to people who wants to taste the complex history of Germany. During my 2 days trip I could not only just see history but could also feel it as we walked across each remarkable landmarks. Yet with rough and cool vibes, it attracts many visitors with its vibrant culture, cutting-edge architecture, fabulous food and tangible history.