Berlin

 Our train trip from Amsterdam was about 8.5 hours, with 4 transfers. All went well... one of the legs was in a compartment all to ourselves, which was lovely, but the last leg of about 3 hours was quite crowded... though still in 1st class carriage.

Our hotel, the NH Berlin City Ost, turned out to be quite far out to the east of town, along a busy boulevard in the Lichtenburg area, but also along a fairly quick and convenient U-Bahn (subway) line. It is modern and comfortable, and as we walked away from the boulevard, we found a much more relaxed residential area, with treed parks and boulevards, and a very good Italian restaurant.

The busy boulevard is lined with large block apartments of the East German (GDR) era, and it was a bit eye opening to realise that really all of our explorations over the two days were in the GDR region.

Berlin Day 1:

We caught the U-Bahn back in to the "Mitte" (downtown) and began our exploration by foot. First we wandered the Alexanderplatz, which is the central shopping plaza, and then westward along the famed Inter den Linden boulevard in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate. There were interesting sights along the 2.5 km walk, including the University Library which had a nice little cafe for lunch.

Bill with his political pals, Karl and Vladimir.

One surprise stop Bill particularly enjoyed was a historic Volkswagen display on the main floor of the Volkswagen group building.

Continuing along, we arrived at the famed Brandenburg Gate, surrounded by government office buildings and national embassies.

Back to the hotel for a couple hours rest, and then out to the Hofbrau biergarten for dinner.

Berlin day 2:

Back into city this morning to the Nikolaiviertel area. This is a little enclave off the Inter den Linden, of narrow cobbled streets and apparent traditional old German shops and restaurants. I say "apparent" because it is a re-creation. 90% of Berlin's inner city buildings were destroyed in WW 2. Still a charming little area.

From there we walked back up to near Brandenburg Gate, to the Holocaust memorial site. We'd been here before, but this time we also went into the memorial building, with it's stark remembrances of the horror of the attempted genocide... photos and letters of and by victims and their families, and some accounting of the vastness of the "project".

The memorial itself is a grid of some 2500 concrete blocks though which one descends from street level, to  a few meters below the tops of the innermost blocks. It is as if one is descending into the grave stones, and given the sightlines within the grid, one catches fleeting glimpses of other people evoking a feeling of inconstancy of life.

Late afternoon we hopped on a one hour boat tour along the Spree, for better understanding of the building complexes along the river.

At the exit to the boat pier was the main train station, and a very interesting building called the träne palast, or palace of tears. It was the checkpoint along the train line that went from West to East Germany, through which travellers had to submit to stringent vetting during the Cold War. It had some heart grabbing displays and stories of how families were separated by the division, as well as some of the tragic deaths and imprisonments of attempted escapees over the years of division.

Tomorrow we are off on the train to Krakow... apparently an 8.5 hour journey. Will check in again from Poland.