Berlin, the capital of Germany, is an interesting city. In the last 100 years, it has written some of the most interesting chapters in history; From being the epicentre of World War 2 and torn between opposing ideologies of yesteryear superpowers for 28 years, it has ultimately emerged as the present day capital of Europe's (economically) strongest nation.
I visited Berlin recently with my family. First view of the city gave a familiar European feel- majestic buildings, wide, clean spotless roads, trams, buses and trains forming the backbone of an excellent public transport that Europe boasts of.
Our tour began with a visit to the Brandenburg Tor, an 18th century "Gate" marking the boundary of Berlin then. This gate allowed traders from neighbouring cities to trade in Berlin. We switched to U-55 (underground metro) at Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) towards Brandenburg. Brandenburg Tor possibly attracts most tourists in Berlin.
Many other tourist attractions, like Reichstag (German parliament), Jewish memorial, Checkpoint Charlie are at a stone's throw. We passed through Jewish Memorial en-route to Checkpoint Charlie. At first, it appears as a miniature of "Jantar Mantar", asking tourists to find their way out through the flat grey blocks.
"The pavements start sloping down and blocks get bigger as you go deeper, making the structure creepy- it's the architect's analogue of the gradually growing torture on Jews, which began with their shops being boycotted, to the notorious holocaust" explained a guide.
Checkpoint Charlie formed the official guarded passage from East to West in erstwhile divided Berlin. The original border artifacts, including check-post and message boards are still preserved. "US Army Officials" donning security uniform still man the check-post and pose for some photographs on request.
Checkpoint Charlie witnessed a major political event in October 1961, which, few say, could have brought the world on the brink of World War 3. The bruised ego of an American Army Officer who was denied entry in the East, brought both the cold war forces facing each other with full armour on either side of Checkpoint Charlie. No one fired, 18 hours of diplomatic talks finally thawed the tensions.
This place also houses a museum, which unfortunately we couldn't visit.
We proceeded towards TV tower in Alexanderplatz, passing through museum island, Berlin Cathedral, and few other structures. With the Reichstag building tour ahead of us, our schedule didn't allow us to climb the TV tower to watch Berlin from 200 meters above earth.
A "cycle rickshaw" tour guide agreed to drop us at Reichstag, after riding us through few of the attractions nearby, all within an hour and EUR 25.
Passing through The Berlin university- the alma mater of Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and the likes, we stopped at Bebelplatz. This housed one of the largest libraries, and it was here that Nazis burned about 20,000 books, shortly after coming to power in 1933. "'First they burn books, and ultimately they will burn humans' reads a plank here, and see what happened later" said the guide.
We passed through few 18th century cathedrals- Jewish and French, before turning at Checkpoint Charlie to reach the remains of the famous Berlin wall. Standing before a structure you had keenly read about and watching it eagerly, is an inexplicably fascinating experience!
"The building to the right was used by erstwhile Nazi air force. A family threw a rope from one of the upper floors, over the wall, and had it bolted tightly on western ground through some friends there. They used makeshift rappelling gear to smoothly pass over the wall into the west" explained our guide with great interest. This was one of the many coup escapes between 1961 to 1989; East Berliners risked their lives to escape, scornfully mocking and deceiving the Soviet's border police.
A fleet of vintage cars passed by- hippie genre cars that resembled the old Fiat. These were Trabis, cars running on 2 stroke engines, leaving behind a trail of polluting fuel odour. These were built from some form of cheap plastic, since steel was too scarce to be wasted on cars in Soviet occupied Berlin, sometime in late 70s.
On the way to Reichstag, we passed through what appears as a bustling downtown. They call it Potsdamer Platz, the funky city centre that houses some of the most exquisite modern day architectural marvels like the Sony Centre. Potsdamer Platz had been a busy city centre before being grounded completely during the second world war. It remained barren as part of "death strip" in East Berlin, before the iron wall was torn in 1989. Young on age and high on vanity, thats Potsdamer Platz.
We were standing before the Reichstag- the German Assembly which has a glass dome on top. We were let in by the German police after verifying our passport and online registration letter that permitted us entry to the "dome tour". The glass dome above Reichstag provides a 360 degree view of Berlin. We were, however, unfortunate; Police called off the dome tour owing to an "anti-immigrant" agitation rally scheduled to pass from a neighbouring street. That called off our day.
Next morning, we headed to Alexanderplatz, boarding the S-75 S Bahn at Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Berlin S Bahn (metro) has been a lifeline for Berliners since many decades. It was owned by West Berlin during cold war, and passed through few S-Bahn stations on East. These stations were deserted from passengers and guarded by the Reds at all time. Trains would pass without stopping on these "Ghost stations".
We started our exploration with "Purple line", a yellow sight-seeing hop-on / hop-off bus with a purple plank that would drive us through 12 attractions before dropping us back at Alexanderplatz. The bus drove us through the city before hopping us off at the Wall Memorial- a museum dedicated to everything that revolved around the wall, be it the politics, the agitations, the escapes, the deterrent mechanisms, or the murderous shootings by the Red Army.
The lobby gives a clear cross-section view of the wall setup. Unlike a single "wall", it was a multi-layer security put in place by Soviet communists. An inner wall, followed by a death strip - a barren strip of land with watch towers, lights, watch dogs, upward pointing steel spikes (called "Stalin's lawn") and finally the outer wall to complete the fortification. All this, to prevent even a single East Berliner to flee to the west. At it's peak, the communists spent as much as USD 500 billion every year to maintain this wall.
We boarded the next Purple line to hop off at East side gallery. East side gallery is the longest preserved section of Berlin wall that runs parallel to river Spree for 1.3 kilometers. After the wall came down in 1989, this section was purposely preserved. Artists from around the world used this as a canvas to paint the euphoria of German reunification and hope for a better future. Bright colours of liberation transformed the grey shades of communism.
This is possibly the largest open air gallery in the world. The barricades near the wall prevent this gallery from being vandalized in any way. The inner (Spree facing) side of wall portrays real, life size photographs of present day war torn Syria.
Berlin is one of the cities that bled the most during second world war. Structures which survived gradually recovered from the lethal bruises. Purple line takes us through few of them.
We returned to Alexanderplatz, passing through Karl Marx Allee (called Stalin Allee, before Berliners started hating Stalin) which is a wide road with large round-abouts and resemble the boulevards of Moscow.
What you can't miss noticing while walking through Berlin road crossings are the cute little human figures in red and green, signalling you to stop and cross respectively. The man with a hat is named "Ampelmann". A store with the same name has a good collection of these as souvenirs at Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
We visited the Aquadom before retiring for the day. Aquadom is a unique aquarium inhabiting many marine creatures. A one-of-its-kind open elevator that takes us through the blue waters with beautiful fishes all around, is one of an experience. My two-and-half year old kid enjoyed more than we did.
We had only kept shopping and eating for the next half day we had before returning from Berlin. Berlin Hauptbahnhof houses many souvenir shops and eateries; its funnily referred as a shopping mall also having a train station. Berlin beer and curry-wurst (for non-vegetarians) are not to be missed.
3 days were not enough to explore the city entirely. The more you see, the more you get curious. With more time in hand, we could have managed (and would have loved) visiting the German Historic Museum, the DDR museum (that portrays the everyday life of East Germans during cold war), the Berlin Cathedral, The Story of Berlin, cruise along the Spree, a leisure evening at Potsdamer platz and the Berlin zoo.
Well, all that I missed, offers me a reason to visit Berlin again. I loved visiting Berlin!
I visited Berlin recently with my family. First view of the city gave a familiar European feel- majestic buildings, wide, clean spotless roads, trams, buses and trains forming the backbone of an excellent public transport that Europe boasts of.
 |
| Brandenburg Tor |
 |
| Jewish Memorial |
"The pavements start sloping down and blocks get bigger as you go deeper, making the structure creepy- it's the architect's analogue of the gradually growing torture on Jews, which began with their shops being boycotted, to the notorious holocaust" explained a guide.
Checkpoint Charlie formed the official guarded passage from East to West in erstwhile divided Berlin. The original border artifacts, including check-post and message boards are still preserved. "US Army Officials" donning security uniform still man the check-post and pose for some photographs on request.
 |
| Original check-post, officers posing for a click |
Checkpoint Charlie witnessed a major political event in October 1961, which, few say, could have brought the world on the brink of World War 3. The bruised ego of an American Army Officer who was denied entry in the East, brought both the cold war forces facing each other with full armour on either side of Checkpoint Charlie. No one fired, 18 hours of diplomatic talks finally thawed the tensions.
This place also houses a museum, which unfortunately we couldn't visit.
 |
| American and Russian tanks at Checkpoint Charlie |
We proceeded towards TV tower in Alexanderplatz, passing through museum island, Berlin Cathedral, and few other structures. With the Reichstag building tour ahead of us, our schedule didn't allow us to climb the TV tower to watch Berlin from 200 meters above earth.A "cycle rickshaw" tour guide agreed to drop us at Reichstag, after riding us through few of the attractions nearby, all within an hour and EUR 25.
We passed through few 18th century cathedrals- Jewish and French, before turning at Checkpoint Charlie to reach the remains of the famous Berlin wall. Standing before a structure you had keenly read about and watching it eagerly, is an inexplicably fascinating experience!
"The building to the right was used by erstwhile Nazi air force. A family threw a rope from one of the upper floors, over the wall, and had it bolted tightly on western ground through some friends there. They used makeshift rappelling gear to smoothly pass over the wall into the west" explained our guide with great interest. This was one of the many coup escapes between 1961 to 1989; East Berliners risked their lives to escape, scornfully mocking and deceiving the Soviet's border police.
A fleet of vintage cars passed by- hippie genre cars that resembled the old Fiat. These were Trabis, cars running on 2 stroke engines, leaving behind a trail of polluting fuel odour. These were built from some form of cheap plastic, since steel was too scarce to be wasted on cars in Soviet occupied Berlin, sometime in late 70s.On the way to Reichstag, we passed through what appears as a bustling downtown. They call it Potsdamer Platz, the funky city centre that houses some of the most exquisite modern day architectural marvels like the Sony Centre. Potsdamer Platz had been a busy city centre before being grounded completely during the second world war. It remained barren as part of "death strip" in East Berlin, before the iron wall was torn in 1989. Young on age and high on vanity, thats Potsdamer Platz.
 |
| "Dem Deutschen Volke" is carved on the Reichstag |
Next morning, we headed to Alexanderplatz, boarding the S-75 S Bahn at Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Berlin S Bahn (metro) has been a lifeline for Berliners since many decades. It was owned by West Berlin during cold war, and passed through few S-Bahn stations on East. These stations were deserted from passengers and guarded by the Reds at all time. Trains would pass without stopping on these "Ghost stations".
 |
| S-Bahn at Berlin Hauptbahnhof |
The lobby gives a clear cross-section view of the wall setup. Unlike a single "wall", it was a multi-layer security put in place by Soviet communists. An inner wall, followed by a death strip - a barren strip of land with watch towers, lights, watch dogs, upward pointing steel spikes (called "Stalin's lawn") and finally the outer wall to complete the fortification. All this, to prevent even a single East Berliner to flee to the west. At it's peak, the communists spent as much as USD 500 billion every year to maintain this wall.
We boarded the next Purple line to hop off at East side gallery. East side gallery is the longest preserved section of Berlin wall that runs parallel to river Spree for 1.3 kilometers. After the wall came down in 1989, this section was purposely preserved. Artists from around the world used this as a canvas to paint the euphoria of German reunification and hope for a better future. Bright colours of liberation transformed the grey shades of communism.
This is possibly the largest open air gallery in the world. The barricades near the wall prevent this gallery from being vandalized in any way. The inner (Spree facing) side of wall portrays real, life size photographs of present day war torn Syria.
 |
| Inner side of wall portraying present day Syrian atrocities |
Berlin is one of the cities that bled the most during second world war. Structures which survived gradually recovered from the lethal bruises. Purple line takes us through few of them.
We returned to Alexanderplatz, passing through Karl Marx Allee (called Stalin Allee, before Berliners started hating Stalin) which is a wide road with large round-abouts and resemble the boulevards of Moscow.
What you can't miss noticing while walking through Berlin road crossings are the cute little human figures in red and green, signalling you to stop and cross respectively. The man with a hat is named "Ampelmann". A store with the same name has a good collection of these as souvenirs at Berlin Hauptbahnhof.We visited the Aquadom before retiring for the day. Aquadom is a unique aquarium inhabiting many marine creatures. A one-of-its-kind open elevator that takes us through the blue waters with beautiful fishes all around, is one of an experience. My two-and-half year old kid enjoyed more than we did.
We had only kept shopping and eating for the next half day we had before returning from Berlin. Berlin Hauptbahnhof houses many souvenir shops and eateries; its funnily referred as a shopping mall also having a train station. Berlin beer and curry-wurst (for non-vegetarians) are not to be missed.
3 days were not enough to explore the city entirely. The more you see, the more you get curious. With more time in hand, we could have managed (and would have loved) visiting the German Historic Museum, the DDR museum (that portrays the everyday life of East Germans during cold war), the Berlin Cathedral, The Story of Berlin, cruise along the Spree, a leisure evening at Potsdamer platz and the Berlin zoo.
Well, all that I missed, offers me a reason to visit Berlin again. I loved visiting Berlin!
