Ever since I saw the movie Gotcha, Berlin was a town that fascinated me. The whole cold war / East German thing was something that I had lumped together into a Hitler/Nazi/Russian/WWII type thing without actually knowing how all those pieces fit together. As we drove into town towards our hotel, I kept annoying Craddock by spouting off one liners from that movie (“What is your business in the DDR!?”) We had found a really neat hotel on RatesToGo.com on the East German side called the Artist Riverside Hotel and Spa for only 79 Euro a night, which seemed to be a great deal for its location. As we drove through West Berlin, past Checkpoint Charley and into what was East Berlin, we began to appreciate all the history this city had. After we took our bags into the hotel, we were off to find a parking garage since the hotel’s lot was full. Using our Navigation system in the car, we found a great garage a few blocks away for only 10 Euro a day. They gave us one of the best rooms in this small hotel which was right on the corner with a window overlooking the River Spree. Side note, this hotel was located on the Friedrichstrasse and had a cafe downstairs called Cafe Friedrichstrasse (another Gotcha reference lol).
Since we were able to check in early, we put our bags in the room and grabbed some of the tourist rags from the hotel lobby. Since we had to be in Amsterdam the next day, we only had one day to explore Berlin which isn’t nearly enough. While we typically hate doing guided tours, with the huge amount of things to see and the limited time we had, we decided a 4 hour English speaking tour would do the trick. The tour started at 1 PM from an area called Hackescher Market that was about 4 blocks from our hotel. We passed a beautiful synagogue on our walk over.
Since it was already about 11:30, we hurried over and found a little cafe right near the meeting spot and grabbed some coffee and some lunch. I had the most incredible special for 5 Euros that had Locks and Cream Cheese and some loaded potato thing that was great. About 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start, our luck changed and it started pouring rain. We thought about cancelling the tour since walking around cold and miserable doesn’t make for good memories. Luckily, there was a department store called “Butlers” (Great Name eh?) right on the corner and we were able to procure two huge golf umbrellas for 30 euro. Yes, it is highway robbery, but when it is raining and you have to be out in the rain, does the price matter that much?
Expensive umbrellas in hand, we proceeded on the tour. The first stop was the Berlin Cathedral.
We then headed to Palace Square, which was the spot of many of Hitler’s historic speeches and rallies.
We saw Bebelplatz, the site of the famous book burning and the memorial they built. We also saw the Gendarmenmarkt which had a very interesting story.
You can notice from the above pictures that the statues on the buildings are a different color and look much older than the building they sit on. This is because when Hitler knew that Berlin was going to be bombed, he removed the statues from all of the government buildings and had them stored underground and then reinstalled them once the building was rebuilt.
We then went to the famous Checkpoint Charley.
It was here that we saw a map that explained a lot about history that we didn’t know. While some of you may know this, we didn’t. After WWII, they divided Germany into West Germany and East Germany.
If you notice, Berlin is way in the heart of East Germany. Now then since Berlin was the epicenter of the Nazi movement, they further split the city up to avoid any one country having control over all of Berlin.
This was all fine until the Russians who controlled East Berlin and East Germans got angry about people leaving East Berlin for West Berlin and decided to put up a wall both between East and West Germany ( seen on the first map) as well as completely encircling the French/English American sectors of Berlin. This effectively made West Berlin an island surrounded by the “Iron Curtain.” The air drops and everything else suddenly made a lot more sense because they were completely isolated geographically after the wall went up.
We then got to see the wall itself, or what was left of it:
Our next stop was Hitler’s bunker which was the spot of his suicide at the end of the war (or where it would have been since it was torn down) and the holocaust memorial, which was really inspiring and haunting at the same time.
We then headed onto the famous Brandenburg Gate. This has been a key spot at several points in history, including Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech.
On a pop culture note, we also saw the hotel balcony that Micheal Jackson dangled the baby off of many years ago. We then stopped by the Reichstag Dome.
The final stop on our whirlwind tour was the contemporary Bundeskanzleramt, a very stark contrast to all of the history we had seen along with a sign that Berlin is not just a city with a past, but one with a future.
We were tired after our tour, but after dinner, we had to check out one of the famous Belin discos. The one we found was called Tresor, and was the spot where Paul Van Dyke was the resident DJ for many years. When we arrived, we weren’t sure we were in the right spot. As we approached the huge unassuming warehouse, the only sign that we were in the right place was the burley German security standing next to a nondescript door with booming bass emanating from behind it. Inside, it was just what we expected: Industrial and Grungy with the feel of a meat packing plant. The music was good and about 1:30 they opened up the first floor. You go down a winding hallways with flickering lights and it opens up into another room pumping more great music. The whole experience reminded me of the opening scene of the movie Blade and was exactly what I wanted from a nightclub in Berlin. Unfortunately, with a long drive to Amsterdam in the morning, we had to make it a somewhat early evening and headed back to our hotel.
Good post, thanks very much . Look forward to seeing more Berlin, what a city. So much history! Halo7′s Poker Blog on Bluffworld.com. I thought some of the points though are now a bit outdated. Don’t people expect more nowadays?