After a 7-hour long bus ride from Frankfurt, we finally arrived in Berlin! For dinner, we thought that we should try to eat a bit healthier since we had had beer and pork knuckle for dinner the night before. Michael found a Chinese restaurant close by, and figured that our bellies would thank us if we had some soup noodles and vegetables instead of…well, meat and fat. But then we also found a very well reviewed local pub specializing in classic German fare that seemed too good to pass up. We decided to go check it out and just get some happy hour, believing that we had enough discipline to stick with our original plan for dinner. (Fools!)
Once we arrived, we sat and ordered some beers. As we were chatting, we kept seeing large plates of scrumptious food pass us by – pork knuckle, schnitzel, bratwurst – and with each passing plate, our restraint slowly waned. We can eat healthily another night!, we started suggesting. We are only in Germany for a couple of days. Carpe diem! As you can probably guess, we ended up ordering another pork knuckle for the second night in a row, along with two more steins of beer. Everything was delicious. Oh well, willpower is overrated anyway.
Happy about our hedonism.
So. Good. And we didn't regret it at all (until the next morning, when we still felt full and uncomfortable).
The next day, we joined our tour group and hopped on the bus for a morning ride through all the major highlights in Berlin. We got a bit antsy after being on the bus for a couple of hours, so afterwards we walked all over the city and got a more up close look at many of the sites we had seen on the tour. We passed by the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, along with a number of other sites. We’re definitely brushing up on our WWII history!
One section of the Berlin Wall.
Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most well-known crossing points between East and West Berlin. Ignore the Mickey D's in the background.
Brandenburg Gate
The Tiergarten, a large urban park. It's beautiful! Having a nice leisurely stroll through the park was one of my favorite memories of our short time in Berlin.
The Victory Tower. Apparently Americans refer to this statue as "The Chick on a Stick". We sure are a witty bunch.
We climbed to the top of the tower! And then I got heeby jeebies and promptly raced back down.
The view from the top of the tower.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or the Holocaust Memorial.
We were loving walking around the city, but remembered that in our past trip to Europe, we had had a great time doing bike tours. We found one offered for later that day in Berlin that was very reasonably priced, so we thought, why the heck not? Let’s get in more cardio to offset all that pork knuckle! So we signed up for it and it turned out to be a great decision.
About to start the tour. Woohoo!
Simon, our very informative guide.
On the bike tour, we were able to see a couple of sites that we didn't see either on the bike tour or on our walk through the city:
A memorial marking the spot where books were burned at Babelplatz.
The spot marking where Hitler's bunker was during the war. We got swarmed by a high school field trip right when we visited, so sorry for the sub par picture.
We went to a beer garden for dinner. So lovely!
Had to try the schnitzel. Verdict? Delicious!
And we got to go back to see the Brandenburg Gate lit up at night!
Our Hungarian-born tour guide told us that out of all the cities in Europe, she would choose to live in Berlin. We only spent a couple of days there so my perspective is limited, but so far, I have to say I agree. Berlin is a really fun city, with a lively, vibrant energy, friendly people, and delicious food. I definitely could have stayed longer and hope to go back at some point!
Up next – Poland! (Warsaw, Auschwitz, and Krakow).