Incredible Stories and worth remembering Experience in Berlin for two days

From June 20-22, 2012

Berlin is very memorable for me. It is the picture of reality and two pictures of the past – glorious and tragic.  According to the history, Berlin was divided into EAST AND WEST Germany. You will notice the advancement of the west and the abandonment of the East. Right now, they are working on rebuilding the destroyed building of the east and redoing it.

They made the hot-air balloon to escape from east to west Berlin.

We enjoyed our- two-day- stay in Berlin, Germany so much. We had variety of experiences and surprises on their history and culture. Here, you can learn two sides of the story.

On the 20^th of June, we arrived Berlin at exactly after four hours like around 1pm.. We were like a lost children in the bus station, didn’t know where to go. We didn’t know on how to get to the Magrafenstrasse. I checked my map on the Berlin’s guide; it said that it we’re located in no. 2. Hmmm… not pretty far (!)

We were looking for UBhf Kochstrasse and asked people on how to get there. Finally, we made it this time. We caught the train that goes to Temple hof in line 42 and changed line from there to U6 going Alt- Tegel. Doing like this is really fun when after you know you get there.

We came out the Check point Charlie at Friedrichstrasse and we went along Rudi-Dutschkestrasse and turned on our way right, we found the Check in Hostel. It was really a great feeling that we were jumping for joy when we got there. Check In Hotel is the biggest hostel we’ve had.

I was so excited to see Berlin and explore its historical monuments and story behind the Berlin wall. For our first step as always is mastering the place and find out what it can offer for us. 

First, we started up at the chocolate company, Plantagen Rausch, Schokolade, who make the best fine Cocoas in the World. You can find the biggest chocolate – made historical monuments in Berlin like Bradenburg gate and Berlin Dom, replica of Titanic ship, bear, airplane and much more.

Secondly, we need to find the location for the free tour tomorrow, so we had to go and did map reading through out the cold weather. Still nothing can stop us even the bad weather. Well… nevertheless, we still ended up in the Bradenburg Tower after two hours of searching. We just went to the Maurenstrasse, then went down somewhere and finally went up. From there, we saw the Jewish memorial and the Tower, where would be our meeting place. We tried to look for Berlin wall, but we can’t find it. What we did was we continued walking down by the river and we found the museum island in a magnificent architecture building.

On the second day, we had the idea on how to get to the meeting place faster. We had to go through the Friedrichstrasse, then on your left at the end of the street is the Bradenburg Gate. At the Starbucks, I met Jhonny, who was our Tour guide.

The tour actually deepens our understanding about the place as the guide discuss about the amazing history of the city from their darkest to the brightest moment. We started on the following tourist destinations.

First of course, the Bradenburg gate, which is the famous landmark of Berlin and Germay. It has quadriga,  on the top of it. This located in Pariser Platz - Berlin, the most prestigious square in Berlin, full of beautiful buildings, banks and embassies. You can find the England embassy and Hungarian embassy. Next, we went to the park, it is just a simple park with kids playground. I discovered that underneath it was used to be Hitler's Bunker. Hitler's bunker was in or rather under the garden of the Reichskanzlei (1), which was at 77Wilhelmstraße, in the area where most of the government buildings were. However, you can't find the bunker anymore because they had to destroy it to redirect the attentions away from Hitler. 


After that, we proceed to a unusual monument, one-sided face shape in brass, which signifies the assassination attempts on Hitler's life. One of those, when he had to cut off his message to 8 minutes and suddenly a huge bomb exploded afterwards.

One of the famous and you shouldn't miss to visit is The Holocaust memorial.  This is the memorial in honour to the murdered Jews in Europe.  A monument to the persons persecuted for their sexual orientation is located across the street in the Tiergarten park.

We also visit the SS Headquarters , Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Gendarmenmarkt, where you can see the two famous churches, the German and French Church before, but now, they are used as museums. Then, we proceed to Bebel Platz, which once called Opera square. From there, we found the Books were one of the first casualties of the NAZI regime when Hitler seized power in 1933. The Nazi's organized mass burnings of books written by Jews or expressing objectionable ideas. Virtually all books by Jewish authors were destroyed.Today a memorial by Micha Ullman consisting of a glass plate set into the cobbles, giving a view of empty bookcases, commemorates the book burning. Furthermore, a line of Heinrich Heine is engraved, stating "Das war ein vorspiel nur wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" (in English: "Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people"). Students at Humboldt University hold a book sale in the square every year to mark the anniversary.

Finally, we ended our tour in the Museum Island, where you can find the Berlin Dom, TV Tower at Alexanderplatz and the Neue Wache, which is the Royal Guard House by Schinkel, 1818. For 100 years the palace guards were based here but in 1918 the royal family left Germany so the building changed. It became the memorial to the First World War. Then it became a Nazi memorial to the Victims of War and Bolshevism and then it became a communist memorial to the Victims of Militarism and Fascism - in spite of which they had armed guards goose-stepping up and down in front and they put an ‘eternal flame’ and hammers and sickles inside.(READ MORE HERE.)

We found the lust garten or just a small park, where we stayed for couple of minutes to take pictures. Another one was the museum, which opened for the public to see only from the outside because it’s locked. I presumed it is tortured area because it showed someone who was punished. Then, we also found the famous monument of St. George and the Dragon sculptured by Kiss. 

Through out the 20 Century Era, Berlin had used to be the leader of art, music, and literature through out the Golden twenties before Hitler rise to power in 1933 made the city the famous Capital of the third Reich. Berlin had also being divided by the allies after the World War II. It became the last frontier of the cold war.

Wow. How strong they are! Imagine, before the division, a lot of people tried to escape the East Berlin to West Berlin by any means. Some were successful and others were killed. After the fell of Berlin wall 1989, the Germany was united. Until now, they are helping the east side of Berlin to develop. This was used to be in communist side and most of the buildings were destroyed during the war and other one was intentional like the palace, which doesn’t fit in communism ideal. Now, they were begging for donations for rebuilding the old building as the same as it looks like before. Some building in east side has been reconstructed and repainted now.

 We didn't have regrets even we were lost. Like what happened that night, we ended up at the Postdomer platz. Wow. Absolutely beautiful. We really enjoyed the Sony centre with its unique architectural design of its roof at night. We found the central train station and malls there. This is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate. Thanks for our Berlin guide apps, it worked and headed us back to the Bradenburg Gate.

On the second and last day in Berlin, we thought it was finished. But, we were surprised on what we saw another famous tourist spot the, Victory monument called Siegassaule. We did climb the tower. We’ve inside a mini museum and on the top, you can see the panoramic view of the entire city. This is surrounded with the green tier garten. I think that was the highlight of our last day. Furthermore, we saw the following sites along the way while we were looking for our way back home. 

    Ø   Football at Hyundai Fan Park and 17th June Soldier Memorial

Ø    photo exhibit near the train station Wild wonders of europe

Ø    Hugo Preus- Brucke 2004

Ø    Paul Lobe haus

Ø    Monument for the communism victims (white cross along the street… Hans Rawel

Ø    Alexander platz

We were also surprise to see  the Bellevue Palace, which is now the official residence of the German president, this palace was built in 1786 as the summer residence for Prince Ferdinand of Prussia, the younger brother of Frederick the Great. 

Finally, we saw the Burgenburg square and saw the embassies along with it, we know we were heading the right direction.Then at 5pm, we were rushing back to the Bus station to catch 19:30 bus to Amsterdam. 

We really enjoyed the stories about the wall and its division between east and west and how they survived on that tragic incident.Berlin has incredible stories to tell and extremely intriguing worth pondering.