In Berlin
I am really glad to have gone back to Berlin. It was nice to see the changes that have taken place since 2012, the year of our first visit to the German capital. For one, the Humboldt Forum was still under construction then and there was no Mall of Berlin either. Thirteen years had passed since our return. I didn't realize the Brandenburg Gate and the Alexanderplatz were on opposite sides of the long avenue, the Unter den Linden, which we walked on our first full day.
It was also nice to revisit some of the attractions we had seen before that are really timeless monuments. I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall. I live in San Francisco and even though I've seen the Golden Gate Bridge countless times, I never get tired of seeing it. I have to remind myself how lucky I am to be able to travel and to keep on traveling seeing many of the world's wonders over and over again. We did go on two day trips from Berlin during our week long stay. The first was to Dresden which was two hours away by train and the second one was to Potsdam to see Sans Souci.
It was also here in Berlin where we had some of our best meals during our entire trip to Europe. We really loved eating the pork knuckle in Kadewe. We loved it so much, we went there twice for dinner. Not only was the food good, Kadewe was posh and a wonderful place for us to eat in a peaceful setting. While there were other diners, there was ample room for everybody to sit and eat in.
Here we are happy to see Berlin again. Taken at the Brandenburg Gate very early in the morning of our first full day in the city. This was taken around 7 am, when there were hardly any tourists in the area yet.
The Brandenburg Gate. During our entire stay in Berlin, we got the chance to see it at different times of the day. I have to say, the best time was in the morning when there were hardly any tourists in sight. In fact, during our first morning there, we reached the gate around 7 am and all we saw were joggers who were awed by the monument just like us and who stopped running every few minutes just to look at it. Fastforward to our last day in the city, we visited it late afternoon and the atmosphere was the complete opposite.
The first time I saw Checkpoint Charlie, there were literally hundreds of tourists in the vicinity. It surely was a treat to be able to take pictures of it without people anywhere. This was what we early birds got to see ono our first full day in Berlin. We didn't really plan to see it that early in the morning, it just so happened we had jetlag and were already wide awake before all the hustle and bustle in the city.
Taking a picture of the Reichstag or the German Parliament. We didn't go inside this time. We did during our first visit.
The Holocaust Museum. What I like about Berlin is that many of its historical sights were walking distance from each other.
The Neues Museum. This is the museum to visit to see the bust of Nefertiti, the great royal wife of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. Marc and I did see it back ni 2012. I remember the museum staff being strict about photograpy inside the museum. I vividly remember one tourist being yelled by museum staff at for taking a picture of Nefertiti's bust which was strictly prohibited.
The TV Tower at Alexanderplatz
Inside the Volkswagen Group Forum. It was just by accident that we got to visit this museum store in the heart of Berlin's commercial area. We went inside when we realized it was open to the public and there was no admission. It looked more like a showroom which displayed different vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen over the years.
More Volkswagen vehicles inside the Volkswagen Group Forum
Artwork in the courtyard of a building with some fancy restaurant
As usual there were bears everywhere. This was inside one subway station if I remember right.