It was very cloudy and cold outside when we woke up this morning. We slept good in the bed, but we were either too hot or too cold with the duvet, or down filled cover, that is used as a the only top cover in most places in Germany. It is a little thick, so you get hot when it covers you and then if you take it off, you get cold, there are no real options for in between. There is no top sheet at all.
Eating Breakfast In Our Room
We got ready and headed to the nearby grocery store to purchase some bottled water, Ginger Ale, and breakfast items. Since it was closed yesterday, we could not get the things we needed for today until this morning. I purchased a raisin pastry to eat with my yogurt and Stephanie got a plain croissant and some sliced cheese. We took all of our groceries back to the room and ate our breakfast there since we also needed to drop off the other items.
We gathered up all of our gear and headed back out into the cold. We needed to walk to the Alexanderplatz area to purchase our 72 hour Berlin Welcome Card, plus Museum Island Passes at the Park Inn Hotel. It was the closest official sales point for the Welcome Card, which covers transportation in Zones A, B & C and also entrance to the four museums on Museum Island for the duration of the pass. There are also discounts to other sights and museums. It was about a ten minute walk from the hotel, and there was a short line at the Concierge desk of the hotel to purchase the passes. We had a little irritation scare with our credit card and PIN, it was initially declined, but I realized I had incorrectly entered the PIN, and it worked the second time. At first, I thought it was another issue with the acceptance of our card, but it was all due to my error. Since we don’t use PIN’s in the USA, it takes a little bit to get used to having to do it, and to remember to enter the PIN correctly.
We needed to validate the Welcome Cards in a validating machine on any type of public transportation before we could use them. This stamps the cards with a date and time to signify the start of the 72 hour period of validity. We needed to ride a tram back to the Hackescher Markt Station, but were not sure there were validation machines on the tram itself, so we headed upstairs at the Alexanderplatz Station where we knew there were validation machines for the S-Bahn. The Tram stop was right outside the station, so it was just a flight of stairs added to our schedule to make sure we got the tickets validated.
We took the M6 Tram back in the direction of Hackescher Markt, but stayed on for one more stop trying to get closer to Museum Island, where we were going to visit the Neues Museum. It appeared that this was the correct stop for the museum based on the Tram Map, but it was not really the best stop for getting to the Neues Museum. The tram map was not geographically correct, it was more diagrammatic for the various stops.
We needed to walk back a little to get to the correct end of museum Island to the location of the Neues Museum. Once at the museum, we were not really sure if we needed to show our pass to get a ticket, or just show the pass at the entrance and skip the ticket line. I went over to the ticket line to hold a spot, while Stephanie went and asked the attendant at the museum entrance. Stephanie found out that we did not need an additional ticket, so I left my line and walked over to the museum and we went inside.
Antiquities in The Neues Museum
We had to check our bags before we could enter, so we went over to the bag check, removed our jackets and scarves, placed them in our backpacks and checked them with the attendant. We then got our audio guides and headed into the museum.
The museum was nice, there were a lot of exhibits from Roman Periods, Egyptian Periods, and then from German history. The main exhibits were the Bust of Nefertiti and the Golden Hat. The Golden Hat was very interesting, one of only four known to be in existence. It was tall and pointed, and covered with moon and sun symbols, and was sort of a guide to explain the difference in total days for the Moon Year and the Sun Year, and the that they would not sync but once every 19 years. Pretty fantastic based on the period the hat was made, which was during the Late Bronze Age (1000 – 800 BC).
The Golden Hat of Berlin
Overall, the museum was really nice inside, the audio guide gave a lot of history on the restoration of the museum from the bombings during WWII, and how the museum looked inside before the destruction. Our only issue was that there was not really a good signage system to guide you through the museum, we got out of order a couple of times going into various sections and rooms, and for some reason, the audio guide did not always have the information available when you entered the posted guide number to play the recording for a particular sight. This may have been due to the translation not being complete for the English version of the guide, who knows.
After a couple of hours, we were getting a little overwhelmed with all of the items, but had seen the main attractions, and had visited all of the exhibits, so we got our bags from the bag check and headed out at about 12:30 PM.
Looking Through The Glass Panel To The Empty Bookshelves
We decided to walk to an exhibit Stephanie found in the Rick Steve’s Book on Berlin, a glass panel in a sidewalk commemorating a book burning in the Nazi Socialist era in Berlin during 1933, where approximately 20,000 books were burned. The exhibit was designed by the Israeli artist Micha Ullman, and was called Liberty. We had a little difficulty finding it, partially because we were coming to it from the opposite direction from the instructions in the guide book. It was located near the Universitad Building in Römerberg Square. There was also some construction in the area that did not help. We finally found it, it was about a four foot square Plexiglas window in the brick sidewalk looking down to empty bookshelves that were supposed be large enough to carry the equivalent number of books that had been burned. The Plexiglas was a little scratched, so it was difficult to see in with the glare of the sun.
Altar Inside The St. Hedwig Church
This exhibit was right near the largest Catholic Church in Berlin, the St. Hedwig Catholic Church, so we headed in that direction We went inside the domed church, it looked just like the dome for the Pantheon in Rome, but smaller, and there was glass covering the “open” hole that is in the real Pantheon. There was not a lot of information on the church in the guidebook, and all of the historical information inside the church was in German without any English translations, but it was very interesting to see the architecture inside.
From there, we decided to walk to Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous of the East Berlin – West Berlin gates from the Cold War Era. We got a little turned around, and it was not the easiest sight to find, mostly because the map we have of Berlin is in a really small scale, and some of the street names are very difficult to read.
Checkpoint Charlie Replica
We finally made it there, and it was as described in the guide books, very commercial, and a little touristy. The guard station is only a representation of what was there early in the construction of the Berlin Wall, and is manned by fake soldiers, who will stamp your passport for Euro 15.00. There was a small park area with some good information and displays on the history of the Berlin Wall, and also on some of the people killed while trying to escape East Berlin. There were also two small sections of the actual wall there for photos.
Lunch Out Of The Rain
About the time we were finished reading about the history, dark rain clouds had appeared. It had sprinkled on us at times in the last hour or so, but this looked really bad. We had not eaten lunch yet, so we headed into a sandwich shop, getting inside just before the heavy rain started. The sandwiches were just ok, but we were fed, and we were inside for the short but heavy rain storm. Plus, we were able to use their restroom after we finished eating. We rested a bit, taking time to figure out what we wanted to do next.
Berlin Wall Exhibit Near Nordbanhof
We found some information on another Berlin Wall exhibit, located near the Nordbahnhof Station. We planned out our route, taking the U6 underground to the Friedrichstrasse station, then taking the S1 train to Nordbahnhof. There was a lot of history on Nordbahnhof, it was considered one of the “ghost stations” from the time the Berlin Wall was erected. The S-Bahn route was built before the wall, and was left in place after the wall, but no one was allowed to get off the train in the underground station that was now located in east Germany. West Germany had to pay East Germany for the right to use this S-Bahn route since it passed under East Berlin.
Berlin Wall Park Near Nordbahnhof
The exhibit of the wall was located right outside the station, and was very informative. There was a large section of the wall that remained in place, as well as excavated items showing where some of the old streets had been, as well as an old cemetery wall that was demolished for the “clear zone” around the wall itself. There were also exhibits on some of the people killed here trying to cross the wall, as well as pictures of all of the 138 persons killed while the wall was in existence. There were even some removed sections of the wall that were still sitting on the cemetery property, lined up in a row. It was much more interesting and informative than the Checkpoint Charlie exhibit. However, it was really cold outside, as well as windy, and we got occasional rain showers while we were there. Luckily, they were very light and short.
Berlin Wall Sections
We headed back to the Nordbahnhof station and took the S1 back to Friedrich Strasse, then took the S5 back to Hackescher Markt, and headed back to the hotel to warm up and take a break before heading out to dinner. We had to make another stop at the grocery store for bottled water on the way back. I had mistakenly purchased carbonated water, which is very popular here, and not always easily distinguishable from the “still” water. Stephanie does not like the carbonated water, so we purchased some large bottles of still water, and a lime for some adult beverages back in the room. While we were walking to the store, it started to sleet and snow some, just for brief periods.
When we got back to the hotel, Stephanie asked for some ice for the room, and they gave us a bowl of ice from the lobby bar. We headed to the room for a beverage. We had brought one “Rum Runner” plastic flask of Seagram’s VO with us from home for this part of the trip. We had luckily found Seagram’s Ginger Ale this morning in the grocery, so with the addition of the lime and ice, we were set. We had a couple of drinks, and I worked on pictures and on the blog, which is much easier now that we have fast, free wi-fi in the hotel. We also ate some pretzel sticks we purchased at the grocery, which are very cheap here, Euro 0.33 for the entire bag. While we were in the room, it started sleeting harder, with a few snow flakes mixed in. It was too warm to accumulate on the ground, but it was fun to see.
After about an hour, the rain and sleet ended and the skies were clear and sunny, but it had gotten colder and more windy. We bundled up and headed to Hackescher Markt for dinner, deciding go eat at the same restaurant we had gone to for lunch yesterday, Barist. They had an extensive menu and the prices were reasonable.
The restaurant was very crowded, and we sat at a table for two along the wall. It was actually two tables, and in a bit, they separated the tables and sat another couple with a child next to us on the left. It reminded us of eating on the cruise ship in the dining room, the two person tables are separate, but only about 12 inches away from your neighbors, so you almost feel like you are really eating together.
The dinner was good, Stephanie had a vegetarian pasta dish with Penne pasta, and I had a filled gnocchi, sort of like a small ravioli. We had two of the Edinger Dunkle beers with our dinner. After we were finished eating, and were about to leave, we somehow struck up a conversation with the table to the right, with two couples from England. They were just there having drinks, and had been seated and had ordered drinks before we even got there. Apparently they were going to eat at some point, but had not gotten that far yet. We talked for at least thirty minutes about different things, mostly travel related. They were really fun to talk to and we all enjoyed the conversation.
The Berlin TV Tower Near Alexanderplatz
We used the restroom at the restaurant before heading back out into the cold to take the tram back over to Alexander Platz. When we had been there this morning to purchase the Berlin Welcome Cards, we had seen a park area with a lot of vendors set up selling food,various crafts and general merchandise. It was a short tram ride, but once we got there, we found that it was really cold and windy outside, so we did not stay long before taking the tram back to the hotel.
We headed back to the room and rested, catching up on computer work and Facebook. It was already 8:45 PM, and we had a long, but fun day. We did not stay up much later, we were very tired from our long day of sightseeing.