Brandenburg Gate

Despite the late night, I still woke up at 6.30am. At 9.00am, I went down to breakfast and ate with those of us who were still in the city.

Lee, Priscilla and I hatched a plan for some sightseeing around Berlin. After updating Josef on my re-arranged travel plans, it was 11am when we checked out of the hotel & put our bags in the luggage room.

The 3 of us headed to the nearest metro station and purchased a 24 hour travel card for under €10 each. Our first stop was the East Side Gallery, a 1.3 kilometre section of the Berlin Wall that has been preserved and is decorated by artists from around the world. I couldn’t help myself, but to take a photo of literally every section of the wall. We did stop halfway at a cafe beside the River Spree where Lee treated us to a coffee so that he could rest his weary legs.

After we completed the East Side Gallery, we got on a train to the Brandenburg Gate, an 18th century neoclassical monument. Next we walked over to the Reichstag Building, the historic government building, then through the remembrance garden for those murdered attempting to flee East Germany during the east west divide.

We then stopped at a Bratwurst kiosk and had a nice cold 0.5l bottle of Berliner Pils, which cost just €3.50 each. Afterwards we walked on to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, with its 2,711 slabs of concrete of varying heights.

Lastly we took a short train ride to Checkpoint Charlie for the obligatory photo. It was interesting to note that there was no soldier on guard at the checkpoint sentry post, unlike 10 years ago, when Jackie and I last visited.

We returned to the Mercure Hotel Berlin Tempelhof around 5.00pm, where Priscilla, Lee and I had one final beer together. Priscilla then collected her luggage and after saying her goodbyes, left for her new hotel for the next 2 nights before taking a long convoluted trip back home to Malta.

Lee was waiting for the rush hour traffic to die down before ordering an Uber to his new Airport hotel, so we went along the road to a pizza joint. We both order spicy meat pizzas for around €8 but I could only manage to eat about half of mine. We returned to the hotel, collected our luggage and said our goodbyes. We will see each other at The Roundhouse in London in May.

I left Lee waiting for his Uber and made my away across Berlin on the Metro and trains to Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin’s Main Railway Station). At 9.27pm, my train rolled out of Berlin. The train was busy but I did manage to secure 2 seats to myself. The train is a slow train (lots of stops, but travelling at up to 186km between them) and is due to arrive at Ulm Railway Station around 6.00am.

Song of the Day - Berlin by Lou Reed

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