To kick off the second - very late, and final - instalment of photos from last month's family trip to Berlin, we begin with the Frankfurter Tor area and the famous East Side Gallery. The day before visiting en famille, I met up with Hannah, one of my uni friends who is doing a year abroad in the city. Luckily, she was kind enough to give me a fleeting Tor (ha ha) of the area so I had a vague idea of what was where and could lead the way.
However, first stop was coffee...
... and soup for Esme!
Before moving on to the East Side Gallery, a famous section of the Berlin wall and a memorial for freedom, covered with the work of different artists - some really, really famous (see below)...
... some slightly bizarre...
... but definitely all worth a look.
Next on the list was a visit to Treptower Park to visit the Soviet War Memorial and the 'abandoned fairground' which my dad had read about on some not-so-touristy corner of the internet.
The memorial was suitably vast, and undoubtedly impressive whilst still incredibly bleak in the overcast light of the afternoon.
I would love to go back to visit this memorial in the summer months, I can imagine it would be beautiful in a completely different way.
After a pit stop at Burger King to avoid a rain shower (and get some fries, of course), we began the trek to find the abandoned fairground.
Down a muddy path in what felt like the middle of nowhere, we found it, fenced in and eerie.
The next day we were up bright and early (for us, anyway) to have brunch at the Käfer Dachgarten Restaurant, situated, well, on top of the Reichstag.
After a short wait, a security check and an escort through the building and up to the restaurant, we were seated.
And breakfast was incredible. Definitely not one for the faint hearted though, particularly if you choose the 'Feel Good' breakfast, as 4 out of 5 of us did. I actually went for the Bavarian breakfast. Equally delicious, apart from the 3 pots of variously flavoured lard it arrived with - would not recommend.
After brunch we got our blood pumping again by following a walkway to another viewing level of the Reichstag.
Very cold, very clear.
And then made our way out of the Reichstag building, through the park and across to the Jewish Memorial.
This, too, is quite an expansive memorial, and you can walk between the concrete slabs - an experience designed to produce 'an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to
represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human
reason'.
We then headed towards our final stop off for the trip, which was back to Bernauer Strasse for the weekly market.
Where unfortunately, I become a bit sparse on photos! Almost every stall had a notice up saying either 'no photography' or 'take a photo and pay €10'... both of which I took as warning enough.
Anyway, if you've made it to here, congrats! I really did have the best time in Berlin and could recommend it to anyone - there's so much to see and do. Also, I might continue to be a little quiet over the next couple of months, as I'm working away (or at least pretending to be) on my dissertations. Stick with me my loves!
Ruby x
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