48 hours in Berlin

I started learning German in 2001 and I've wanted to visit Germany ever since. Although I strongly considered continuing with the language at A level, I decided against it and, as such, can now confidently talk all about my work experience (Letzten Juni, habe ich mein Arbeitspraktikum in eine Schule gemacht) but can't really hold a useful conversation. Nevertheless, I've held on to the dream of one day visiting Germany and last week, as a surprise for our first anniversary, Rich whisked me off for a mini-break to Berlin. 

First impression of Berlin? It was hot. Like, really hot. 36 degrees hot. How is that even possible in a north/west European country? For any non-UK readers, let me give you some context: It barely exceeds 22 degrees in my hometown during summer. It's a shame it was so hot as it did somewhat limit what we could do, and we had to have regular stops in bars and cafes to cool down, so we didn't get to see as much of the city as I would have liked. Nevertheless, we had a great little stay.

The first thing we did was head over to the Brandenburg Gate before walking the short distance to the Reichstag and having a rest in the neighbouring park. 





Between the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag is a restaurant called Hopfingerbräu im Palais, which has a cool, shady courtyard out the back where we stopped off for some currywurst.



By now it was getting fairly late so we headed back to the hotel, but stopped off at the Holocaust Memorial on the way.


The next day, which was equally as hot, we decided to start the day inside at the Natural History Museum, figuring it would be air-conditioned and we could take as many cafe breaks as possible. Unfortunately, there was no air-con and the only cafe was at the front of the museum, back out past the exit, so we didn't spend as long as we planned in there but it was still interesting, especially the taxidermy, skeletons and, my favourite part, the potted specimens!

After leaving the museum, we stopped off at a coffee shop called Balzac, where we had the most delicious muffins and milkshakes, to make plans for the rest of our day. 

Upon discovering we were close to a stretch of the Berlin Wall, we walked towards it and discovered a stretch of grass with memorials to those killed attempting to cross to the west.

This stretch of wall was near Nordbahnhoff, a railway station right next to the wall with a deep history. It was built in 1842, but as it fell within the east of the city, and was therefore under Soviet control, it ceased operation after World War II. All entrances were sealed off as they could allow escapees to walk through the tunnels under the wall into West Berlin, and to deter attempts, all references to the station were completely removed, with the old entrances disguised. It reopened in 1992, and the old entrance hall was restored in 2006. 

While we're on the topic of the railway system, I was really impressed with how easy it was to use. A whole-day ticket to use on both the S-Bahn and U-Bahn was just 7 euros and the whole network was simple to understand. For our final evening, we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe which is completely against anything I would usually do on holiday (I'm an absorb-myself-in-local-culture kinda girl) but it was right next door to the huge Christmas shop I wanted to visit, which sold the most gorgeous decorations as well as affordable German-made cuckoo clocks (I really wanted one but we were on a tight budget so bought a cuckoo clock magnet instead!). In their defense, the Hard Rock Cafe does sell a local burger, which is different in all cities. In Berlin, it was a bratwurst so still German enough for me! And we got to sit underneath a belt Elvis wore in 1970 and one of his handwritten letters, which was very exciting for me!  

Despite the heat (are you getting that I really hate hot weather yet?), I had a great time! That wasn't the end of our travels, though, as we headed back to the airport and hopped on a plane to Paris! 


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