Saturday, August 9, 2014
It was a 600km drive from Krakow to Berlin and we were back on the good old E40, which was in ‘slightly’ better nick than in some of the other countries we’d been on it, so the drive was good and fast.
We pulled into the driveway of our Berlin Hotel just after 3pm. Our room overlooked the German Cathedral on the Gendarmenmarkt, a splendid view indeed.
We spent the afternoon wandering around the area near Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of The Wall (with exhibitions) and the Brandenburg Gate. There was a music festival in the Tiergarten, the park and street on one side of the Barnderburger Tor – very nice to be back in Europe to find festivals on every corner.
That evening, after a mediocre dinner, to say the least, in a mediocre German style restaurant, we had a nightcap in the lovely Bistro am Gendarmenmarkt.
It was good to see Berlin again. Although not much has changed in 10 years.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
We started the morning with a visit to an photography exhibition of Walker Evans, followed with a coffee. Yes, of course we had located the Starbucks one block away 🙂
We then ventured a little further away towards the Museuminsel / Museum Island and Berliner Dom / Berlin Cathedral and sat down for lunch on a terrace somewhere nearby. We then did a nice loop back to the hotel, via the Alexanderplatz, Das Rotes Rathaus, Rolandufer along the river Spree, tracing some of where the Wall used to be, back to our hotel.
