Me, in Tobago, Nov 2005 |
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Monk-San |
| Gender: | Female | | Lives in: | A Town Near Gatwick United Kingdom | | Registered: | 06 May 2003 | | Last visit: | 08 September 2006 |
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| Berlin Review: A great weekend - Sept 03 | | Written by Monk-San on 18 Mar 2005 about a trip in Sep 2003.
| We spent a weekend in Berlin at the beginning of September 2003, and had a great time. There is plenty to see and do as well as nightlife to appeal to all tastes.
Our first day we spent wandering round the schloss at Charlottenberg and the Art Deco museum nearby. The walk along the riverside is very pretty.
Day 2 we spent round the Kufurstendam area - the Ku'dam to those in the know, or who think that its got just too many syllables. At one end you have the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachnichtkirche - which seems to have been slightly bombed during WWII (oops) and has a very bizarre creation alongside - you'll want to see it! Halfway down the road is the Story of Berlin museum - very interesting. A little further along, take a couple of turns and there is the Haus der 100 biers, which I don't think needs translating. There was some kind a fair / market type thing going on - I have no idea how often this happens, but it did give us the chance to start on the beer at 10.00. (When in Berlin...)
Next day we headed east to see Checkpoint Charlie & museum - very interesting and Postsdamer Platz (so that's what the German's blew their wad on) and the film museum. Excellent cafes round here - perfect for eating and drinking in the sunshine. The Deutsche Oper is here too - worth seeing the building even if you're not an opera fan. We saw La Traviata (sung in Italian / subtitles above the stage in German..) and it was fantastic - if that's a good example of the quality of operas, the Berliners are lucky people.
Final day, we headed through Tiergarten to the Brandenburg Gate and then to the parliament building - as be-domed by Norman Foster. Quite a queue, but worth it. Then east again to Alexanderplatz, to climb the TV tower, wander round the square (see what the Germans haven't yet spent their wad on) and generally have a quick shop before settling into a cafe for our final meal.
In short, we did loads, and yet there are plenty of interesting things that we didn't have time to see.
I was very pleasantly surprised by just how good it was in Berlin and consider it greatly underrated as a citybreak destination.
You can even buy decent wine.........The food and drink were considerably better than I expected (obviously only the wine that they export is sweet, white drain cleaner).
We went to some superb museums and although a lot of it is quite upsetting, there are uplifting things too, like the stories of the liberation of Eastern Europe and of course, East Berlin in museum at Checkpoint Charlie. It is all interesting and worth seeing. As well as the eastern bloc carbuncles (which are gradually disappearing) there are stunning buildings in the old east as well as the old west.
Yup, I loved Berlin. |
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Berlin Hotel Reviews
Monk-San reviewed these Berlin hotels...
| Golden Tulip Park Consul Berlin review |  | | Park Consul - aka golden Tulip - Sept 03 | | This is a very nice place to stay - the rooms were nicely decorated and the bathrooms modern with good showers. The location is good in that is is close to a U-bahn stop, but you aren't within... |
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