Berlin, DE

Berlin was one of my favorite cities on the whole trip. We took a New Europe Free Walking Tour of the city, which I highly recommend. Our tour guide was Australian, but excellent, really knew her stuff, and made it entertaining and thus easier to remember.

The first photo is just a motorcycle officer because I thought it was cool.

Second is the famous Brandenburg Gate, through which marched all sorts of armies over the years.

Third is the German Parliament house.

Fourth and fifth are shots of the Holocaust memorial. It is massive, but it focuses on the Jews murdered in Europe.

Sixth is early 1980's communist architecture: flats. They definitely had an eye for aesthetics.

Seven and eight are shots of what is left standing of the Berlin wall to serve as memorial, nine is what it looks like where the rest of the wall stood. All around the city there is still a line in pavement to mark where the wall stood, and every so often is a marker like this one to clarify what that line in the pavement means.

Ten is the reconstruction of Checkpoint Charlie.

Eleven is Humboldt University, where Einstein was a professor, and which sits opposite the courtyard of the famous book burning of 1933.

Twelve and thirteen are Ampelmann, the East Berlin traffic light man. When the country was reunited they tried to put the traffic light man from the West in place, but the East Berlin citizens had a fit, so they got to keep Ampelmann.

Fourteen is the cathedral, built in the very early 20th century, because, according to our tour guide, all the other major European cities had cathedrals, Berlin should have one too! But they made sure it looked old.

Fifteen is the dismantling of the East German palace. Our tour guide told us all to take a photo of it. It was built for the communists because they didn't want to use the old royal palace because they didn't like what it represented, and now Berlin is tearing this one down because they don't like what it represents, and they are rumored to be rebuilding the original palace, but there is some skepticism about whether that will actually happen. The issue of what things represent, and which ones, if any, should be preserved as reminders is common in Europe related to the wars.

Last is the Fernsehturm or tv tower. It was built in the late 1960's as a representation of all the good things Eastern Germany was to be. It was also decreed around this time that all the crosses in the city were to be taken down, because there was no need for that, the Reich was god, if you will. Ironically, though, when the sun hits this tower it makes a cross, and try as they might they couldn't get this sphere to stop reflecting a cross back for the whole city to see. Thus the people dubbed it 'the Pope's Revenge'.