Day 25: Berlin

Headed into Berlin with a local guide to give us a 3 hour tour of the sights of the city. Stopped off a the Brandenburg Gate again to get some more photos. The crowds were obviously a lot larger during the day, but I managed to get a couple of shots off.

Found some guy with a selection of old border control stamps, and having my passport on me, got a number of them stamped into said passport. A bit silly I guess, but how many times am I going to get to Berlin?

Our next stop was the a section of the Berlin Wall. There is not a lot left of the Berlin Wall still standing, although all around the city, you can see a line marked in the streets where the old border used to be.

The wall is not a large as I expected it to be. It is only about 6 inches thick, although it is re-enforced concrete. Elisha and I did the "stand on each side of the border" photo, with me on the Communist side, whilst Elisha was on the Democratic side.

Had lunch in a rather old fashioned, select-your-own food bistro. The food was actually lovely and Elisha, for some reason, managed to get away with only being charged for half her lunch.

Took a walk to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (or Gedächtniskirche). The church was heavily damaged during the war and a competition during the 60's was run to come up with a design to fix/replace the ruins with a new church. One design to rebuild the church in the original style was rejected, whilst another design to keep only the main, damaged, spire of the original church and build a monstrosity of a modern building next to it won. The new church is bloody awful, with square concrete blocks containing blue stained glass. The juxtaposition of the two architectural styles couldn't be worse. The new buildings are horrendous on the outside, although from the inside , it does look great.

Rejoined the tour to visit Potsdam - a small town 30 minutes from Berlin - where we made out way to Cecilienhof Palace. The palace was built by Frederick the Great and, for a palace, is quite small - only 170 rooms, most of which are used as a hotel.

Cecilienhof is also the place where the leaders of the Allies at the end of World War II met to decide how to divide Berlin and Germany between them. A number of rooms have been left open for the public to visit and have been decorated with the furniture used by each of the Superpower leaders - Britain, USSR and America.

During the cold war, Potsdam was in East Germany and the border ran through the middle of "Virgin Bay". Since it was not possible to build the wall through the bay (which is actually part of the Havel River) a 4 metre wall was erected along the banks of the bay, obscuring the beautiful views of the water.

Cecilienhof is not as small as Sans Succi, another palace build by Frederick. Sans Succi has only 12 rooms, but the site is absolutely beautiful. The building sits on top of a hill with tremendous gardens laid out in front. The gardens were originally a vineyard and the vines still grow today. The centre piece of the garden is a huge fountain, which at the time it was built, was not able to run as the technology to pump the water to the fountain had not been invented yet - electricity or steam.

The only time Frederick ever saw the fountain work was after snow had filled the basin built on another hill. When the snow had melted and the water collected, the valves were opened and for 35 minutes, the fountain was a fountain. It would not be for another 100 years for the technology to be available to run the fountain continuously.

Headed back to Berlin over the Glienicke Bridge. The border between the East and West Berlins ran directly through the middle of the bridge and a white line is still painted on the road to show the border. The bridge was the location where both the Western and Soviet forces swapped a number of spies over the duration of the 48 years of separation.