Beer, Bears and Bratwurst in Berlin - day 4 Friday 26th October 2018

[Goldia]

Welcome to the Beer, Bears and Bratwurst in Berlin trip report!

I’m Abby, my DH is Dave and we have 2 children Max (14) and Kate (11). We love a city break in October half term and this year we were trying out Germany as we’d never been before, specifically Berlin. We like walking and each day we had a tour designed by me to take in the sights of the city.

We had a very slow start today and didn’t leave the hotel until 11am, I guess all the steps from yesterday had caught up with us. We went to the Anhalter Bahnhof, which was just on the corner opposite the hotel.

This was a station where many Jewish people were transported from during the war.

All that is left of the old building is the front façade.

I quite liked how this was left there as a quiet memorial to the atrocities that happened rather than being bulldozed.

We headed past Potsdamer Platz to the Tiergarten Park. I spotted a couple of bears on the way.

The kids had given up with the idea of being in the photos now! They were fighting over who would get to take the photos.

We stopped off at the Holocaust memorial on the way as it is just over the road.

Tiergarten is Berlin’s oldest public park.

At the entrance to the park opposite the Holocaust memorial is the memorial to homosexuals who were persecuted during the war.

There were a set of stones from all the continents.

There is a memorial to Soviet soldiers killed in the war.

We wandered around and saw lots of different ponds, gardens and statues.

This is a statue of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

The kids had expected to find some swings or something! But nothing yet so we kept on looking.

We went into the Rose Garden. The kids had a rest while we wandered around.

Lots of photos coming up as it was beautiful even for the end of October.

Eventually the kids came and found us sitting under a pergola, they knew we had some biscuits and were getting a rumble in their bellies.

We saw Victory Column but decided to stop off for a coffee before attempting to climb it.

We wandered over to the English Garden café and had coffees and hot chocolate plus cake!

Kate spotted a special Kate pizza - but we weren't ready for lunch yet.

The kids liked the sugar - apparently this is very posh as it's got a special picture on the packet!

They were comparing who had the most foam on the top of their hot chocolates.

The kids both had brownies.

I had a gooseberry meringue cake, which was delicious!

Dave had a cheesecake.

More statues.

Then we wandered back to the Victory Column.

It was just 11 euros for all of us to look around the museum at the bottom and then up to the very top of the column.

The base of the column has a viewing platform all around with mosaics on the walls.

Inside it was a single spiral staircase for people to go up and down and there were various stopping points on the way which had little seats for me to sit on.

I am not a big fan of these sorts of staircases where you can see through the stairs and I was pretty confident I would not like it at the top. I ended up clinging to the wall and Dave took a few photos of both us and the view.

I'm trying to pretend I'm enjoying it, but I'm not fooling anyone.

Apparently the view was amazing but I didn't want to look out at the horizon.

I made it back down again and then decided we needed to stop off for some lunch.

To get back into the park there are underpasses from the column and the kids had fun playing with the lights on the wall.

We walked towards Berlin zoo across the other side of the park from the column.

Of course we passed more statues on the way.

And another bear!

Kaiser Wilhelm church is another building that was damaged by bombing. The kids were not interested in me stopping here though as it was now nearly 3pm and the cake had not been enough to satisfy them at all!

We went to another of Caroline’s recommendations for a late lunch.

Wartesaals is an Italian restaurant.

We devoured the bread as we were starving!

Max had another burger but this time had fanta.

Kate wanted to have something from the children’s menu and wanted to order spaghetti Bolognese, but ended up getting a margherita pizza. I'm not quite sure how this got mixed up in the ordering. She did eat it all but made us promise we would eat at another Italian restaurant for dinner so we could make it up to her!

I had a vegetarian pizza. This was a delicious pizza.

Dave had Bolognese.

We then walked along the river back to the hotel for our afternoon rest.

We spotted a couple of bears on the way!

Finally there was a park the kids could enjoy and they had a quick play.

We went down to Potsdamer Platz and took a photo with another bear on the way!

Kate reminded us she hadn't had her Bolognese for lunch so we ended up in Josty Pasta and Pizza for dinner. We asked for a table for four and the waiter said if we could wait at the bar for 5 minutes the family at the table near the window were just leaving. He said he would bring a couple of Prosecco’s and cokes to us while we waited.
Dave and myself then debated whether whether these drinks were complimentary or not. It turned out they were!

We ordered a bottle of Prosecco and the kids both had an extra glass of coke. They ordered from the kids menus as it had been quite a late lunch.

Kate had a spaghetti Bolognese.

Max had a margherita pizza.

I had a vegetable tagliatelle which was pretty tasty.

Dave had a tuna pizza.

The waiter was really friendly and talked about how he had recently taken his nephew over to London to see an American football match.

We walked back to the hotel and played some more cards before heading to bed.

It was a lovely day again, cold but not wet and we enjoyed taking our time to explore the park. I'm glad I was able to climb up to the top of the column it felt like a real achievement. We vowed to not have any pizza or pasta the following day though!

Steps today: 26,674

[Melbatb]

Another day of walking and statues! The pizzas all look delicious! I really need to go back - it has been too long!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Another day of walking and statues! The pizzas all look delicious! I really need to go back - it has been too long!

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It was a bit of a slower day today but still a fair amount of walking. We enjoyed all the statues, even though we didn't know who all the people were.

[smithlane]

The Tiergarten looks beautiful. I'm loving all the bear photos, I wonder how many there are over the city?
I'm glad Kate got her Bolognese in the end! All the food looks fab, Italian is my favourite!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by smithlane

The Tiergarten looks beautiful. I'm loving all the bear photos, I wonder how many there are over the city?
I'm glad Kate got her Bolognese in the end! All the food looks fab, Italian is my favourite!

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The report all gets a bit samey from this point on...my kids playing in the park!

I didn't know about the bears before we went but there are so many and they are beautiful I couldn't resist posing with them. I bet the locals thought we were loons!

[DisneyDaffodil]

Wow, nearly 27,000 steps. That’s going to burn off the pasta 😀. Such an interesting day, it looks a really good place to visit, definitely going on my ever-growing places I want to visit list 😀

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by DisneyDaffodil

Wow, nearly 27,000 steps. That’s going to burn off the pasta 😀. Such an interesting day, it looks a really good place to visit, definitely going on my ever-growing places I want to visit list 😀

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Oh I know it's silly steps really! I do always think that if I've walked a lot then I'm justified having pudding.

[OB1LukeLucas]

Another great day. The photos look fab, I definitely want to visit Berlin it looks really good. I’m pleased you continued to find more bears!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by OB1LukeLucas

Another great day. The photos look fab, I definitely want to visit Berlin it looks really good. I’m pleased you continued to find more bears!

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I wonder how many bears there are in the city, probably hundreds. The days all started to get a bit samey from now on as we just visited parks and took photos of statues. Well done for persevering through the report.

[collybird]

I felt quite emotional seeing the places you visited today, I wonder how the people of Berlin feel seeing these reminders every day.

The park looks beautiful.

The Kate pizza sounds delicious, it's a pity it was too early. Your real lunch looks delicious though. Dinner also looks good, I'd have probably been a bit annoyed at having to have Italian twice in the same day, but a promise is a promise haha.