A Cultureful Trip to Berlin - January 2016

[NatsyNoo]

The Day Before – Friday 8th January

The alarm went off bright and early this morning after a late night the night before. I had just been given a new project at work that wasn't in great shape when I took it on so I had a lot of work to do which kept me up late and meant I knew I had a busy day ahead of me. Not the way I'd usually like the start a holiday but it comes with the territory, I guess, so I can't complain.

Anyway, my Friday whizzed by in a flash, but thankfully, I got the key things that I needed to do done before it was time to go and get Matt from work. I was feeling a bit peckish so I grabbed a sandwich and some crisps from M&S before we hit the road.

The journey was going very smoothly until we hit Ringwood where we were tailed back. It turned out there was a fatal collision on the other side of the road which meant that the traffic was being turned around and merged into our carriageway.

We eventually arrived in Luton about an hour later than planned, and headed into Nandos for a bite to eat before checking into our hotel (Premier Inn Luton Airport). Nandos is usually a firm favourite for us but I wasn't blown away tonight. The chicken was a bit charred for my taste, and Matt had to wait a really long time for some of his beloved XXX Hot sauce. Anyway, it was nice to finally be out of the car though I must admit to feeling really tired by this point and ready to get to bed.

The hotel was just 10 minutes away from the restaurant, and was, as per usual, very comfortable. Matt wanted to finish watching the FA Cup game with Liverpool so he did that while I had a shower and got everything ready for this morning. At about 9.30pm, I climbed into bed and eventually fell asleep.

[NatsyNoo]

The alarm went off at 4am. It was very painful, I'm not going to lie, but we were excited for our mini break!

I haven't done a pretrippie so now seems a good time to explain why we are headed to Berlin, as it's not an obvious city break choice for Disney enthusiasts! Matt has a very keen interest in 20th century war, so has always wanted to go. I have been twice when I was a teenager, so this year, for our January break, I finally relented and booked for us to go! The condition though was that we needed to keep it as cheap as possible as we have big plans for our summer holiday this year, so when you see us eating a lot of McDonalds, don't judge

Anyway, back to it, we got ready fairly quickly and headed down to the car. We drove the 10 minutes to the car park we were booked into (Airparks Luton Airport, about £15 for the 4 days of our trip). The process was very painless, and it wasn't long until the transfer bus arrived to take us to the airport. It was about 5.10am by this point.

I had checked in earlier in the week so we dropped off our case at the Easyjet desk (two of us for 4 days in such cold climate so with bulky clothes meant we needed a case) and went through security. We didn't fancy anything heavy for breakfast, so opted for a bagel (for Matt) and smoothie (for me), with a Krispy Kreme on the plane (well we were on holiday ).

Soon enough, our flight was called for boarding, and it turned out, it wasn't very busy. There was also a strong tail wind so we had a shortened flight time at less than 90 minutes! Not bad going! We took off on time at 7am. I spent the time listening to some music and closing my eyes (not sleeping, just resting) and Matt watched some Top Gear on his tablet.

Plane selfie



The landing was smooth and once we had collected our case, we headed towards the airport train station. This was about a 5 minute walk from the terminal building and was well signposted.

Our plan had been to get the S-Bahn into the city, but what I hadn't been prepared for was engineering works on all S-Bahn north to south lines this weekend! Sometimes it just doesn't matter how much you plan, it still won't be enough. Anyway, it didn't take long to work out an alternative route on the overground (R) train so after about a 20 minute wait, we were soon on our way. It only took about 30 minutes to get into the city, so we got off the train at Alexanderplatz and changed onto the U2 to Spittelmarkt, which was near our hotel.

I was expecting it to be a good 10 minute walk based on the maps I'd seen, but in the end, we could see the hotel very clearly when we exited the station and it took less than 5 minutes! We were very pleased with that!

We checked in at our hotel, the Novotel Berlin Mitte, but our room wasn't ready (it was only 11.30am by this point so no surprises there!) so we asked the hotel to take care of our cases and then set off on our adventure!

Today's plan was to explore the Kurfurstendamm area. We hopped back on the U2 and got off just outside of the KaDeWe, Berlin's biggest department store, probably best likened to Harrods or Selfridges. We had a little wander around, and eyed up some lovely looking Disney Steiff bears (this trip was a budget one though, so no extravagant purchases today!), before heading back out onto the Kurfurstendamm.





Giant Steiff bear!



We passed a couple of Imbiss (Matt was keen to eat a lot of Wurst this trip!) but he opted to wait until later on to partake in his first Currywurst, and not long after, arrived at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. I explained to Matt that this church still had a lot of the damage from WW2 to see so he enjoyed looking around that.







One of my favourite things about Berlin is the traffic lights – Ampelmann!







We continued walking down the Kurfurstendamm and eventually ended up at this afternoon's activity – The Story of Berlin Museum.

This museum was one that I remembered well from my teenage years and I planned it for today to give Matt some of the chronological context behind the city and what he would be seeing over the next couple of days. It was E12 each which I feel is great value for money. The icing on the cake for me with this museum is that it includes a tour of a nuclear bunker built during the Cold War within the ticket price. Again, for a war geek like Matt, this was a great experience which he really enjoyed. I'd strongly recommend anyone visiting Berlin to take the time to go to The Story of Berlin. It's well worth every penny.

We finished our time at the museum at 3pm and by this time, were super hungry as we hadn't had lunch, so we decided to hop on the nearest U-Bahn to Potsdammer Platz and find something yummy. We first headed to The Mall of Berlin, as that was the first place we saw, and found a store in the basement called Kaisers which sold yummy looking food which would be low cost and low fuss. We opted for a Currywurst (not the most authentic but it was a start!) and a long soft roll topped with cheese and ham. This with a Sprite came to E4.20. Super cheap and actually really yummy!





After this, we wandered around the rest of the Mall as well as the nearby Arkaden shopping centre, and then headed over to the Sony Centre so Matt could see some more WW2 remnants. I recall this being a hotel room which survived the bombings which otherwise flattened Potsdammer Platz. It now looks like it's been turned into a restaurant.



At 5pm, we decided to head back to Kaisers for some drinks from the room and to get some dinner. We wandered around the food court, and with the whole trip ahead of us, Matt decided that he'd just like to stick with a McDonalds tonight. He had seem posters up of a McRosti burger (which was basically a burger with bacon and a hash brown) and he was keen to try it, so he had that and I had nuggets with a cheeky cheeseburger and a cherry pie for pudding. That came to E14.27. The thing we loved about most McDonalds was that there were self-service machines which you could order from in English so I didn't have to humiliate with myself with my now rubbish German (it's very rusty since my A Level days!), though I did get better as the trip went on!



In Kaisers, we picked up some Coke, Fanta Mango and water, plus some Kinder chocolates and Haribos as gifts for people at home, which came to E11.49.

We arrived back at the hotel at 6.30pm after a long day with lots of steps racked up. I was hopeful for a view of the TV Tower since we weren't far from Alexanderplatz so I peeked out of the window, and we were in luck!

Here's a few piccies of our room – we were really pleased with it for the price we paid!







The view



I unpacked and had a shower in an effort to warm up, and then we played some of the games we had brought with us, knowing that our evenings would largely be based in the hotel. I think I fell asleep at about 9.30pm.

Steps – 24,137
Distance – 16.5km

[NatsyNoo]

Matt was really looking forward to today, as we were gong to Sachsenhausen, which is the concentration camp situated in Oranienburg, just outside of the city. It sounds bizarre to say he was looking forward to it, but he is so interested in this period of history and has watched so many hours of documentaries about the Holocaust and he was finally getting the chance to see one for real and understand the environment that this dreadful period of history took place in.

We woke up naturally at 7.45am. There was no reason to set an alarm today so planned to just get up when we woke up.

We caught the U-Bahn to Potsdammer Platz so we could change onto the S-Bahn to Oranienburg but I hadn't realised that the engineering works that scuppered our plans yesterday would also affect today's plans so we had a bit of time to watch until the next overground train. We therefore decided to find a McDonalds so I could get a McDonalds. Matt got an orange juice too. Both came to E3.38.

At 9.40am, the R5 arrived, and took us to Oranienburg. From there, Sachsenhausen is a 2.5km walk.

We walked around the camp, taking in the eerie atmosphere and reading about the atrocities that took place here. I have been here before twice and it was no less sad or gut wrenching. It's free to visit Sachsenhausen, but we opted to buy the map for E2.

We didn't take any photos when in Sachsenhausen. It just doesn't feel right. In fact, I was really cross to see people taking selfies. Just not the place people!

At 12.40pm, we made tracks back to the city, but we had a 40 minute wait for the next train. We decided to find somewhere for lunch, and found a McDonalds attached to the station. It was raining quite heavily by this point so it was a welcome relief from the cold and wet to. There wasn't a lot of other options for us, so McDonalds it was! We decided just to share a meal as this was just lunch, so decided on a Triple Cheeseburger meal. This came to E6.69. I also got a hot chocolate which was E3 or so, I think.



At 1.40pm, we got the train back to Berlin, and headed straight to the Brandenburg Gate. The plan for this afternoon was just to wander around and cross off some of the sights. We took some piccies, and then wandered towards the Reichstag.









One thing that we found when we arrived in Berlin the day before was that the pavements were very icy and slippery. They had had some snow in the week prior which had turned into ice and in turn made it pretty treacherous to walk around. The city had gritted the main pathways but today, it rained more and froze on top of that. As a result, we didn't head too far further up the street to get photos as we knew we'd be back here tomorrow.

We wandered back through the Gate and down Unter Den Linten and then onto Friedrichstrasse. We were surprised about how everything was closed as it was a Sunday. I had assumed it would be like London and be 'open' everyday but no. Today, the city was largely shut down.

We saw some Berliner Bears along the way!





We got halfway down Friedrichstrasse, along which I got a pretzel, which was less than E2.



We found Checkpoint Charlie. We read about the history of the wall and some of the stories of people trying to cross from east to west, and then moved onto our next stop. A quick check of the map said it made sense for us to visit the Topography of Terror next, so that's what we did.

Checkpoint Charlie:















Topography of Terror:





The Topography of Terror is a museum built on the site of the old SS & Gestapo HQ. It opened about 5 years ago I think so while I had visited the site previously, I hadn't been into the museum. This was a free one which got a big thumbs up for me! The exhibition was based around the history and activities of the SS & Gestapo so again, lots of Holocaust references. It was extremely interesting and an excellent museum, especially given that it was free. Again, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

Our last couple of sites for today were the Holocaust Memorial and Fuhrer Bunker (now a car park but important for Matt to see). These were not far away so we continued our wander to find them.


We also decided to stop by the Brandenburg Gate again to see it lit up in the dark, and it looked fantastic!









With all of our sights for today ticked off, we decided to head for some dinner so decided to go back to Potsdammer Platz and try one of the restaurants in the Mall of Berlin food court that we had seen the day before. What I hadn't expected was that even the shopping centre would be closed, and it had been all day! I just assumed that even though the streets were closed, the shopping centres would be open. I was wrong and apparently it seems to be the case across the cities, with them only opening maybe one Sunday every few months.

With that plan scuppered, we decided to just order a Dominos to be delivered to the hotel, so with the magic of Google Translate, I managed to navigate my way around the Dominos website and order some yummy pizza for us. It was about E22 for this deal.



After a shower, we played some more games, and it was another early night for me!

Steps – 26,383
Distance – 18km

[NatsyNoo]

This morning, we had to be up on time as we had a booking for a visit to the Reichstag (parliament building), so we got up at 7.30am.

To keep costs down and as we knew we weren't going far today, we opted not to buy transport tickets, so we walked from our hotel to the Reichstag via Potsdammer Platz. It took about 30 minutes.

I spotted this guy as we walked past the American Embassy...probably my favourite Berliner Bear!



Our tour was booked for 9am but we were a bit early which was no problem. After security, we were led into the building and taken in a lift up to the dome, where we were given an audio guide which talked us through the sights we'd see as we wandered up the dome. There was also a small exhibit at the bottom of the dome about the history of the Reichstag. We left the building at about 9.45am (so about an hour from start to finish) and made a start on our 'hit list'.



Looking into the parliament



In the dome







First stop was the Gendarmenmarkt, so we headed back to Friedrichstrasse via Unter Den Linten as we had the day before. It didn't take too long and wasn't hard to find, so we saw the Berliner and Franzoesische Doms and the Konzerthaus.











We then moved onto our next stop, which was the Museum Insel. We are not particular fans of art galleries, so we had planned just to wander around and see from the outside, but the ice made this impossible, so we got some photos from a distance.





Deutscher Dom:





Altes Museum:





We continued to make our way through the city towards Alexanderplatz, and saw the Rotesrathaus and Fernsehnturm (TV Tower) along the way.











It didn't take long before we arrived at Alexanderplatz, and our first stop had to be Primark to get Matt some thermal socks. He suffers from Chilblains in the winter and I hadn't thought to get him thermal socks before we came away so he had sore feet. These helped him a bit for the rest of our trip but unfortunately was a bit too late, as the damage had already been done. These cost E5 for 2 pairs.

We hadn't had any breakfast today and it was already late morning so we grabbed a pastry from the cafe area of a supermarket in the basement of the Alexa shopping centre. I had a Streusel type cake and Matt also did but with a cherry filling. Both were scrummy and again,only E4 or so.



Our plan had been to have a late lunch at KFC after we'd wandered around the area but when we went in, we found it to be very expensive by comparison to what we had eaten throughout the city. Something like a 6 piece bucket and chips with no drink for E22. We decided to skip that and (shamefully) head back to McDonalds in the Alexa (the choice here wasn't as good as the Mall at Berlin in Potsdammer Platz) I had nuggets with a cheeky cheeseburger again, and Matt had a burger meal. This was E12.67, and then we had a McFlurry (for Matt) and a caramel sundae (for me) which was an extra E3.39.



There wasn't really a lot else for us to do at this point – we had ticked off our 'to do' list for this trip and tomorrow was home time, so we decided to just head back to the hotel and chill out. We stopped by the supermarket next door to our hotel to get Matt another drink and a snack for this evening (some rolls with ham and cheese) and spent the evening relaxing! Something we don't often do on holidays so it made a nice change, actually!

Steps – 22,803
Distance – 15.5km

[NatsyNoo]

Today, the plan had been to go to the Zoo, but given how cold and icy it had been, plus the fact we were trying to watch the pennies, we decided against it in the end. Instead, we opted to have a wander around the Tiergarten Park and also visit something we'd missed the day before.

We woke up naturally at 7.45am and laid in bed for a while before getting up. I packed the final bits and bobs before we dropped the bags off with reception to take care of while we spent our last few hours wandering around the city.

Our first stop was Fassbender & Rausch. This is a famous chocolate shop in the Gendarmenmarkt (we forgot yesterday) and I had hoped to have an indulgent cake for breakfast. The shop opened at 10am so I assumed the cafe would too, but it wasn't going to open for another hour. We therefore grabbed another streusel pastry in a Kaisers around the corner before heading into the shop.



Back in Fassbender & Rausch, we bought a few choccies (less than E2.15 for 2 bars & a little milk chocolate bear, it was actually very reasonably priced) and admired some of the sculptures.









Titanic





Reichstag



Brandenburg Gate



Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church



Fairytales











We walked out and spotted this dude!



We got the U-Bahn to Potsdammer Platz to go to the Tiergarten. We found the entrance fairly easily but hadn't realised just how icy it would be! We gave it our best shot but decided it was just too dangerous so ended up walking around the outside of it, dropping in to see the memorials that we wanted to see. We saw the Homosexual Memorial (similar to the Holocaust one but just a single block), Goethe, and the Soviet Memorial.









It was horrid and rainy by now, and we had seen all we had really wanted to, so we decided to return to the hotel to pick up our bags and make our way to the airport, leaving plenty of time in case of more transport issues.

This time, the S-Bahn was running, so we got the U-Bahn to Schonnhauser Allee, and then the S-Bahn to Schoenefeld Airport. We got to the airport earlier than planned but I'd rather it be that way! What I hadn't envisaged though was that we wouldn't be allowed to drop off our bags until 2 hours before. We ended up just grabbing a seat near bag drop and I played Monopoly on the iPad for an hour until we could lose the case.

Again, we hadn't had any lunch today so grabbed a burger and chips each at Burger King (E14.98) after security, after which time, it wasn't much longer until we were called for boarding. Our flight took off 10 minutes early, and we landed at 5.30pm local time in Luton, which was ahead of schedule. We picked up the car and were on the road by 6.15pm.

Once home, we unpacked, and it wasn't long until we hit the hay after a cold and busy but fun little trip away, with another one ticked off the bucket list for Matt.

[NatsyNoo]

Highs

Matt enjoying it so much, particularly Sachsenhausen
Being able to go at a fairly chilled pace
Doing it on the cheap – yes we didn't partake in a lot of local cuisine, but this time around, food wasn't really a priority for us; and low cost is exactly the reason I love city breaks! Transport and the Story of Berlin museum are the only things we paid for in the end
Our food finds – especially Kaisers, cheese & ham topped roll, Streusel cake
Brandenburg Gate
Reichstag visit – love that this is free!
Topography of Terror museum – really interesting!
Story of Berlin museum – well worth the money, especially the nuclear bunker visit which is included

Niggles (not really lows)

Rain on our last day – we were lucky that it hadn't really rained too much beforehand, but it put a dampener (excuse the pun!) on our last day
S-Bahn cancellations – it doesn't matter how much you plan, if the service isn't running, you need to find another way
Not enough sausage – Matt had high hopes for his sausage intake but alas, Imbisses were few and far between compared with our expectations, and closed on the Sunday. He has big plans to recreate the Currywurst back home though!
Icy footpaths – it ended up being a game about who will fall first, but thankfully, we both remained with both feet on the ground and no broken bones

Hints & Recommendations

Berlin is a really wonderful city and I would urge everyone to visit in their lifetime. It is a truly historically relevant city and I think it's important for people to visit to really understand how it has influenced the way we live today. I also personally feel that it should be compulsory for everyone to visit a concentration camp through school to really take on board and understand the impact of genocide.

For those planning trips or thinking about it though, some hints & tips from Mr & Mrs Natsynoo:

The weather – remember, Berlin is pretty much eastern Europe, and as such, it's freezing cold, so make sure you dress for it. We did ok, but if going to a similar climate again in the future, I would definitely take thermals for me even if not Matt (except for his socks, of course)

Icy pavements – the footpaths were icy and given how well prepared the city was, I don't think it's unusual, so make sure you pack appropriate footwear

Validate transport tickets – we didn't realise on our first day but you have to validate your transport tickets when you buy them. If you don't, even though you've bought the ticket, you will receive a penalty of E60 or so. It's not well publicised so easy to miss!
For info, it's E7.60 at present for an all day ABC pass. An AB pass isn't much cheaper, about E7.20.

Book a Reichstag visit – this is free and well worth it. It's very well run and offers great views across the city

Visit Topography of Terror – another freebie and so very interesting and well done

Visit Story of Berlin Museum – this one is E12 but well worth it. I'd especially recommend making it a first day activity to contextualise the rest of your visit. The nuclear bunker tour alone makes it well worth it and is something a bit different!

Trip Costs

I thought I'd share a breakdown of our costs with you for those worried that it's an expensive break – it's not!

Hotel - £172 Novotel Berlin Mitte booked through Travel Republic on the £1 deposit
Flights - £132 Easyjet from Luton including one case
Airport Hotel - £39 Premier Inn Luton Airport
Airport Parking - £14 (ish) Airparks Luton Airport
Transport – E45.60 (3 days ABC travelcard)
Activities – E24
Food – about E100 for 4 days/3 nights

[sweetemotion]

Loved reading this report. I've always wanted to visit Berlin. I've only just ventured into Germany last year but I loved every minute of it. I'm also a bit of a history and WWII geek, I went to Pearl Harbour and the Anne Frank house within a year of each other and it just seemed so surreal to be standing there. I did think about visiting the Dachau concentration camp on my visit to Munich last year but as we were there mostly for the Christmas stuff it just seemed out of place.

If you're interested, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles is also really interesting. It's very very sad though, very eye opening. It's set out so that each visitor gets assigned a piece of paper, that paper tells you information about a real person who lived at that time. As you go through the museum you get to know more of their story and at the end you get to learn if they survived it. They also had a lady there who gave her story on her time in Auschwitz. It was really sad and I could have burst into tears in there. It is very interesting though, I learned a lot.

[NatsyNoo]

Originally Posted by sweetemotion

Loved reading this report. I've always wanted to visit Berlin. I've only just ventured into Germany last year but I loved every minute of it. I'm also a bit of a history and WWII geek, I went to Pearl Harbour and the Anne Frank house within a year of each other and it just seemed so surreal to be standing there. I did think about visiting the Dachau concentration camp on my visit to Munich last year but as we were there mostly for the Christmas stuff it just seemed out of place.

If you're interested, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles is also really interesting. It's very very sad though, very eye opening. It's set out so that each visitor gets assigned a piece of paper, that paper tells you information about a real person who lived at that time. As you go through the museum you get to know more of their story and at the end you get to learn if they survived it. They also had a lady there who gave her story on her time in Auschwitz. It was really sad and I could have burst into tears in there. It is very interesting though, I learned a lot.

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Thank you for reading!
Fingers crossed we can make it to Pearl Harbor ourselves this year and Amsterdam is on the list for sure!
I'm thinking Iceland for this time next year?!
I'll definitely check that museum out if we end up in LA this year, it sounds right up Matt's street!

[P&S]

Great report thank you and I'm sure Matt would enjoy Krakow but even though we went in March we still had snow and it was very cold.

[NatsyNoo]

Originally Posted by P&S

Great report thank you and I'm sure Matt would enjoy Krakow but even though we went in March we still had snow and it was very cold.

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Thanks for reading!
Yes it's absolutely on my present ideas list for him, maybe for Christmas!