Berlin is a city of so much history. A vibrant tapestry of the old and the new, a city once ravaged by war and ruthless power is now peaceful throughout the icy streets. It isn’t easy to see the divide that was created by the iron curtain. The architecture blends as one, though the freezing winter streets of the east have a soviet feel. The modernity of the city centre isn’t hard to miss, tall glass buildings, and shopping centres, erupt from the old, and fall back away as you head west.
We spent a mere 24 hours in Germany’s capital, saw a handful of the sights and swiftly left again via a four-hour stopover in Brussels airport.
Arriving in the pitch black winter evening, its evidently quite easy to get lost, and get on the wrong train, heading west and out of the city instead of east and into the city, in our struggle to find our way we saw the centre and its architecture a light in the dark, a view I doubt we would have seen if we didn’t get our journey so wrong. However finally arriving at our hostel, which was alive and buzzing even in the dead of night, we immediately went to sleep in preparation for the coming day.
The next day we woke earlier than the birds, a silent city engulfed under a deep grey blanket. We got ready for the day and hit the streets. We started by searching for breakfast, and after crossing the Spree we found a delightful bakery and filled our rumbling bellies. On the way to the station we discovered one of a handful of Photoautomats scattered throughout the bustling city, of course we decided to seize the opportunity to savour a memory.
First stop was the Tiergarten and a lung burning stroll up the 285 steps to the viewing platform below the lustrous bronze statue of Victoria. After walking the final stretch of the Tiergarten to the Brandenburg Gate my legs were once again refreshed and ready to tour more of the metropolis. After a short but productive photoshoot at a world famous site that was once flanked by the Iron Curtain. We paid our respects to the holocaust victims at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. On uneven ground the stelae rise up around the viewer encasing them inside a maze of concrete.
Our next destination; the Humboldt University and Bebel Platz. The glorious buildings entrance is shadowed by its history; it was the site of a Nazi book burning ceremony carried out by the German Student Association. The square covered in perilous ice was beautiful though it’s past mars the viewer’s perception. Just around the corner is the Neue Wache a war memorial where inside sits the sculpture of “A Mother with her Dead Son” below an opening in the roof funnelling light onto the statue. Situated next to the memorial is the German History Museum, in which we had a quick peruse through time before heading back to the hostel to collect our paperwork for the Reichstag visit we had planned.
We walked the same streets we had during the day to get to the Reichstag but somehow the lack of natural light made them appear more welcoming to me as if a warmth radiated from the orange hue of the street lights. We bypassed the Brandenburg gate once again, snapping a few hurried photos on my phone, before getting to the illustrious Reichstag Building for our visit to the glass viewing dome. The tour was led by a recording fed through an earpiece, which talked you through every step you took around the feat of environmental engineering, centred by 360 mirrored glass panels channelling daylight into the Bundestag chamber 10 meters below.
We finished our whirlwind tour at the Brandenburg Gate for the final time taking the chance to photograph it in all its illuminated glory, stopping only to enjoy a hot drink in the shadow of a renowned piece of German history.
Our journey to the airport was short and surprisingly warm, our taxi took us through streets we wouldn’t have otherwise passed through, allowing us to take in sights we would have never had the opportunity to see. Walls were littered with enormous works of monochrome street art, buildings of all different shapes and sizes intertwined like a child’s bag of pick ‘n’ mix, not wasting any land.
Our 24 hours in Berlin flew by, and it is safe to say one day we will return to explore the maze once again.
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