Photos from Berlin

 

Back in May, we went to Berlin for a long weekend.  Berlin is about a six hour drive to the North.  Dan had travelled there for a meeting a couple years ago, and I had been really looking forward to seeing another area of Germany.

Ryan in front of the Ampelmann store.

We stayed at a Novotel, which is a chain hotel that we have found to be family friendly.  The hotel was located in the eastern side of Berlin, and had easy access to the subway, which made getting around pretty easy.

Reichstag- a German government building

The kids thought this sculpture was hysterical!

Naturally we did a lot of walking around to the various sights and monuments.  We did our best to talk to the kids about the history of Berlin, in regards to Nazi history, then the division of Berlin among the Allied Forces, and reunification. 

Part of where the Berlin Wall stood from 1961-1989

Berlin Wall Memorial

It was nice to see that Berlin has not glossed over it's history, and there is a monument to recognize just about every atrocity that has occurred in Germany in the last hundred years.  However, visiting these monuments is heart-wrenching and no monument or plaque can ever help the people who suffered from those evils that were committed here. 

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Brandenburg Gate

Hooray for Starbucks with a great view!

Berlin is a city with a lot of 'character'.  It is not 'charming' like Munich or Salzburg.  What I found surprising was the amount of graffiti and garbage that was sprawled everywhere.  When we first moved to Germany, I was taken aback by the amount of graffiti in Ulm, but it is nothing compared to Berlin.  Most of Germany is extremely clean and people take great pride in maintaining their homes, cars, and cities. 

This wasn't my bottle of Jager, but rather some garbage left on the railing to the river

I think that every time we got on the U-bahn there were young people drinking beer, even at ten in the morning!  I feel like an old fart to be griping about the youngsters (I am only in my 30's!) but there was definitely a large part of the population in Berlin that was heavily pierced and tattooed, and in combination with the sprawling garbage and graffiti, it did not leave me with a great impression of the city.  In the photo below you can see a man with a beer behind Ryan.  What you can't see in the photo are the obvious signs posted on the trains that say 'No Alcohol'.
 



 

 

Let me also say that my husband loved Berlin, and so do other people I have talked to.  There is so much the see there, and so much history that we probably missed, and I really wish that we had signed up for a tour.  I hate to be negative about our trip to Berlin, but to be honest I wouldn't want to go back again.