The first May bank holiday we set off for Berlin - always a fascinating mix of old and new. It was Shaun's first visit to Berlin so we hit all the main sites, starting out with a really good walking tour focussing on the war, the wall and Berlin's pre-war history. Shaun came determined to leave with a piece of the wall and after doing the obligatory out-front pose, now has a small multicoloured chunk to prop up a small book one day.
As well as the obvious wall sites, we trekked around to a couple of others ourselves, including a deserted wall watchtower which has been left in situ down a Berlin side street - quite eerie and shocking to realise this was in use only just over 20 years ago.
I wanted to return to Kaiser-Wilhem-Gedachtniskirche, the church left as a hollowed-out shell by Allied bombs during the war which now houses amongst its ruins a new modern concrete octagonal church - very inauspicious from the outside but so beautiful on the inside with hundreds of small bright blue stained glass panels all around. Second visit just as amazing as the first. Since my last visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has been erected - a really interesting and sobering walk through a deliberately disorientating landscape.
On a lighter note I had been keen to get Shaun into one of Berlin's freikorperkultur parks (clothing optional) to experience some real German atmosphere! however we were slightly foiled by the weather. On the day we tried, due to adverse nudie conditions there was only one older man with a ponytail reading the newspaper partly clothed and Shaun didn't feel too empowered to join him. Coffee and cake seemed a slightly more approachable option (and the cake was very good).
Finally on our last night in Berlin we went on a guided 'alternative pub crawl' - there are no photos unfortunately but the highlights were definitely the ping pong bar - a welcoming bar in an abandoned building where all the patrons circle a ping pong table having a shot each across the table - sudden death means you end up running around the table before long - the shagpile wallpaper tranny bar and finally the reggae bar on a houseboat in a Berlin lake.
All good fun but some very sore heads for the plane ride back the next day...
M
