My love-hate relationship with Berlin's weather

For my last full day in Berlin, I had made plans to go out to Potsdam. Potsdam is about half an hour by train from the centre of Berlin, and is full of old parks and castles. I made out a planned walking route and set out at about 10 o'clock.

My Flickr set for Berlin is still up:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645070653730/

The weather had deteriorated since I arrived in Berlin. It was just starting to spit with rain, and I was seriously contemplating not going out today, but I decided to brave the weather and "just do it".

My planned path first took me through the gardens of Sanssouci Castle, an 18th-century summer residence castle for a former King of Prussia, and is considered one of Germany's rivals to Paris' Versailles. The entired garden complex is mostly manicured, with some sections of wild grass growing. There are a pair of small castles at the western end, which I went past first. It should be illegal to need a jumper in summer, but here it is:

Too bloody cold!

Like the other different gardens in Potsdam, the park is dotted with all sorts of castles and parks, including an Orangerie, the Chinese House, a Picture Gallery and a botanical garden. Some of my favourites from the gardens and castle:

My favourites from Sanssouci

For lunch today I wound up at a cafe inside an old windmill. The charge of €3.50 for a sandwich was a little steep, but it still tasted quite nice, although a little dry:

Today's cooked ham sandwich

Before I got to my next stop, I came across a small park which I thought would be worth exploring. Turns out there's a massive belvedere, called the Belvedere auf dem Pfingstberg. I didn't go in, but the outside itself looked amazing:

Just another little park in Berlin

I then headed across and up to the Cecilienhof Palace, which is on the grounds of the Neuer Garten. The palace looks just like your larger version of a typical German country house, with a couple of manicured gardens thrown in. It was made most famous as the meeting place of Churchill, Stalin and Truman, among others, in 1945. The garden itself is the same as many other European gardens - the main attraction is supplemented by heaps of other buildings. This garden also had an Orangerie, as well as a gothic library, palace kitchen and an icehouse:

My faves from the Neuer Garten

I was really disappointed in the weather today, but occasionally you get something good out of it. This absolute cracker of a photo I got while hanging around the Marble Palace, taken across Heiliger See towards Vorstadt:

My favourite photo from today

My final park in Potsdam today was the park surrounding Babelsberg Castle. The castle itself is barely recognisable as a castle, such is the extensive maintenance going on, and there's not a whole lot in the park compared with some of the other places - there's a couple of towers and castles, and a manicured garden, but not much else. It was basically deserted, too - I saw maybe four people in over an hour:

Some of Babelsberg Park

Having seen the park, I then caught a bus back into Potsdam, where I had a pizza in a restaurant inside an old water tower, before heading back to Berlin for the night:

Pizza in the Wasserturm

That's all for now, I'm not planning on doing much tomorrow before my afternoon flight to Vienna.

A day in West Berlin

After spending most of yesterday in the eastern attractions of Berlin, today I made plans to visit the western attractions, including the Berlin Zoo and the adjacent Tierpark, as well as walking along the banks of the River Spree for a while.

My Flickr set for Berlin is still up:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645070653730/

The day started off badly, as I overslept and got a start that wasn't nearly early enough. It wasn't until about 11 that I rocked up at the zoo. I was excited to see it as it has what it claims as the largest number of different species in the world. The exhibits were a little small for some of the animals, but most of them were more than big enough. I found it amusing that I could see kangaroos and emus more than 17,000 kilometres away from home.

True to form, there was an enormous number of species at the zoo. There were birds from all over the world (including Brahminy Kites from Australia), and some of the cutest-looking miniature owls you've ever seen. I think the ibexes were my favourite animal. They had a sort of rocky outcrop, and they are naturals at rock-climbing. Some of the manoeuvres that even the kids were pulling were outrageous. Of course, being Europe, no zoo would be complete without lots of pretty flowerbeds, fountains and old buildings:

My faves from Berlin Zoo

Once I'd left the zoo I headed back to the S-Bahn station to get some lunch. Fried noodles are another popular snack choice in Europe, and I got a box for €2.50:

Today's noodle box lunch

The Berliner Tierpark is a massive park area that adjoins the zoo. It's full of walking tracks, and has plenty of little nooks and crannies to explore. The Siegessäule (Victory Column), commemorating a 19th-century victory for the Prussians, is supposed to have magnificent views of the centre of Berlin from its viewing platform. Unfortunately I was 10 minutes late and the platform was closed:

Walking track in the Tierpark and the Siegessäule

I took a detour north at the end of the park to take a walk along the banks of the River Spree. The river was magnificently photogenic in the evening light. I took so many photos that I had to break out my second memory card:

The River Spree in the afternoon

My next afternoon stops were the Reichstag building, where the German parliament sits, and Brandenburg Gate. The Reichstag building looked very pretty in the afternoon sun, but unfortunately I will have to come back to Brandenburg Gate - while it was great to experience a world cup match in Germany, the whole plaza, including the Gate itself, was adjourned with soccer stuff:

The Reichstag building

I then walked from the Brandenburg Gate to the Berliner Dom, which is another of Berlin's older buildings. It looked absolutely fabulous at sunset, just like everything else so far in Berlin:

Berliner Dom

My dinner today - a Doner kebab:

Doner kebab

Finally, after finishing dinner, I went to the nearby Alexanderplatz and took a stab at some night photography. The square doesn't have a whole lot in it, but the surrounding buildings are lit up quite nicely at night:

Alexanderplatz at night

A day in East Berlin

It was rather a fascinating experience last night, as when I got off the S-Bahn at Hackescher Markt, Germany was still playing their World Cup game against Portugal. Every bar had at least one TV, and some even had one at every table. The collective roar when Germany scored their fourth goal was something I will never forget:

Germans love their football

Be sure to check out my Flickr set for Berlin:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645070653730/

After meeting my host Sebastian, I got some shut-eye before waking up today for the first of three full days in Berlin. I had decided to visit some of the attractions on the eastern side of Berlin.

First up was a visit to the East Side Gallery. It's a long, loooong section of the Berlin Wall in Friedrichshain that was never torn down after the Fall of the Wall in 1989. The result was a massive amount of graffiti that has never been removed. The whole wall section has in fact been painted with a coating which stops the original graffiti from ever being removed:

 The kaleidoscopic East Side Gallery

I also made a new plan for eating while over here. I never wanted to spend much money on food while I was over here, so I made some observations in my first few days that now stand me in good stead. I've reckoned on a decent meal for dinner every second day, eating at food stalls (known as an Imbiss in Germany) for most other meals. Ice cream is also very cheap and plentiful over here, so I expect I'll be having a few. That being said, I found a stall at the East Side Gallery selling traditional currywurst (spicy sausage palette) for €2, with an ice cream stall next door. Bargain!:

Traditional currywurst palette

I then headed walked all the way to Treptower Park, which had been recommended to me by Sebastian, stopping off to briefly photograph the Molecule Men statue, a weird-looking statue on the Spree River:

Molecule Men

In the park, along with some fabulous flowerbeds, there was also the Soviet War Memorial, which commemorates a fraction of the Soviet soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin in World War II. The park was actually fairly empty, not too many tourists apparently consider visiting the park:

Sombre emptiness at Treptower Park's war memorial

After a brief mishap getting the wrong S-Bahn (S42 goes on the anticlockwise loop, not the clockwise loop. Oops!), I made it to Tempelhofer Feld. It's a park that is open for the city's residence after the entire airport, which served West Berlin pre-reunification. You can walk the length of two active runways, as well as many of the taxiways. There is a public garden, BBQ areas, an old shooting range, and even a mini-golf course. I couldn't resist walking the length of the south runway:

A close up of the numbers at Tempelhof

Lots and lots of walking later, I arrived at a U-Bahn station and went into the city. I wanted to visit Gendarmenmarkt, where there are several big old buildings: on the north side is the Friedrichstadtkirche (Friedrichstadt Church), and the Deutscher Dom (German Church) is on the south end. In between is the Konzerthaus Berlin (Berlin Concert House). At the foot of the Konzerthaus, a German in a dinner jacket was playing the violin. BEAUTIFULLY! He had attracted quite a crowd, and I sat and listened for about half an hour. Once he was finished, he coolly packed up and rode his bicycle away.

My supermodel diet culminated at Little Green Rabbit, where I had a really nice salad. They replaced a couple of the ingredients for me, so I ended up with a chicken salad with croutons, couscous, pear, cucumber, radish and chives, with a raspberry sauce:

Great little salad joint

Finally, I also got to visit the grounds of the 300-year-old Charlottenburg Palace today at dusk. There are lovely gardens, water features and even a 'tea house', albeit an enormous one, on the grounds. By this stage, the batteries on both my phone and camera were running seriously low, so I went a bit faster than I usually would. I still got some nice photos before I went back home:

Schloss Charlottenburg at dusk

That's all today from Berlin today, tomorrow I'm planning to visit the Zoo and the Tiergarten, and surrounding attractions. Until tomorrow!