Day Three
After yesterday’s breakfast lay heavy on me all day and curtailed Germanic sausage consumption, I decided that I would make a huge effort not be a greedy little boy at breakfast. There was one chap that was not taking it easy though, he sat on his own with one plate and nothing but five boiled eggs. God help anyone sharing a car with him for the rest of the day.
It was only a short walk down the road to our first stop of our final full day in Berlin. We spent the morning taking in the Topography of Terror, a museum located on the former site of the SS headquarters on Prinz Albert Strasse. The outdoor section hosts many display boards and the longest preserved section of the Berlin wall.
Unfortunately there were two British couples moving through the displays at the same time as us and they were total dicks. The highlight of their stupidity being them laughing out loudly at the fact that there was a condom factory referenced. Their moronic and childish giggles were totally alien to the mood of the displays that outlined some incredibly tragic events that had happened in the very areas that we stood in days gone by.
We moved inside and the difficult topics continued to flow. It was often hard to take in, but I felt like I had to force myself to do so to fully understand the difficulties of the past so as to help not repeat them. It was interesting to learn that before the war, Berlin had a flourishing gay and lesbian scene with over 170 pubs, clubs and bars attracting people from all over the planet to be openly ‘out’. I would never have thought that pre-war Berlin would have been like modern day Amsterdam, but you live and learn.
After a quick cup of tea in the café, we made our way out of the hauntingly silent display and made our way around to Checkpoint Charlie. I have to say, it rather confused me. I am not sure what this checkpoint had over all of the other checkpoints around Berlin other than the good fortune to alliterate and maybe had a stronger PR team?
I did try to find this all out in the museum but they want an arm and a leg to get in and I was not confident that I would get the answers that I demanded……but the gift shop seemed to be filled with some nice gifts and I got the general idea.
We picked our way through the shopping streets that were beginning to bustle with people thinking about their Christmas shopping. We made our way up to the market that I had seen advertised in the Museumsinsel region the previous day and took in the sights. It was filled with artists and crafty types selling their art, crafts and designs. It was all very nice, and some not so nice, but it was a great place to pick up some unique gifts and I even sneaked in a Christmas gift for Titchy without her spotting it!
We needed a quick comfort break and so we popped into the library and as I waited for Titchy I had the time to take in the details of the buildings that were pockmarked with bullet holes. It really does make the past feel so close to have these scars still open. This feeling of the past hanging around the shoulders of the city like a heavy and wet shroud followed to the building next door.
The Neue Wache (new watchhouse) is a grand Roman style building dating back to the early 1800’s but, more recently, has been home to the central memorial to the victims of war and Tyranny. This is a near empty, haunting, space and in the middle sits a statue of a mother cradling her dead son. It was getting too heavy; you could almost reach out and touch the shame of the past that Germany still feels. It was getting to the stage where I wanted to say, ‘It’s ok, I think we can move on now’ to the Germans, a lot of time has passed and a lot has changed.
With an eye on doing something happier and lighter, we made our way to the TV tower, probably the most famous landmark in Berlin, like a shit Eiffel tower really. It wasn’t too hard to find, it was massive and had a flashy light on the top but by the time we got there, it was almost impossible to see it due to a thick mist that had enveloped it.
It would have cost us around £50 to get up there and, as we could have seen a similar view if we looked very closely at a candy floss, is seemed a little bit silly. Deeply impressed that this huge tower was built in the 1930’s, it did make you think if they had focused on engineering and technology and not genocides, how much further on we could have been as a species.
We stopped for a little Bratwurst and chips in a lovely little café in the shadow of the cathedral, just over the other side of the Spree. It was lovely to recharge the legs but, as they had no toilet, and we needed another comfort break we had to set off again. We refused to pay the 50c for the public toilets and decided to chance our arm in the posh department store opposite instead. We ended up paying 75c and so we showed them who was in charge…..but I did take a lot of toilet roll from them to balance it up.
Having been so disappointed at the Potsdammer Platz market yesterday, we decided to try out one of the other options circled on our map by the hotel. We made our way over to Nollendorfplatz where we were told that the market would be one of the best. I got trapped in the train doors as it nipped the back of my winter coat and allowed me to go full Michael Jackson with a forwards lean, but you should never go full Michael Jackson.
The station had the feel of New York with the subway being in the middle of the street but raised up above street level. We couldn’t find the market initially but then found it hidden away under the tracks. It’s fair to say, this little market in the centre of Berlin’s gay district gave a different view of the festive season.
The first stall as you walked in was filled with candles and the first one that I spotted was an ample pair of bosoms. I laughed and pointed them out to Titchy and she pointed out that I would be able to take a GCSE biology lesson with all of other body parts on display.
We moved down through the stalls and there was one which just had dozens of paintings and drawings of the male member in various states of anger and activity. I was having a little look as I walked past and the artist behind the counter barked at me ‘I drew all of these myself’. I couldn’t think of what to say that would be polite and so picked ‘Oh, I can see you have quite the eye for it’. I was stuck for another polite response when he fired back with “they are all drawn from memory”. I was equally surprised and impressed that he had time to man his stall given the amount of sausage he had been memorising.
There were a lot of blokes standing drinking beers around a table, maybe 5 of them, each ignoring the other members of the group and focusing on the phones that were all on the same app, Grinder. It was hunting hour. Possibly the least Christmassy Christmas market we had ever seen, but entertaining nonetheless. If I had not been scared of getting searched at the airport in the morning, I would have bought a few highly detailed vagina candles for Christmas morning.
We headed back to the hotel, quickly washed and dressed for dinner and took in the final ever episode of the German Version of ‘You Bet’ before we headed out for dinner. Until you have seen Cher trying to work out what the hell was going on in a German TV studio before miming her latest song, you haven’t really lived.
We were worn out and so opted for the place right over the road, Ristorante Diomira. It was a weird mix of German and Italian food but we had a good laugh and a good feed for our last night. We picked up chocolate gifts in the supermarket next door then headed for bed.
As always with these mini breaks, it was hard to decide if we had done Berlin or Berlin had done for us.
16,077 steps, 11.63km, 1,031 calories
Itchy Feet and Titchy Feet 