We woke up around 9:30 am but decided to relax on the 7th day of our 3 week long trip. We had coffee in bed and checked the news.
We left our hotel around 1 pm for exploring the second biggest departmental store in Europe - the KaDeWe. The biggest is Harrod's in London. The idea was to see the modern side of Berlin and Germany. We reached there by subway and window shopped the high-end brand shops and different floors before stopping at the 6th floor. The entire floor is a food court where you can get various varieties of cuisines - German, French, Italian etc. We ordered a vegetarian ratatouille crepe that was delicious and we also had a German dish with potatoes and asparagus that was also decent. German asparagus is lighter in color and is as thick as a carrot. It tasted different but in a nice way.
After lunch, we felt the need for coffee and since our hotel was not too far away, we stopped at our hotel to have coffee and then took the bus to our next stop - the Berlinerdom or the Berlin Cathedral. It was rush hour so it took a very long time to get to the Museum Island area where the Berlin Cathedral is located. Oh and by the way, we had also taken the bus yesterday back to our hotel at the end of the day. The buses in Berlin are double-decker and very modern like all German transportation. Both times we sat in the front seats of the upper deck to get a great view of the city. When we finally reached the cathedral, we bought tickets and went inside. The interior is extremely majestic. It is a Protestant church that went through various construction, destruction and restoration phases. The present building was inaugurated in 1905 and since there was no separation of Protestant church and the Prussian state, the entire cost of 11.5 million Marks was paid by Kaiser Wilhelm the second. It was considered the Protestant counterpart of the Roman Catholic Saint Peter's Basilica of Vatican. During the Second World War, bombing damaged the cathedral and restoration finished a couple of decades ago. Unlike Roman Catholic churches, this Cathedral has statues of the four Protestant reformers as well, in addition to the more commonplace Jesus paintings, statues/murals featuring angels and a crypt under the church containing the bodies of deceased nobility (including a few members of the Prussian royal family). Then we climbed 260 stairs to the top of the cathedral to see a view of the city from the top of the cathedral's dome. The stairs got quite narrow and steep towards the top. It was a good view of the city and gave us an idea of how much construction is going on in the city with construction cranes to be seen in every direction.
After that we decided to change our plan and skipped Charlottenburg palace and decided to visit the Berlin Museum. The idea was that we had seen enough of the Prussian history and wanted to get a better idea of the more recent history of Berlin. We boarded the double-decker bus to the Berlin Museum.
The earliest mention of Berlin in history is around the year 1200 when there used to be a swamp and a fishing village here. By 1451, it become the capital of the Prussian empire - an empire of the House of Hohenzollern that ruled Prussia for close to five centuries. It remained a Prussian stronghold even after all German states (all the various states around Prussia that shared the common German language) decided to unite as Germany in 1871 under Prussian leadership. Berlin became the capital of this united German Empire (officially German Reich) and remained so till the abolishment of the kingdom in 1918 when the German Kaiser Wilhelm the second fled the country after defeat in the First World War. In post-War 1918, Berlin became a part of the Weimar Republic (officially still called the German Reich but it's capital was moved from Berlin to Weimar) and when the republic started going into hyper inflation (a loaf of bread cost millions of marks by 1923), the US came to its rescue. But when the Great Depression of 1930 hit the world, aid from the US dried up. President Hindenburg of Germany assumed emergency dictatorial powers in 1930 and appointed one chancellor after the other to try and save the country. In 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany. The official name still remained the German Reich but to differentiate it from the earlier two Reichs (the German Empire from 1871-1918 and the Weimar Republic from 1919-1932, historians refer to it as the Third Reich). From 1933 till the end of the Second World War in 1945, Berlin remained the capital of Hitler's Third Reich and it was during this time that the very first concentration camp (to systematically murder the Jews using gas chambers) was trialled outside Berlin. After this dark period of history, when Hitler was defeated in the Second World War, Germany was split into four zones. Berlin was a unique case since it was situated completely in the Soviet-controlled Eastern zone but the city itself was still divided in Eastern and Western parts. These four zones of Germany evolved into the countries of West Germany and East Germany in 1949. West Germany had western capitalist leanings whereas East Germany had a communist government. By 1961, the Berlin Wall started going up. Berlin remained divided into East and West Berlin till the fall of the wall in 1989. After Germany's reunification and reconstruction efforts in the last couple of decades, Berlin has once again become the center of German progress as was the case in the early 20th century.
After a history lesson of Berlin, we went for dinner at a Thai restaurant that Sarim had recommended. The food was great and the presentation even better. We had Tom Yum soup, Thai curry and spicy fish.
After dinner, we took the train to Potsdamer Platz. This was a square that has had varying fortunes in different eras. It was a happening place in the 1920s but it became a wasteland when it became part of the death strip of the Berlin Wall under the socialist East German regime. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, it is back to being a happening place with tall modern buildings and an equally modern transit station.
Then we walked to the Brandenburg gate to enjoy the weather and digest our delicious Thai dinner. We took a few pictures at the gate during the night time and then boarded our double-decker bus back to our hotel's station. We are going to bed now.
Tomorrow, we will make a quick trip to Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that is immediately adjacent to our hotel. Then we will check out and head for the airport to catch our flight to Rome.
Goodbye for now and we'll send you our next update from the historical city of Rome that is probably the oldest ancient city that still exists with flavors of its long history intact.
Take care and good night!
We left our hotel around 1 pm for exploring the second biggest departmental store in Europe - the KaDeWe. The biggest is Harrod's in London. The idea was to see the modern side of Berlin and Germany. We reached there by subway and window shopped the high-end brand shops and different floors before stopping at the 6th floor. The entire floor is a food court where you can get various varieties of cuisines - German, French, Italian etc. We ordered a vegetarian ratatouille crepe that was delicious and we also had a German dish with potatoes and asparagus that was also decent. German asparagus is lighter in color and is as thick as a carrot. It tasted different but in a nice way.
After lunch, we felt the need for coffee and since our hotel was not too far away, we stopped at our hotel to have coffee and then took the bus to our next stop - the Berlinerdom or the Berlin Cathedral. It was rush hour so it took a very long time to get to the Museum Island area where the Berlin Cathedral is located. Oh and by the way, we had also taken the bus yesterday back to our hotel at the end of the day. The buses in Berlin are double-decker and very modern like all German transportation. Both times we sat in the front seats of the upper deck to get a great view of the city. When we finally reached the cathedral, we bought tickets and went inside. The interior is extremely majestic. It is a Protestant church that went through various construction, destruction and restoration phases. The present building was inaugurated in 1905 and since there was no separation of Protestant church and the Prussian state, the entire cost of 11.5 million Marks was paid by Kaiser Wilhelm the second. It was considered the Protestant counterpart of the Roman Catholic Saint Peter's Basilica of Vatican. During the Second World War, bombing damaged the cathedral and restoration finished a couple of decades ago. Unlike Roman Catholic churches, this Cathedral has statues of the four Protestant reformers as well, in addition to the more commonplace Jesus paintings, statues/murals featuring angels and a crypt under the church containing the bodies of deceased nobility (including a few members of the Prussian royal family). Then we climbed 260 stairs to the top of the cathedral to see a view of the city from the top of the cathedral's dome. The stairs got quite narrow and steep towards the top. It was a good view of the city and gave us an idea of how much construction is going on in the city with construction cranes to be seen in every direction.
After that we decided to change our plan and skipped Charlottenburg palace and decided to visit the Berlin Museum. The idea was that we had seen enough of the Prussian history and wanted to get a better idea of the more recent history of Berlin. We boarded the double-decker bus to the Berlin Museum.
The earliest mention of Berlin in history is around the year 1200 when there used to be a swamp and a fishing village here. By 1451, it become the capital of the Prussian empire - an empire of the House of Hohenzollern that ruled Prussia for close to five centuries. It remained a Prussian stronghold even after all German states (all the various states around Prussia that shared the common German language) decided to unite as Germany in 1871 under Prussian leadership. Berlin became the capital of this united German Empire (officially German Reich) and remained so till the abolishment of the kingdom in 1918 when the German Kaiser Wilhelm the second fled the country after defeat in the First World War. In post-War 1918, Berlin became a part of the Weimar Republic (officially still called the German Reich but it's capital was moved from Berlin to Weimar) and when the republic started going into hyper inflation (a loaf of bread cost millions of marks by 1923), the US came to its rescue. But when the Great Depression of 1930 hit the world, aid from the US dried up. President Hindenburg of Germany assumed emergency dictatorial powers in 1930 and appointed one chancellor after the other to try and save the country. In 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany. The official name still remained the German Reich but to differentiate it from the earlier two Reichs (the German Empire from 1871-1918 and the Weimar Republic from 1919-1932, historians refer to it as the Third Reich). From 1933 till the end of the Second World War in 1945, Berlin remained the capital of Hitler's Third Reich and it was during this time that the very first concentration camp (to systematically murder the Jews using gas chambers) was trialled outside Berlin. After this dark period of history, when Hitler was defeated in the Second World War, Germany was split into four zones. Berlin was a unique case since it was situated completely in the Soviet-controlled Eastern zone but the city itself was still divided in Eastern and Western parts. These four zones of Germany evolved into the countries of West Germany and East Germany in 1949. West Germany had western capitalist leanings whereas East Germany had a communist government. By 1961, the Berlin Wall started going up. Berlin remained divided into East and West Berlin till the fall of the wall in 1989. After Germany's reunification and reconstruction efforts in the last couple of decades, Berlin has once again become the center of German progress as was the case in the early 20th century.
After a history lesson of Berlin, we went for dinner at a Thai restaurant that Sarim had recommended. The food was great and the presentation even better. We had Tom Yum soup, Thai curry and spicy fish.
After dinner, we took the train to Potsdamer Platz. This was a square that has had varying fortunes in different eras. It was a happening place in the 1920s but it became a wasteland when it became part of the death strip of the Berlin Wall under the socialist East German regime. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, it is back to being a happening place with tall modern buildings and an equally modern transit station.
Then we walked to the Brandenburg gate to enjoy the weather and digest our delicious Thai dinner. We took a few pictures at the gate during the night time and then boarded our double-decker bus back to our hotel's station. We are going to bed now.
Tomorrow, we will make a quick trip to Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that is immediately adjacent to our hotel. Then we will check out and head for the airport to catch our flight to Rome.
Goodbye for now and we'll send you our next update from the historical city of Rome that is probably the oldest ancient city that still exists with flavors of its long history intact.
Take care and good night!
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