Berlin Wall Part 2 and the Philharmonic

Waving to Family at Christmas over the Wall

The Wall, how it separated Berlin

Berlin is really about two major things. WWII and reparations, and the Cold war as it affected Berlin.

On this note we stop on Bernauer Strasse at the Nordbahnhof station

Where the Wall was as it closed a street

to take in another section of the Berlin Wall accompanied by an interpretive centre. It is very worthwhile. While the eastside gallery has the funny quirky graffiti to it, this deals more with the loss of life, the ridiculous attempts the GDR made to try and stop people from escaping east Germany. This location highlights where the wall was, and some of the photos and stories are very interesting. Definitely a must see.

Remains of the Wall

It was called Stalin's Bed, a nail landing pad hidden on the other side of the first wall.

From there we continue into the city to Potsdamer platz,

Potsdamer Platz

the Times square of Berlin. It is very interesting architecturally and we spend time wandering the different shops close by.

Legoland

Then on to the Berlin Philharmonic where an afternoon concert is taking place we want to hear. Yannick Van De Velde plays 3 pieces, our favorite a piece by Lintz, along with a 1000 other guests. It lasts an hour, we get great seats, and it is free. Afterwards we take in the Memorial to Euthanasia victims of the war, yes even Germans were victims of Hitler’s madman ideas. We first became aware of this practice by watching “X company”, a CBC TV show. What it amounts to is that impaired Germans, should they be Downs syndrome, TB patients, or mentally delayed, he had a squad that murdered them in similar fashion to the Jews. Many families lost love ones at the same time they fought for Germany. Definitely another full day in Berlin, and while we still have not seen everything we were wanting to we’ve run out of time.

Since we had to relocate hotels we decided to try the DBahn rail system in Berlin. An all day pass was E7.60 and allowed us to come in from about 20 kms outside the centre of Berlin, then catch any of the S Bahn or U Bahn rail system, any buses, etc. for the whole day, and return. It is great value and with a free app to plan your routes it is a breeze.