Berlin

It was probably about four hours into our six-hour train journey to Berlin that I started to think, umm, maybe we should have flown…

We’d chosen the train because we thought it would be something different, no waiting around at airports, lots of leg-room in our reserved first-class seats (only 10 euro’s extra), and plenty of opportunity to enjoy the wonderful Dutch-German countryside. Of course the Dutch-German countryside isn’t wonderful, but the autumnal colours added an extra interest and the German countryside did undulate, just a little more than the Dutch.

Once in Berlin, those negative thoughts about the journey immediately dispersed. I liked it instantly. The city is still very much a work-in-progress. 25 years after re-unification and there is still a lot of building work going on. A new metro line is being constructed through the heart of the inner-city and several buildings were under-wraps, but we could get the gist of the place.

Naturally we had to see the wall – or what little is left of it. We wanted to stand under the Brandenburg Gate and visit the trashy tourist trap that is now Check Point Charlie.  We did all these things and so much more. Check Point Charlie House is a privately run museum dedicated to telling the story of the daring escapes across the border. It would have been quite possible to spend all day there reading the individual stories of hand-dug tunnels, home-made zip-wires, collapsible  ladders, customised suitcases and concealed-hidey-holes under the bonnet of cars, people desperate to escape from the East and join their families and friends in the West. Sadly, these stories resonate today with the current immigration crisis. Desperate people resort to desperate measures and the more you walk around Berlin, and take in its history, you realise just how much this beautiful city has suffered over the years.

And it’s not just the Wall that makes you stop and think. There are plenty of reminders as you walk around the city of Germany’s troubled past.  The Topographie des Terrors built on the site of the former SS headquarters chronicles the rise and fall of the Nazis, while Hitler’s Bunker is now a car-park, but still you feel compelled to see it. Just a stone’s throw away is the holocaust memorial, 2000 or so slabs of concrete, which I couldn’t help but think somebody in years to come, might just regret commissioning. I suppose they are supposed to look like graves, and I know they had to create something solemn, but maybe something just a little more hopeful and reflective?  It didn’t seem a particularly creative or fitting memorial – more like an opportunity for coachloads of tourists to play peek-a-boo. 

Two days probably wasn’t long enough to appreciate everything Berlin has to offer, but the train journey home certainly was.