When: 8/11/2012                                                                                                         Where: Berlin, Germany                                                                                             Stayed: Adina Hotel, Hackerscher markt

Berlin rocks. There’s not one thing in particular that makes it rock, it just does. Even as a couple of battlers who were only just surfacing from a bout of food poisoning (which seriously hampered the number of bratwurst we could stomach I might add), Berlin shone in all it’s glory. It’s friendly and unpretentious tone, jaw dropping history and ability to make you feel right at home, ensured the city has been marked with a big star as somewhere to return to on our list.

Day 1 in Berlin kicked off with a statistic that is tricky to wrap your head around. Twenty-three years ago exactly the Berlin Wall was torn down (Nov 9 1989). What?! ONLY 23 years ago?! I was 10 years old – it’s extraordinary to think that something as significant and extraordinary as that happened in my childhood. Of course I had heard of the Berlin Wall to some degree but never actually considered what it truly meant for the people. It was something happening on the other side of the world and therefore not something I ever really understood. But being there and hearing some of the stories finally made it a reality.

To think that one day the Berliners simply woke up to discover that they could no longer move freely – regardless of whether their job and family were across the city. They were now divided by a 140km wall that would stand for 28 years. The Eastern Bloc claimed the wall was there to protect the people of the East from those who hadn’t been de-natzified on the West; a tough sell if your family lived only a few hundred meters away. 5,000 attempted to cross the ‘death strip’ using all kinds of clever approaches such as flying in a balloon and digging tunnels.

Together with the presence of Checkpoint Charlie (which was the third major checkpoint for foreigners and members of the allied forces wishing to cross the border), Brandenburg gate is a constant reminder of this passage in history. It represents a former symbol of the divided city where people could see from the viewing platform across the death strip and beyond the iron curtain to the other side.

Berlin is like a museum in itself. Throughout the Free Walking tour we were continually shocked and intrigued by the stories associated with what would otherwise seem to be relatively insignificant buildings or chunks of land.

For example, standing in a random car park our guide informed us that below our feet was the Bunker where Hitler hid for months, married and killed himself at the end of WW2. And the casual reference to part of the Wall still standing across the road from where we were waiting at the lights. Huh?! The Topography of Terror exhibition actually sits on the site of what was previously the headquarters of the Gestapo and SS. Hard to believe that walking around this exhibition which portrays the system of terror and crimes that were perpetrated throughout Europe was actually masterminded on the very ground you’re walking on. Crazy and humbling stuff.

Probably one of the more significant landmarks for us was the Holocaust memorial site – paying tribute to the 6 million Jews murdered. Across 19,000 square metres stand 2,711 concrete slabs, arranged in some kind of grid pattern. According to the architect, the slabs are designed to produce a confusing atmosphere in a supposedly ordered system. Our guide prompted us to think about why the slabs were of differing heights, proportions, angles and sizes – similar but different.

Peering down the isles was quite an eerie experience – you could quite often hear people talking but not see them amongst the endless rows of grey. It’s size is overwhelming, no doubt on purpose to give a sense of enormity. Despite the many people at the site, you almost felt alone as the wind sends a chill down your spine and the shadows created by the slabs send you into patches of darkness. Moving and incredibly memorable however the site has created a huge amount of controversy after costing in the vicinity of 25million Euro to build. For me, what it stands for is something I will always remember and given it’s location, I imagine something the Berliners and any visitors can’t help but be reminded of.

We stayed in a modern and friendly hotel called Adina Apartments which was in the Hackerscher district with easy access to all the key sites. A 5min walk to Alexanderplatz – a large public square that houses Berlin’s tallest structure; the TV Tower (also famous for a scene from the Bourne Identity!) and 10mins to Museum Island (home to 5 internationally recognised museums).

We were also very close to a lovely little pocket of German restaurants in the Nikolai Quarter that looked every bit out of a German fairy tale to me. With lights sprinkled throughout the trees, fires burning in the windows and laughter echoing across the cobblestone streets I was a pretty happy camper. We ended up settling at Gerichtslaube on the first night for our fix of German food complete with Bratwurst, potatoes and Sauerkraut. Night number 2 we followed the locals down to Oranienburger strabe to a pub called Auschwurts where a platter of currywurst, meatballs, cheeses, pickles and veggies changed our lives. Always pays to go local!!

Another highlight for us was a stroll through Tiergarten on the Western side of the city. With Autumn in full swing, we quickly became enveloped in a kaleidoscope of colors. Yellow, orange and red with a touch of green under foot and all around us provided a mesmerizing whirlpool of color, enchanting stuff and tough to leave behind after being tucked in by it for a few hours.

All in all Berlin ticked the right boxes for us. It even delivered a pop up Xmas markets in Potsdamer platz to help us get into the Chrissy spirit. What more could a Chrissy fiend from way back ask for in November?! Our little bubble of joy only popped by an onslaught of profanity dished out on the plane by our local Chavs returning from a bucks weekend. An acute reminder that yes, we are now on our way back to London…

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