Berlin Pics and Commentary

I'm already done (mostly anyway) with editing pictures of Berlin, so I thought I'd go ahead and do a post on our two days in Berlin.

First of all, the hostel we stayed in was amazing. Probably my favorite place that we stayed on the trip. It's called Circus Hostel and was on the east side of Berlin, near most of the places we wanted to stay. It even had a bar in the basement with some great drink specials. The link to it is here.



A view of our room



The Hoff Shrine in the bar in our hostel. How awesome is that?!



The Reichstag (the parliament/government building in Berlin) Normally you can go up in the dome and the building itself, but it was closed off and no access was allowed while we were there.



This was a monument to political leaders that Hitler had killed while he was in power.



One of the few things we saw the first night we were in Berlin was the Brandenburg Gate. One of 14 original gates that used to surround the area. Usually in each city I go to I have one landmark that I really love taking pictures of and the Brandenburg Gate was my obsession in Berlin.



The next day we wanted to see what was left of the Berlin Wall, so we headed to Museum Mile, which features different artists work on a long stretch of the wall. It was very interesting to see all the different pieces of work.



Next up was Checkpoint Charlie, the infamous checkpoint between East and West Berlin. There's supposed to be a pretty good museum that is all about the checkpoint and methods people used to get over into West Berlin, but since it was kind of pricey, we opted not to go in.



In some parts of East Berlin they have kept the stoplights from the communist era. I think they are awesome!



We stopped in Fassbender and Rausch, the most awesome chocolate shop EVER! They have chocolate sculptures of the landmarks around Berlin and a chocolate volcano. Sean chose some chocolate covered nut bark and I got five truffles of various flavors. They were all amazing, though I think my favorite was pina colada.



Museum Island was also on our to-do list. Our two museum stops were the Pergamon Museum and the Neues Museum. The Pergamon has the Pergamon altar, pictured above and some other artifacts like the Gate of Ishtar. That was my favorite thing about the Pergamon Museum. The Neues Museum holds the famouse statue of Nefertiti. I have no pictures of that though, because they weren't allowed.



The Gate of Ishtar



Some of the Egyptian collection at the Neues Museum.

The last night we were in Berlin, we decided to eat at a Rick Steves recommendation for Georgian food. I've never had Georgian food, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was delicious. We shared a menu that came with about 5 courses and it was amazing. My favorite thing by far was cheese bread, but there were great soups, dumplings and lamb kebabs as well.

Overall I really enjoyed Berlin, the downfall was that it was super cold while we were there, but otherwise it was great. If you want to see more of my pics from Berlin, click here.