Monday, September 13, 2010

Berlin, Day 2 (Friday, Sept 10)

I started my second day in Berlin by going to the East Side Gallery. It's the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall, and it has been turned into an outside gallery.


It's really interesting to see the different pieces of work that people put on the wall, and the messages and the feelings behind a lot of them. It was odd walking next to such a large stretch of the wall though. It was, as I said before, a bit hard to wrap my mind around the wall and the amount of pain and strife it caused so many people and that it was up until so recently - it came down in my lifetime.

After the East Side Gallery I walked over to the TV tower to go up for (as I heard) fantastic views, but the line was so outrageously long that I skipped it and went to the Berlin Cathedral.

The inside of the church was so stunningly beautiful. It's impossible to capture it in photos.


I also went into the crypt below the church and saw the resting place of a number of Prussian Kings, which was quite interesting. After that I climbed what felt like a million stairs....


...to the top of the dome for spectacular views of the city.


After leaving the church I walked around the town a bit, and visited a few of the things we did on the walking tour the day before to have a chance to experience them without the huge group of people and time commitments of the tour. I then went to the Reichstag (building that houses Germany's parliament)...


....and climbed to the top of the glass dome on top.



After that I wandered around for a bit longer, and saw the Brandenburg Gate lit up at night, which was beautiful.


Then I grabbed a bit of food and headed back to my hostel to get some sleep!

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