Christmas in Berlin
Gareth Sear
This was my first trip to Berlin. I was rather excited. Berlin was one of those places from my childhood memories. Memories of the cold war, of spies and espionage and divided Germany and a divided city. The divided country I sort of understood, but I couldn’t get my young head round a city, within a country that it didn’t belong to and then that city was split in two by politics. How did they get their food I used to wonder?
OK, so maybe I wasn’t thinking out the box and thinking they could have flown it in. In fact it didn’t even occur to me that they flew the food and supplies in until I was wondering around the Check Poimt Charlie museum and reading about the sorry state that Berlin was in. To me I always had a dreary image of East Germany, like it was always filmed in black and white. Perhaps this is from watching the news on my Grandmother black and white TV?
Well, time to find out a little more about a city that I remember from my childhood, one that I did not learn about in my history lessons and one that looked grey. We flew out of a grey and dreary Gatwick and landed in this once divided city – it was still grey, just like it was on my Grandmothers TV. Berlin Airport is a friendly place; we managed to spend a good couple of hours in the queue at passport control. Which wasn’t really a queue as it was just us. They wouldn’t let us in. My girlfriend had left her passport on the plane and by the time we realised they had locked the plane up for the night.
The customs guards and police were very friendly and obliging, swinging their machine guns from their hips; they ran around trying to find someone with keys to the aeroplane, whilst offering us chairs to sit on. Some two hours later there was a lot more running around, machine guns swinging once again as they found a cleaner who could get the passport. With the passport rescued from the pocket in the chair the police showed us out of the airport and into a waiting taxi. I think this was to make sure we were clearly off his patch and were not going to cause any more trouble.
The next day dawned on us, still grey, with a little rain, but it was a bright and vibrant re-unified city that lay ahead of us to explore. Less than 48 hours and a whole city to get around. Where do you start? Being Christmas and all that, you have to start with the Christmas markets for some Gluhwein, bratwurst and a little shopping for cool wooden Christmas tree decorations and trinkets. The ‘sights’ can wait. The Christmas markets were a delight. Dotted all over the city, small little enclaves inviting you in with the mouth watering smell of food cooking, Gluhwein and hot chocolate on the heat, bright lights and music, giving a wonderful cacophony of sensory overload.
The markets were always a focus for the weekend, for a little Christmas cheer and the odd Gluhwein. Fitting in around this we decided to see the sights. With a 48 hour bus pass it was time to explore. Shopping on the K’Damm, Berlins’s prime shopping street and home to some glorious Christmas lights. Onto Check Point Charlie, which, as the name suggests was a just a wooden box, with a mock up of how it looked pre 1989. Not really anything too interesting, in fact a little disapointing. What was interesting through was the Check Point Charlie Museum and this is a must do on your tour of Berlin. The museum goes through the history of the wall, people who tried to cross the wall and the different methods of escape.
The other sights we managed to squeeze in were a visit to the Holocaust memorial, thousands of grey stone cuboids to lose yourself in whilst thinking of what had happened. The memorial reminded us of the style and shape of a Jewish cemetery. Below the memorial is a display of extracts from letters, poems and writings, some of which were thrown from trains as they were taken away. You can also follow different Berlin families and see how the horrors affected them.
From here we went to the Brandenburg Gate, again another icon of Berlins recent past and the famous Kempinski Hotel, where Michael Jackson dangled his baby off the balcony. We walked the line of the wall from here, as it is marked in the roads and paths with blocks. This line led us to one of the last standing parts of the wall. Now a protected monument, fenced off to stop souvenir seekers. This section of the wall had the story of the local buildings on the back, which were being excavated as it was the site of the Gestapo Headquarters. The display showed the stories of some of the people who were interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo who were suspected of being against the Nazis.
The bus took us on a tour of the city, pointing out the sights as we went, there were new Embassies still being built, being relocated from the old West Germany capital of Bonne. There were beautiful parks, more Christmas markets, and we hopped off at the now trendy Potsdamer Platz to wander around the high tech Sony Centre, take in more Gluhwein and one last Bratwurst before heading back to the hotel.
Berlin was a fascinating place that didn’t disappoint. Though we only saw a few of the sights, there were many more interesting places to see, places that gave Berlin interest, an amazing history and all of which made it far from the grey I remembered, in fact it made Berlin a very colourful and at times heart wrenching city.
Go to the Walk and Travel Gallery to see our images of Berlin.
