No Trains Today - Just Berlin

What a difference a day makes. . . . .

Woke up this morning (comfy beds by the way) and could not get GPRS card to connect to the internet, mobiles wouldn’t connect to our “Help Line” (aka Nick), hotel phones could not make international calls!!! How could we converse with the outside world? I was stressed, even panic stricken, how was I going to post my blog?!!

We eventually found a pay phone round the corner from our hotel and our international call card worked – hooray!! Well done Nick for sorting the problems - tonight we are back on line for blogs and our mobiles will text – although I don’t think the hotel phones are any better. But we are back in touch with planet earth!!!

Apart from these small technical hitches we have had a really lovely day.

We have travelled around Berlin on an open top bus listening to the commentary about lots of places of interest, most of which need further exploration. There’s lots of museums, several palaces, of course the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, churches, parks and gardens, the zoo, as well as some lovely streets for shopping. We did hop off the bus at Checkpoint Charlie and it was still easy to see where the wall had been with tanks and guns on either side aimed at each other. It was much harder to imagine the fear and conditions of the people living there at the time. All over the city now there are signs celebrating the unification of Germany. We did manage to get back to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (Parliament building) and took a walk through the Tiergarten. Lots of the buildings are modern (70% of Berlin was flattened in the War) and there’s a great range of styles built with great imagination – such as the new main station, which opened in May this year, which is supposed to represent two mushrooms, its all glass and is spectacular at night when its all lit up – like a firework party.

Most of the roads here are very wide – 2 or 3 lanes of traffic each way, plus parking at the side. Most are also tree-lined and several have trees and gardens down the centre (a deliberate copy of the Champs Elysee). The pavements are wide as well and many have a cycle lane – so there are lots of locals on bikes. The whole feel of the city is one of space and it’s easy to move around. There are lots of visitors here at the moment (there were probably even more last month with the World Cup) but almost all are Germans, visiting their capital city. The atmosphere is very relaxed and friendly. There are loads of pavement cafes and it was great this afternoon to sit along by the River and watch the huge river boats pass up and down whilst sipping a beer or two.

In short, we really like Berlin and would definitely like to return to explore much more. Jean, make a note on your list of things we must do.

We have had a nice Italian meal tonight with a bottle of wine. We needed to stoke up because tomorrow is the start of our “fast” – 2 days on the Moskva Express train where there is no food or drink available!! We will be hitting the food outlets at the station before we board tomorrow afternoon, to add a few more bags to our already overweight luggage. But at least we will be able to consume these extras.

Have had a great time in Berlin and looking forward now to St Petersburg.