Arrival – Day 1
In the early morning at 4.00 am our alarm clocks rang. With much joy we got ready and headed towards “Florenc“, where the Flixbus was waiting for us. With a delay of about 45 minutes our bus finally arrived and we started our journey to Berlin. The 3.5-hour ride went really quickly, as we were both able to sleep. However, we were stopped by the police in the middle of Germany. All passengers and the whole bus were thoroughly checked. We both did not know what was going on. After the police could not find anything, we could finally continue driving. Almost 2 hours late we arrived in Berlin Südkreuz.
First we had to take metro from Südkreuz to Alexanderplatz. Since both of us have never taken public transportation in Berlin, we first had to find our way around. When we arrived at the Alexanderplatz, we first went to the hotel with our luggage and checked in. After that we went back to the city.
Our first day passed really quickly. We have visited very much still on this day. First, we were at the Alexanderplatz where the famous TV tower and the world time clock is located. In addition, there are also many shopping stores and restaurants. From there we walked along the river to the Museum Island. Since it was really crowded with people, we did not go into the individual museums. After that we walked through different streets to the Brandenburg Gate, which also has a historical significance for Berlin and is a top attraction. Close to the Brandenburg Gate is also the Holocaust Memorial, this is a memorial to the murdered Jews in World War II. Close to the memorial is the German Parlament, which we looked at from the outside. After a walk through a park we went to a restaurant. The rest of the time we spent in the city and then we went back to the hotel.
Day 2
Today started early at seven o’clock. Half asleep we went to the hotel breakfast. Sude had a mathematics support course from the technical baccalaureate, which she had to attend. After the instructive morning we went back to the city. Today we spent the day with shopping. As a conclusion of the day we went on a boat tour, where we could see many attractions such as the cathedral, Reichstag building, Museum Island, Nikolai quarter and many other places. The boat tour was very pleasant and we liked it very much.
Day 3
After a delicious breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the nearest subway station, because today we want to visit the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall is also called East Side Gallery because it was painted with impressive paintings. For example, on it there are: the round, colored heads in cartoon style by the artist Thierry Noir, the kiss between Brezhnev and Honecker by Dmitri Wrubel and many more works of art. While it is nice to look at the many artworks, it is also frightening at the same time, as it was once a demarcation between the GDR and the USSR and is now a kind of art gallery.
Very close to the Berlin Wall is also the famous Oberbaum Bridge, which we crossed because we wanted to visit Kreuzberg. In Kreuzberg is the Turkish quarter of Berlin, so it has many Turkish restaurants, which offer various specialties. In a small coffee we ordered pastries and drank a Çay. The coffee was very nicely decorated and Turkish music was playing in the background. Since Sude is Turkish, she had much joy.
After we finished eating, we walked back to the Berlin Wall and sat down at the river. There we enjoyed the warm weather for a while and finally made our way back to Alexanderplatz.
Later in the evening we went to the Berlin TV Tower with the tickets we bought the day before. Within a 40 second ride in the elevator, we were at 213 meters and could view Berlin by night. Looking at the city, we really realized how huge Berlin actually is.
After we had visited the TV tower, we made our way back to the hotel and let the evening fade away.
Abreise – Tag 4
Today is our last day in Berlin. After we had breakfast in the hotel, we went to the room, packed our things and checked out of the hotel.
Since our bus will go back to Prague in the afternoon, we still had some time to visit some places until then. We decided that we would like to go to the Brandenburg Gate again. The morning atmosphere at the Brandenburg Gate was very nice. A street musician was playing beautiful songs on the piano and the sun was starting to shine on the buildings. Besides, there weren’t too many people there, which was very pleasant. So we sat down on a bench and enjoyed the time.
After a while, we headed towards Südkreuz. But a few stops before that, there was a waterfall that we wanted to look at. To get to the waterfall, we had to go through a forest. Repeatedly, the people who passed by looked at us awkwardly, because we were with our small suitcases in the forest. 🙂 After walking for fifteen minutes we had reached our destination, but we didn’t see a waterfall anywhere, nor did we hear the sound of water. Just when we thought we had landed in the wrong place, an older lady came towards us and asked us if we were looking for something. In response, we told her that we would like to visit the waterfall. She smiled briefly and told us that we were in the right place, but the city of Berlin has no money to operate the waterfall. Thus, we walked in vain with the suitcase through the forest, for a waterfall that has no water 🙂 However, the elderly lady also pointed out to us that we should look at the monument, which was also on the hill, because from the top you have a beautiful view of Berlin. So we followed her advice and indeed she had not promised us too much. The view was really beautiful.
Since we both got hungry, we decided to drive slowly towards Südkreuz and get something to eat there. But since we were way too early at the Südkreuz station, we first just ordered drinks and used the waiting time by writing on our blog entry about Karlovy Vary. Later we ordered something to eat and after that we soon started our journey home. The bus ride went without any problems and at twenty o’clock we arrived in Prague.
We both really enjoyed the trip to Berlin, but now we were just looking forward to being back in the apartment and relaxing.