Last night we walked a couple of blocks and had dinner at the Lowenbrau restaurant, which had been recommended by our friends Jo & Steve Miller. We had forgotten it was Saturday night and there was a fair bit of angst in the waiter’s expression when we asked for a table.
He found us a spot indicating it would be “very loud”. There were 2 areas nearby each of about 4 tables – one group with nice tableclothes, candles etc and the other sparse bare tables. We were half expecting a football team to arrive however it turned out a French school group got the bare tables and some other more refined group the others.
Anyway, the food was excellent- though I don’t know that I will be developing a love of sauerkraut !
Gendamenmarkt
Today we had a bit of a leisurely start with coffee and some nice crossaints and pastries at a cafe nearby before we headed to the Gendamenmarkt. It was originally a marketplace named after a Prussian regiment of French hugenots. It is still used for Kris Kindle markets each year. It has a number of outdoor cafes dotted around the square which were being setup when we were there.
We then headed toward the Unter den Linden which is the main road running down from the Brandenburg Gate. We passed the Humbolt University where Albert Einsten taught and also the Bebelplatz which is the square where the large book burning took place at the start of the Nazi era in May 1933. There is an underground memorial here – you look through a glass panel down into a large room – a library with empty shelves.
Statue of Frederick the Great on Unter den Linden
From here we headed to Museum Island which is a small piece of land between the river Spree which has a number of museums on it. Unfortunately being the weekend the lines to get in were gigantic – we queued for a short while but the line didn’t move an inch -sorry it did move but only when the group in front of us gave up ! So did we shortly after.
We had walked across the island bridges in a loop and there was an interesting market along the river bank which we also walked through.
The Berliner Dom
It was then off to The Berliner Dom – a church which dates back to the 1400’s but which had stood in the Eastern zone after the war and the wall was erected and left in its greatly damaged state. It has been subsequently restored and the inside was quite amazing – ornate carved timbers and striking black marble columns. There was also an enormous pipe organ taking up one whole side of the church – no wonder there were ticket offices out the front to by concert tickets – it would have been an amazing sound !
We strolled back up Unter den Linden and stopped at one of the many eatery booths which are setup on the pedestrian strip which runs up the middle between the 2 traffic lines. Liam has developed a liking for currywurst so it was currywurst again for lunch today. Must say I can’t blame him – very tasty !
After our lunch we continued along to the Brandenburg Gate again – the Libyan protesters again holding court. We then headed into the Tiergarten – a big parkland area. We skirted the edge of this and headed to the Potsdamer Platz where the main train station is located. There is also a big shopping plaza here – but being Sunday it was closed – oh no !
As we had covered a lot of ground we decided to head back to the hotel and we stopped along the way at a supermarket to collect some picnic provisons to have as we start our driving tomorrow.
Berlin has been a great stop. The city is very flat and easy to walk around. There is no high rise building either – the tallest buildings only seem to be about 6 to 8 stories high. So everything has the appearance of space and openness. Now, however, onward ……………..