First day in country, I'm feeling a little sluggish and adjusting to jet lag. I decided to take it easy and hop on the Big Bus that goes around the city. Its the best $30 I ever spend in a new city on my first day! Gives me the lay of the land, allows me to jump on & off when I want, hits all the popular sights to see, and when the weather is nice, its the best tour you can ask for! Also, Vince and I are planning to tour around tomorrow so I usually get the lay of the land, see all the things that I want to see and I know he doesn't, and know where to spend more time with him.
There is a stop right around the corner from our hotel - and since we are a bit from the city center and 2 bus transfers - this was SUPER convenient.
Our drive started around the embassies, and moved on to some of the popular squares (platz's). We drove by Checkpoint Charlie and a portion of the Wall that is still in the middle of the city. So, so much history here in Berlin, however so many of the buildings and original architecture was destroyed in WWII. Most of the city was bombed & completed leveled - so all the buildings now are very new and modern. That surprised me a little, after traveling through so much of the southern part of Germany and the smaller towns where they survived bombings and/or were not directly targeted. I guess I expected more of that here too, but that was not the case. There are not many building over 50 yrs old!
I adjusted and got on another bus taking me through East Berlin. We were staying in West Berlin and most of the city center is in the west. The river divided some of the city where the wall stands - but some of the wall goes right through neighborhoods - dividing families, businesses, church congregations, everything! In 1961, the original wall went up in just 2 weeks, but most said it went up overnight in some neighborhoods. It was to prevent people from leaving East Germany. Again, seemingly impossible in todays world that it could happen in any country like that, but at the time, the country was so divided, the communist side put the wall up to keep the people in.
After a bus ride through the east side of the city, we drove by the part of the wall along the river that has murals painted all over it. This is called the East Side Gallery. It is the longest remaining section of the wall (in tact) and is located along the Spree River. After the wall fell in 1989, 118 artists from 21 countries painted the gallery. The murals are beautiful and such a great expression of protest and celebration! I walked around the river a bit before hopping back on to close out the loop back to the hotel that evening. It was a LOOOONG day, but I got to see most of the city and scope out where we would revisit tomorrow.
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