From the famous Alexanderplatz to the Postdammerplatz, from West Berlin to East Berlin, from Unter den Linden to the Ku' damm... A European capital, which was shared for a long time and which today has regained its unity... Follow the guide and enjoy your visit to Berlin!
The new Hauptbahnhof, the futuristic metal and glass Hauptbahnhof, which was inaugurated not long ago, is now in Berlin. And it's very practical because this station is equipped with national and regional railway lines, as well as the S Bahn (sort of RER) and the U Bahn (metro). This city is very well served by public transport with these two networks, which are complemented by tramways that irrigate the city in a dense grid. Berlin transport is very accessible thanks to different options: daily, group, multi-day, etc... a whole range of possibilities that are easy to adapt to your stay. It is generally quite easy to find yourself in the stations, signage is not overabundant but more or less sufficient, except in some cases, especially when you have to move from the S Bahn or U Bahn to the tramway that uses a different network. Another very nice aspect for tourists is that two lines of the S-Bahn run around the city centre, each in one direction, so it is easy to pass from one point to another without any risk of being mistaken or being able to recover easily.
The first thing to do when you arrive in the early morning is to have a coffee with pastries and negotiate a suitable public transport package for our programme before heading to the hotel, on the East Berlin side in one of the newly rebuilt neighbourhoods. Our hotel in Berlin is close to a train station, which accommodates both tramways and other public transport. This proximity must be ensured because it is essential to avoid wasting unnecessary travel time.
The insured bedtime for the evening, the luggage stored in the rooms, the tourist program can start with a return to Alexanderplatz, the Alex as Berliners say, which now seems to be the center of Berlin reunified although it is still partially under construction. There is the famous clock that served as a postcard from the time when Berlin had an east and a west, and now the monumental television tower that dominates the Marienkirche, which was rebuilt as many Berlin monuments.
From there you also have a very nice view of the main monuments of the northern part of Unter den Linden: the Rotes Rathaus (Berlin City Hall in red sandstone), the Berliner Dom and various other monuments. We descend this immense avenue as we go down the Champs Elysées in Paris and we discover all the monuments that border this famous avenue such as the Humboldt Universität, the Stadtoper, etc... The descent ends with the Brandeburger Tor which has regained all its majesty since the fall of the wall that passed just in front. The walk then leads to the Reichstag, where it is possible to visit the immense glass dome but after having agreed to wait in line for almost two hours. This district, which houses the government authorities, also has many museums that a too short stay does not allow to visit. This part of the city at least conserves a lot of features of the Prussian city that it was in a rather glorious past, many monuments display at their pediment dedications to Friedrich, Wilhelm or Friedrich Wilhelm the great emperors of Prussia.
Visit Berlin, a new city and tourist centre
One night in the train, a long morning walk, it is time to have a solid meal so that we can continue our touristic journey in this beautiful new city. In a restaurant located between the Reichstag and the monument in memory of the Jews who died during the Shoah, we cannot help but think that Nazi dignitaries and apparatchiks of the government of former East Germany certainly frequented this establishment in not so distant times. And, so that visitors do not forget, the photographs of the Germans who died trying to cross the wall are displayed on the gates of the park in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Even if it doesn't take away the appetite, it leaves a taste of bitterness and compassion on the plate. Bullshit and savagery also belong to humanity...
After lunch, head for the Potsdamer Platz, which is completely rebuilt in futuristic architecture on the one hand and functional on the other. Not far from this square, you can see a piece of wall, Niederkirchstrasse, preserved in its original state despite the sampling by tourists and other nostalgic and vindictive people. This end of the street with its piece of wall is grim enough to evoke what that part of Berlin was before the barrier fell. Behind, the wall of excavations for a construction site have uncovered the former SS prisons where many Germans opposed to the regime were tortured.
A vast open-air exhibition shows all the actors of this era, both executioners and victims, gathered together for the last time. And, oh cruelty, it is there that we see that we know all the executioners and very few of their victims who are the true heroes of this era, of Germany and of humanity in general! It was forgotten that the first resistance fighters and opponents were Germans who were eliminated with the greatest cruelty. As I had read "Alone in Berlin" only a few months ago, I felt a very strong emotion that painfully tightened my throat for a while.
But, the emotion falls quickly when we arrive in front of a poor reconstitution of what was the famous Checkpoint Charlie so much all this is kitch and just intended to amuse the tourists. On the other hand, all the iconography proposed around this crossroads is very rich, very interesting and offers an excellent testimony of what Berlin was like at the time of the score.
The legs begin to get heavier and it is necessary to take the way back by way of Nicoliviertel through this old quarter of Berlin, on the banks of the Spree, which was rebuilt according to the model of what existed before the destruction. It is now a tourist district, in the shade of its church: Nicolaïkirche, which has many restaurants. It is easy to eat in Berlin, the restaurants are numerous and finally not very expensive for a big city. The cuisine in Berlin is quite international, the Italian restaurants are numerous, the traditional cuisine is well represented in the menus alongside Berlin's Child Berlin (Berliner Kindl) this light beer with bitterness a little marked that thirsts well the tourist exhausted by his long journeys in the city. The image of the flat and spread out city, very airy with wide avenues and huge parks. A Prussian city, a city under construction, a Stalinist city in the residential districts of the East, a city to be built with many spaces available, and what the slogan "a city in perpetual becoming" means.
Return to former West and East Berlin
It is therefore to the famous Ku' damm, the Kufürstendamm, and the church of remembrance, Gedächtniskirche, that one must turn. The Ku' damm was Berlin's main avenue at the time of the separation, it is still today a great avenue, but power has been returned to Unter den Linden and the large commercial companies have taken possession of the premises along this long avenue, which has become the main commercial axis of the Berliners. At the end of this grand avenue stands the ruined bell tower of a church that was beheaded by bombs in 1945 and which Berliners wanted to keep as a testimony to these unfortunate days and Nazi madness. Today, this imposing ruined bell tower is surrounded by two geometrical buildings with a rather dubious taste, seen from the outside, but the building dedicated to religious services built in blue glass tiles with warmer coloured glass frescoes makes the light a bit strange and very conducive to meditation. The walk on the Ku' damm ends in an "ungodly" restaurant where you can eat a small snack, typical of Berlin but which now seem to compete strongly with fast food of all kinds.
Like all tourist cities, Berlin has a number of companies that offer guided city tours in panoramic buses (from ?22). The legs being a little heavy, we take advantage of this service to make a wide tour of the city centre from Charlottenburg to Alexanderplatz through all the important sites. It is an excellent way to have a panoramic view of the city, to discover the new districts under construction, the reconstructed districts and the preserved districts. This long journey shows how extensive the city is and how much space it still has to grow and become one of the largest cities in Europe. However, its geographical position, both in Eastern and Northern Europe, leaves it in a kind of cul-de-sac that leaves it doubtful about sprawling development. Frankfurt, London and Paris seem to be a more attractive triangle than northern Europe, which is a bit of a part of the world. But history will certainly be written a little more in Eastern Europe in the years to come and will tell us whether Berlin has a great future.
You have to go back east to visit charming little courtyards, the Hackereschenhöfe, which communicate with each other to form a maze where each courtyard has its own style. A moment of charm just a stone's throw from the forest of the cranes that still furnish the sky of the city centre and only a few meters away from other courtyards that remained as they were at the time of the partition of the city. It is poignant to feel all the sadness that was supposed to reign here before the fall of the wall, the facades still breathe in this sadness and the windows are still very unattractive, Even if only a few dozen meters away, we can already see the signs of the major sports equipment manufacturers illuminating the twilight of Berlin and moving more and more towards its neighbourhoods, which will no longer remain the image we had of the GDR.
The kitchen is generous and pleasant and the price is always so reasonable. A small child from Berlin, the Berliner Kindl, comes to water this meal with his slight bitterness. Return to the hotel after a day still full of images, sensations, emotions and memories and feeling a real sympathy for his Berliners who rush, with great kindness, to show you your way and even offer their services just by seeing you come up with your plan to try to find your way. And, the tram driver is careful to make sure that you don't miss the station where you have to get off, that he indicates you with gestures and smiles.
The Berlin Wall: place of pilgrimage in East Berlin
And already, on Monday morning, it is necessary to think about the return trip but before resuming the train, a small pilgrimage imposes itself on the piece of wall left standing and placed at the disposal of the artists to express their feeling the day after the fall of this shameful barrier. This section of wall is located on the edge of Spree, Mühlenstrasse, south-east of Berlin. This vestige of the wall has less emotion than the one preserved on Checkpoint Charlie's side, it belongs more to folklore with its decorations, which have been widely publicized in the press, cinema, television and everywhere you see images of Berlin. The Berlin authorities are now wondering about its future, as the wall is crumbling under the influence of climate and tourist sampling, and frescoes tend to disappear under the graffiti and tags of some of these tourists. Part of the population is wondering about the opportunity to pay a lot of money to keep a monument standing upright, which Berliners have had such a hard time bringing down.
But the time has come to take the train back to arrive, after a long crossing of Germany, on the banks of the Bodensee at the beginning of the night. The German ICE is not as comfortable as the French TGV, but it is certainly more spacious.
It would certainly be a good idea to add an extra day to this trip, for example on Thursday evenings, to widen the scope of the visits, get out of the central perimeter and discover what Berlin East was like in GDR times, in areas that have not yet been too heavily affected by the renovations that have already profoundly altered the landscape of Berlin.
