It was a great weekend in Berlin! The flight was only an hour and the sun was out! This is me in front of the Reichstag! On my tour of the city I learned lots of facts - 70% of the city was destroyed during WWII which translates into a city of many concrete and glass newer buildings and the remaining 30% of beautiful old buildings. What I found most bizarre, was that no one speaks of Hitler, instead everything related to the Holocaust is referred to as "the war."
The famous Checkpoint Charlie
These two buildings are two of Berlins oldest and are located in the Genardarmemarkt which is where the Prussian Guard were stationed hundreds of years ago.
Most of The Wall has been destroyed, on purpose to help with the reunification of Germany. I was really looking forward to taking home my own piece of it but I was out of luck. What is left is located along the rivers edge and is considered an outdoor art exhibit since it has been completely covered with various artists creations.
This is an urban apartment building. So much of the pictures I have taken are of the most beautiful buildings and places I have traveled so I wanted to include some more normal pictures to give an idea how the average person lives. In cities, most people are in large apartment buildings, this being one of the nicer ones. Berlin in general, was not as clean as other places I have been. I saw many abandoned buildings, trash on the ground and lots and lots of grafitti.
This is the Jewish Memorial in central Berlin. Before the war 300,000 Jews were living in Berlin including Albert Einstein. Now the Jewish population is estimated to be 14,000.
The Brandenburg Gate, formerly a boundry between East and West. My hotel was located in the old eastern part of the city, as well as most of the buildings and monuments.
The oldest University in Berlin is Humboldt University! Made me feel a little bit closer to home...
These are people on Segways getting ready for a city tour.
Museum
Berlin Cathedral
I just finished watching the rise and the fall of Germany, a six hour two part series about what was going on in Germany that allowed Hitler's rise and what people went through when Germany was defeated. It used a lot of home movies and resident accounts, and said that it wasn't until 1980's that reconstruction was complete. A lot of he buildings in your pictures were in the film with the long red swastica flags hanging from them. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteLoving all the pictures Jana! Such an amazing thing you are getting to do. Hope the stress at home isn't preventing you from having a great time :)
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