Snapshots

We’ve had a guest from New Zealand here in Berlin for two days, so it was time to do the tour again. (These photos are his, since our allegedly flash camera broke.)

We start on Museum Island on the Spree river, looking at the museums and Berliner Dom surrounded by thinning trees. The Fernsehturm, or TV Tower, is behind it.

Unter den Linden (meaning Under the Lime Trees) comes next, the main historical street in Berlin. Wandering up you can see the old Russian embassy, the Holocaust memorial, the Historisches Museum, the site of the 1933 Nazi book burnings (currently being made into a carpark, rendering the underground memorial of empty bookshelves inaccessible), the State Library, the US embassy completely surrounded by guards and cordoned off, and finally the Brandenburg Gate at the end.




On the other side is the Berlin Wall boundary marking. Nearby is the Reichstag, with its ever-present queue of people trying to see the glass dome. On the right is Tiergarten, a quiet oasis of greenery.




On the other side is Potsdamer Platz, with its modern skyscrapers, all built from scratch when the Wall came down, and the Sony Center.


It’s only the surface attractions of what Berlin has to show, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Big Ben in London. But it’s a memorable walk and one I never get tired of. If we have a visitor who’s only here for a short time, it gives them an idea at least. But it doesn’t beat wandering around and discovering things by surprise. Which I still do here most days.