My time in a nuclear bunker

Because it's less than two weeks until we leave, I've been doing a few more touristy things that I hadn't done before, like visiting museums. The one I went to yesterday was called The Story of Berlin, and I'd avoided it because it sounded tacky and unnecessary, but after a few people recommended it I decided to go. It was actually really good - a multimedia tour of Berlin's history, not just of the past century, but its whole history back to 1245-ish.

At the end everyone also got a tour of a real underground bunker, which is one of the few bunkers not built to hide from World War Two bombing, but from feared Cold War bombing. It was built in West Berlin in the '70s, in Ku'damm which is one of Berlin's more touristy shopping streets near Zoo Station and the half-bombed relic of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

We all descended into the bunker, which was silent and dimly lit. An odd, creepy shelter - no one ever used it because there was no nuclear attack from the Soviets - but it's all set up "just in case", and could still be used today, although the nuking would have to be about 5km away and the bunker only fits 3,000 people (it would have been first in, first served, apparently).

Bunk stretchers took up most of the space, but there were bathrooms and a kitchen. The guide played a tape with atomic blast noises to help us imagine what it would be like during a real attack - the booms made the bunker vibrate. "Es ist nicht echt (it's not real)", he reassured the wary-looking kids in our group.

Everyone was relieved to get out and back to the real world.