Exploring Berlin´s special sights...

Friends from the U.K. visited us. They had been invited to a wedding in Potsdam and took advantage of having a quick look at Berlin beforehand.

Being asked for what to do and where to get first impressions of the German capital, we highly recommended our very special Berlin places: first of all the prison of the former East German Ministry of State Security in Hohenschönhausen, where witnesses to history run guided tours and provide a very personal, informative and touching insight into the most recent German past.


Secondly we mentioned the “Berliner Unterwelten” – a society for exploration and documentation of subterranean architecture. Entering Cold War Bunkers, you wander – accompanied by enthusiastic young guides - through what is left of civil defence shelters.
After that we talked about the East Side Gallery, a 1,3 km section of wall which in 1989 was covered with painting from artists from all over the world and which in exactly these days is being restored by the artists themselves.
At the end, we split up for that day: we went for our penultimate stage, our friends headed to town equipped with maps, recommendations, scribbled notes on bus stops and time tables.

When we met at a bridge in the evening to have dinner together, they had done it all. They had guided tours in English and German, they saw the prison, the bunkers, the East-Side-Gallery and they even had a try at an original “Currywurst mit Pommes” at Konnopke´s!

The day ended with a good bottle of wine and conversations about the old and new Berlin. When we went to sleep (after a short music & literature quiz), there was the joint feeling: the more you know and see about that whole Berlin Wall theme, the more questions arise. A good reason for getting up next morning and start investigating again…