My mate and I went to Berlin for fabulous weekend of sightseeing, drinking and general fun. It’s a fantastic city and I fell in love with it immediately!
Firstly, an early birthday present, and possibly the greatest card I’ve ever received…
And my new Jem necklace!
Pretty excited on the plane!
Admiring the view at immigration
On the U-bahn…
Extremely trendy hipsters drinking artisanal beer from lifeguard chairs, as you do
The enormous sofa in the apartment we rented for the weekend
First beer of the weekend – mmmm, delicious!
Appreciating the Ampelmann
And some late night pastry of some description – it was good!
We do love Wodka!
A lovely morning stroll through East Berlin
There were a lot of Dortmund FC fans out and about on buses and boats…
This shop had a lovely window display full of vintage Singers
And a Christmas shop, even though it was May…
At the Brandenburg Gate
An organ grinder, obviously
The holocaust memorial – incredibly powerful and very impressive.
A little pit stop for some lunchtime Currywurst and Erdinger…
Some ruins preserved in perspex at the Sony Centre Complex
Bit of the wall
A mosaic of chewing gum stuck to the wall…
A telephone box with a bullet hole in it, on a plinth. We weren’t sure why it was significant, but it was interesting.
Marker of the wall on the street
At Checkpoint Charlie
Then we found a mini-beach at Checkpoint Charllie! Time for an ice-cream in the sunshine
This is possibly my favourite picture from the trip – two incredibly sweet punks making out in the park. Or as I like to think of it, a rare sighting of the rainbow-crested Berlin punk’s mating ritual…
Bullethole-riddled statue at Tiergarten Park
The Reichstag
Gin and tonics by the river
A rather extreme number of allergens listed on the menu…
Flea market heaven!
Tango classes at Museum island
Apparently these gin and tonics come in a bucket-sized glass!
Bit of schnitzel for dinner – yum!
At the East Side Gallery
In case you were wondering, the weather was beautiful too
The bombed out church near the zoo
Lovely brick rhinos in the walls at the zoo
The new church they built to replace the bombed one – a classic, brutalist concrete hexagon-type building
But from the inside it’s pretty spectacular!
The remains of the frescoes and mosaics inside the church ruins
Potsdammer Platz
Pimms in the sunshine
Followed by mojitoes…
Had we but world enough and time... 