Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 4 (Berlin)

Up earlier again today, but Mum and Dad got some washing done first thing so we were headed out a little later than other days. Our first stop was just about 10 minutes north of our accomodation, but it felt cold today! Yesterday hadn't been as cold as Saturday or Sunday had been (when the max temperature was only 2 degrees!), but today was about 7 again - but it was super windy so felt colder than it was!

We were under the impression that it was just a bit of the wall in a park, but it turned out it was a very organised and much bigger park than we expected, with lot of information and it was also quite busy. So it turned out to be more of an attraction than we expected! It was quite interesting though, as they had preserved a strip between the two walls as it was in the time of the wall.

After that we headed onto the train and over to the East Side Gallery. On the way we stopped in the East Side Mall for bathrooms and lunch, eating in a food court and giving everyone a break from currywurst! Then we were headed off, and this is not a gallery like you would expect. It's literally a strip of wall more than a kilometre long (I think it was 1.3, 1.4km long in total?) which has had lots of artwork painted on it from as early as 1990. It was very busy around and along the whole length of it but there were some really interesting and political artworks along the way.

After that we had walked back a station to Ostbanhof (pretty sure that's literally East Station in English) and got back on the train with the intention of heading back to the DDR museum as our last stop of the day. We were in the queue at 2:45 when the guy from the front desk came around and let us know that not only were they closing at 4, but that entry is at 3pm. And that it was going to take us 15-20 minutes to get to the front of the queue. So we had a quick browse through the shop, then headed out and back towards the apartment.

Along the way we stopped in at the Amplemann shop. The Amplemann are the traffic light men, who were originally from East Berlin but are now dotted about the place and are quite the phenomenon. They are also a good way to buy souvenirs that aren't quite so... Destructive, I guess. We got some cool souvenir bits before heading back to the apartment.

Of course, it is the 31st today and we have a vague plan for trying to get see some fireworks this evening at midnight. Berlin has quite the reputation for just letting off fireworks in the street, but there are organised fireworks around the Brandenburg Gate that we might go and see? I'm not feeling super great though so it might just be the other four going out. We'll see.

In the end I wasn't feeling well enough to go out, but everyone else went out to the main station near our hotel and watched the fireworks in the square. It turns out I got quite the show even from our balcony, as in Berlin literally everyone buys fireworks and just lets them off anywhere in the street. So they were everywhere, and a lot, and for a long time! It was very cool though, I've not seen fireworks like that up close before. Bring on 2020!

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 3 (Berlin)

Got up a little earlier this morning - and we were the last ones again, oops! More pastries from the delicious "Back Factory" for breakfast, before getting on the train to the German Spy Museum. Conveniently, the Berlin public transport system allows for one ticket which covers all day travel for a "small group" of 5! And we are exactly the right size group for that.

The Spy Musem was very cool, with a mix of World War information and including the Cold War and after that as well. There were lots of gadgets on display (fictional and not) as well as information about real spies and double agents, and a whole section on spy movies with a heavy focus on 007! We spent a good few hours there and it was really interesting to read all the information.

After that it was definitely lunch time and it turned out that just down the road was a currywurst stand which had one of the highest ratings we'd seen (5 stars on Google!) so we stopped there for lunch. And it was delicious! Rostbradwurst for me, currywurst for everyone else, and chips to share. Fantastic. We then stopped briefly to look at the Bundesministerium der Finanzen, which is one of the few building still standing from after WW2 on our way to the Topography of Terror.

Topography of Terror is placed where several of the key SS and Nazi buildings once stood and is a look at the war through the lens of the SS and the functions of those buildings. It was very interesting, but in all honesty after reading the main information boards there were so many photos and documents to also look at that it was a bit of information fatigue. Not to mention the obviously sad subject matter. Mum and I wandered together and read the main bits, but at the point we got to the photo exhibition we were feeling a bit overloaded. Then we spotted what looked like a school photo of Jewish children, where on closer inspection only one child managed to avoid a concentration camp and survive the war and all the others died, mostly in Aushwitz. I think that is what made us stop for the exhibition, we then realised how sad everything was and decided to just wait for the boys to finish their reading. We all agreed afterwards that it is an important exhibition and that it is also a bit overwhelming at times.

Our final stop for the day was a very unexciting looking car park with a plaque. I wanted to see the car park where the Führerbunker was. Technically parts of it are still there, as the walls and floor were too expensive to remove and so once they took off the roof they simply filled it in with gravel and sand. Now it is a car park, and remarkably close to (within a block of) the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. So it's probably good that there isn't anything other than one sign of explanation there.

After that we caught the train and a tram to get back to the apartment. We will probably have a nearby dinner again tonight, as Mum has got blisters on her feet and we don't want to walk too far to get dinner. Only one day left in Berlin, so we need to fit as much as possible in tomorrow so we have "done" Berlin properly before we move on to Munich. We ended up at the burger place next door to the apartment, Kreuzburger, which was really delicious as well as close! And another early night, so we can pack in touristy things tomorrow.

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 2 (Berlin)

This morning, I was actually the last one up! I blame the lack of cats - I’m actually able to sleep without being rampaged over and jumped on, which is nice. Although I do miss the fluffy ones...

We headed out not long after 10 this morning and walked to Alexanderplatz to meet the Hop On Hop Off tour bus. We got on at Stop 7 of the A line (Highlights Tour) and headed off! It turns out that this was a good option for a day which was forecast to be maximum 2 degrees, as the bus was very warm and snuggly inside and was double decker but not open top, which was a great option to not freeze to death!

We headed around to Stop 11, which was Brandenburger Tor (the Brandenburg gate). We went to look at the Gate, which was very cool looking but was also being set up for NYE in a few days, so there was lots of temporary buildings, toilets, etc. being erected. We then had to go and walk the long way around to get to just behind it (because of the temporary stuff) to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. While the people weren’t always respectful (there were people who were climbing on the memorial, and others taking smiling selfies) I found it quite somber to see the representation of how many Jews were murdered. We then walked back to the Brandenburg Gate before heading over past the Reichstag building and other official buildings, to Stop 12 at the Hauptbahnhof (the main train station in a Berlin). While we were there, we popped in to the station to pick up the tickets for our train trip to Munich on the 1st, as well as some lunch. Mum, Richard and I had wurst (me plain, the others had curry wurst), while Dad and Bro had Asian food. Then I had the most expensive toilet experience so far, at €1... but we’ll see if that gets topped later in the trip!

Then we got back on the tour bus to head around the circuit some more to Stop 5, which was Checkpoint Charlie! This is a spot where you can look at a US army checkpoint (named C, or Charlie) and see where the Wall was and a place where you could have crossed into East Germany from West, and vice versa. We looked at the pieces of wall which were still mostly intact, and there is a line of bricks in the ground to indicate where the wall used to be and now is just footpath or road. We considered going into the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, but decided with 5 people that at £14.50 a head it was too much to spend. 

We then walked back to the apartment, taking our time and lots of photos along the way on the walk. It was freezing, but it was a good day, and we were back at the apartment around 4:30pm to thaw, to rest, and to update the blog! Tonight’s dinner plan is to go somewhere local after doing 15,000 steps today in walking - we have good looking Asian, burger and sushi near us so plenty of options!

We ended up trying to go to an Italian restaurant, but it was tiny and full, so we ended up at a German place! I had a fish schnitzel and potatoes (basically, Germany's fancy answer to fish and chips) and Richard had Spatzle, which is egg noodle mac and cheese. All delicious, and topped off by cherry flavoured Magnums! A lovely evening.

Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 1 (Berlin)

On this trip, we are reunited with my family! My Mum, Dad and Bro have come to Europe to visit us over New Years/my birthday (which falls in January). Each time they visit, we spend some time in Europe while also spending some time in London. This time, it’s Germany, and we met in Berlin late last night. It is always so fantastic to be back with my family - we haven't seen them in person in about 9 months, so it's super nice to be able to hug them again! 

Having met at their airport, we got our transfer to the place we are staying! Rather than a hotel, we have a three bedroom apartment, which is quite nice. We pretty much fell straight into bed once we had arrived, particularly for my family as they have obviously flown a much longer distance!

That also meant we had a lazy day today, as Bro in particular didn't fly well, so we slept in and had a slow start. Parents went to properly check in and picked up some groceries and pastry for us to start our day, and we headed out not long before 12pm to go for a wander. We headed towards the radio tower, where we found a Christmas market! So we wandered through that for a few laps and started our German food experience with wurst! We all had wurst and really yummy apple cinnamon stuffed donuts, which we actually couldn't finished because they were so big. Mum and I also bought some lace work Christmas decorations which were apparently handmade in Saxony. Then we headed for a wander towards the cathedral, but in the end the others were rather freezing and we decided to return to the apartment. To be fair, the maximum for the next two day is only 2-3 degrees Celsius and that must be a shock after Canberra at 40!

So we've been chilling and catching up since then. At the moment the plan for tonight is to go check out the Christmas lights and market on Kurfürstendamm, but we'll see how that goes... And we did it. Left the apartment again around 5:30pm, walked to the S train station (only a 5 minute walk) and caught the train down to Kurfürstendamm. Actually it was also handy in that we went through the station we need to go to on Wednesday for our train to Munich, so we also know where that is. The lights weren't as impressive as we thought they would be, but the street is the "champs-elysees of Berlin" and I can see why. Full of higher end stops on both sides of a wide road. But not so much food, it turned out, and it was dinner time. We ended up at a German diner type place, which turned out to be exactly what people needed. Mum and Dad are light (soup and nachos, respectively), Bro had a burger, and Richard and I both had a schnitzel. Most of us didn't finish our food though, although it was good, and then we walked back through the Christmas markets on the way back to the train (we didn't buy anything from that market either time though). Back to the apartment, time for a quick tea and a little chocolate, and time for bed! The plan is to get going a little earlier tomorrow!!!

Weekend Escape: Ghent, Belgium #2

We had a delightful sleep in the hotel, punctuated only when the alarm went off for us to start our day. We had a nice sleep in, so we were ready to go and checked out at 11am. We put our stuff back into the car (which we could leave there until we wanted to go home) and headed back into the city centre. We had a pastry for brunch from a bakery, while standing and people watching outside the castle in Ghent, called the Gravensteen, before heading in there.





It was quite interesting, and in particular it had quite a good audio tour. Even older than most of the English castles, it described the history and use of the castle and what it would have been like in those times. Once we were finished doing that, we wandered the city for a bit, looking for a place where I could buy a bottle of the aforementioned waffle flavoured vodka. We must have walked the city about 5 times, and looked in every shop that could have had it that was open (which wasn't so many, apparently lost of shops in Ghent are closed on Sundays) but we couldn't find it anywhere! Hands down that was the biggest disappointment of the weekend.



We did get some more bits from stalls and shops - mostly presents for my work colleagues this time, and we stopped at a burger place called Manhattn for lunch. It was very nice! We then wandered a bit more, but by then I was tired and cold and grumpy, so we decided to head back early.



We only took a short detour off the main road back to Calais this time, arriving a full 2 hours before our train. However, we were given the option to get an earlier train which we took, then we headed into the Charles Dickens terminal to grab some dinner (pizza which tasted like the old school pizza singles - and that's a good thing) and some duty free Belgian beer before heading back on the train.

Being on the slightly earlier train did mean, of course, that we got into Folkestone a little earlier, and we were home in the flat with the kitties by not long after 9pm! This meant we still got a decent nights sleep before having to head to work on Monday morning.

This had been an interesting experience, taking a weekend holiday mid school term. I think it's a good idea - but only sometimes, otherwise it's definitely burning the candle at both ends!

Weekend Escape: Ghent, Belgium #1

This past weekend, we decided to head to a real, European Christmas market! Especially as we recently acquired a car - a bright red (therefore fast) Polo GTI and we wanted to give it a chance to put it through its paces on a road that was faster than 40mph!

It was a very early start, with us getting up at 5am after a long week and piling our stuff into the boot (it's not big, but we were only away one night!) before heading quickly down to Folkestone to get to the Eurotunnel (le Shuttle). In quite quaint news, the terminal going into France is called the Victor Hugo terminal, and the one coming back into England is the Charles Dickens terminal! Very sweet. We arrived just in time to straight away join the queue to get on our train, which was quite the interesting experience. After a lot of queuing, you simply drive on to the train! As we have a small car, we were in the double decker section, on the ground floor on the way over. You literally park the car and stop it on the train, with the windows down, and chill in your car until you have arrived in France!

Once the train has arrived, you drive off the train, on to a sliproad and then you're on the motorway! To drive in Europe you have to have a few extra things: a GB sticker or numberplate (we installed ours on the Friday night before we left), high vis vests, a safety triangle, a pair of breathalyser tubes (you have to have one legally, but if they test you and then you have none left you're instantly illegal, so you carry two), and if you have an older car, you have to have headlight adjusters so that you can tilt your headlights to being on the other side of the road. Because our car is brand new (like, actually), it simply has an option in the settings to change the road settings to 'Europe', and the displays to metric. So we were off!

First we headed to Dunkerque (Dunkirk), to have a look at the famous beach. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for the winter (although just about to reopen for the Christmas period) so we couldn't go there, and the weather was pretty miserable, so we wandered around for a bit and read some information before deciding to head back into the car and on to the next destination.



We drove along the coast towards Ghent, stopping next in Oostende. Unfortunately along the coast road it was mostly closed, so the route was not as scenic as we had hoped. They had cool sculptures along the beach, and we had delicious ham and cheese baguettes in the French style. We did briefly check out the beach, however this backfired once we got exposed into the driving wind. Sand getting in our eyes and into my tights and I bailed on that part of the beach pretty fast! Then we were back on the road, next stop being Ghent. 





On arriving in Ghent, we drove straight to the hotel, checked in and got into our room. We stayed in the Marriott near the city centre as it was conveniently located and had a carpark! After freshening up, we decided to head for a walk into the city centre and find the Christmas markets. Lucky for us, they were super easy to find! The map we were given by the hotel was actually more spread out in real life, with the market being in 3 main parts but actually being only about 10 minutes from one end to the other without stopping. We started with drinks - Richard having beer (duh) and I tried a fantastic jenever (gin) which was waffle flavoured! I ended having a few over the course of the evening. We ended up walking the whole length without buying anything, before deciding it was dinner time. We wanted to sit down, so we went looking for a restaurant to eat at. It did turn out, however, that without a booking we couldn't get in anywhere!



So we went back to the market and had food from there for dinner. Frites, a bradwurst, hot chocolate... Plus we bought a few things - marzipan, coconut biscuits, chocolate truffles. It was a delightful evening, but we were quite cold by the end, and ended up back in the hotel reasonably early, curled up with a cup of tea to watch a little TV before bed.