Berlin 2026 – part three

Saturday was, necessarily, a day of recovery and Sunday gave us an opportunity to explore Berlin further. We tried a new place for breakfast – not that yesterday’s freshly made croissants weren’t appreciated just that we didn’t really want to wait half an hour to get the breakfast! We liked the new place and will return.

We had decided to do the ‘Hop on, Hop off’ bus tour as we find it a good way of getting round the main sites. It also helps to refine any further plans. The problem is that taking photos from a moving bus with reflective windows isn’t that easy. So not many photos from that trip but we did identify a couple of places we would return to for a better look.

An interesting if convoluted route that essentially bore little resemblance to that marked on the thoughtfully provided map 😉 but we were glad to have done it. Our planned interim exit point from the tour was Checkpoint Charlie.

The U.S. Army Checkpoint known as Charlie is on Friedrichstrasse at the junction with Zimmerstrasse and is way more affecting and interesting than we imagined.

I was way too engrossed by the story told on the excellent information boards to take a photo of them but I did get a couple of shots of where the wall was. We were amazed by how thin it seemed but, of course, the wall wasn’t the barrier – the guns were the barrier!

The last stretch of the bus tour took us to the Fernsehturm (Television Tower) near Alexanderplatz. No – we didn’t go up it (or even ask) but it was nice to be alongside it as opposed to seeing it from almost everywhere else we had been. Nearby was the Rotes Rathaus (Red Town Hall) – imposing building snd the St Marienkirche (St Mary’s Church).

By now it was getting really cold here in Berlin. Expected but nevertheless uncomfortable so we headed back to the hotel, had a drink & a rest and got ready for dinner. nothing too fancy tonight but we wanted something a little light than the normal elephantine portion sizes we have experience. We chose a tapas restaurant (part of a Melia hotel) just a couple of minutes up the road. It was really quite good and, more tho the point, exactly what we needed.