My Berlin - Germany Trip

Hello All/Guten Tag,

This post is about my recent trip to Berlin. I hope you will enjoy reading this. In this blog, I have also included my few experiences from my Munich Trip which I had taken few months ago (About Munich Trip, I would write in some other blogs). Here it goes the details and the photos:

Berlin, the capital City of Germany is on the north side of Germany. We took GermanWings, low cost carrier of Deutsche Lufthansa. The flight was short and comfortable with Airbus A319 Plane.

The model of the Germanwings Airbus 319 with which we flew:

Germanwings.Airbus.319 to Berlin

Berlin has three main Airports - one yet to be opened. GermanWings operate from Berlin Tegel (TXL). The transportation within Berlin is very easy bus Bus, S-Bahn (Sub-Urban Bahn/Metro Train), U-Bahn (Underground Bahn/within City/Urban Area Metro Train) and by Trams (Short Distance Small Trains). 

We discovered that Berlin offers variety of Tickets/Passes to you and you can buy it depending on the length of your stay. Of Course, you can travel by buying ticket each time you board Bus or Train but if you are staying there for whole day or more than two days and will be utilizing public transportation very frequently, then, it is better to buy day Tickets/Passes. These Passes will save your money and are hassle free. We bought a day pass of Euro 6.50 for Zone AB of Berlin and started travelling around.

If you buy day Ticket from Bus Driver, the ticket for Zone AB for a day looks like this and you need not have to stamp:

In the above Picture, you can see Two Day Tickets of Berlin AB Zone

In the above Picture, you can see the Two Day Tickets of Berlin AB Zone.

After buying a day ticket in Berlin Airport (Berlin Tegel - TXL), we started our trip. Our first trip was to "The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor)". You must have heard India Gate, or Gateway of India, or Arc de Trump (in France). These all are gates honouring soldiers and the Brandenburg Gate is another such gate in Germany. If you would like to read more on this and the history associated with the Brandenburg Gate, you can look at this Wikipedia Page. 

I must say that even at the end of March, Berlin was very very cold, wet and was snowing. The wind was blowing very badly at Berlin and it was difficult to hold camera on hands to click photos. Even the Camera Quality was bad and I have taken few photos. Some of such photos are here:

In the last image, you can see two people dressed as soldiers and holding flags of United States of America and Communist Flag of USSR. This is in total the history of Berlin - a very painful history. The guy who is holding US Flag is dressed like US Army and the another is dressed like Soviet Army. Germany suffered heavy loss on First World War (WWI) and when Hitler tried to take revenge of that in Second World War (WWII), it suffered again. Thereafter, the big powers divided Germany in East Germany and West Germany. Even the Berlin City was divided in East Berlin and West Berlin and East Berlin was ruled by Soviet Forces and West Berlin was further divided in US ruled areas, UK ruled areas and France ruled areas. At the height of the Cold War in 1960s, Berlin Wall was created by Soviet Forces/Eastern Bloc so that people will not flee from East to West. As per history, the wall was just next to this  "The Brandenburg Gate" and the then US President Ronald Regan delivered his historic speech just next to the wall urging USSR Communist General Secretary Gorbachov to bring the wall down, to demolish it.

Ronald Regan says, "Tear Down this Wall". The Speech was made at 1987 and the Berlin Wall was demolished after fall of USSR in 1989. The Berlin City has major Museums and History covering the pain of Hitler's terror and Cold War on which I shall write more later.

After visiting "The Brandenburg Gate", we headed to see Bundestag (German parliament)/Reichstag. The building is a simple one in terms of architecture but has a very historic place as Hitler, during 1930 and 40s had complete control over it while spreading terror. Near to it, there is a Office of German Chancellor  Both photos can be seen below and there is no barricade or presence of any heavy security forces in stark contrast to India and Nepal or other poor third world countries.

German Parliament.Bundestag.Reichstag

Office of German Cancellor

You can see in the photos gloomy and cloudy day and the snow all around. It was very difficult to take photos in minus 5 degree centigrade and when it was raining and snowing.

You can read more about German Parliament from Here.

On the very first day after visiting Bundestag, we headed to Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is not a cemetery but around 2000 box/stones erected to remember the Six Million Jews killed by Hitler and Nazi. You can read more on this here.

I will be writing more about #Hitler, anti-Jewish and #Nazism and #Berlin, #Germany more on coming days. If you like this post, do not forget to say hello!

Auf Wiedersehen (is German for goodbye). :))

The Second Part of My German Trip can be read here.

My Three Parts of Paris Trip can also be read here in PART - I, PART -II and PART - III