Monday 28th of December 2009 – Berlin Day Two – Tacheles & Reichstag
After nice brunch at the hotel, fruit salad, scrambled eggs, chorizo, salmon, orange juice and coffee, walked up to Greifswalder Station and bought 72h tickets for 22Euros each. Then hopped on the M4 tram, off at TV tower Alexanderplatz, but as visibility was bad we didn’t bother going up. Got the M5 tram, destination unknown, when I saw something interesting, grabbed Jeff and we jumped off the tram.
It was Tacheles, squatted building, we spent about an hour exploring. It was raining a lot at that point. Photos: https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Tachelles&w=14256361%40N00&ss=2&s=rec
We walked for a bit, found InvalidenStr. and found the biggest station in Berlin, probaby Germany? (Hauptbahnhof): https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/tags/hauptbahnhof/. Amazing building, we ate there and walked around Hauptbahnhof for a bit, then crossed the street after seeing some interesting buildings through the massive windows.
The interesting buildings turned out to be the Platz de Republik, and it reminded us so much of Brasilia! We queued for nearly two hours in the freezing cold to go inside the Reichstag building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_building. Jeff wanted to leave but we were nearly there… We got in, took some photos but were frozen to the bone, so we wandered back to Hauptbahnhof, while mesmerised by black/brown crows hanging around. They fly on some amazing formations when the sun is setting. I just walked very quietly near were there were thousands of them just standing on the grass. Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/tags/reichstag/
Took us a while to figure out which train to get to Alexanderplatz, by then we were tired and emotional! So we finally got back home around 6, had a little lie then, then went out for dinner in Frierickshein area. Ended up at Access again on the way home, took us two trams to get back M10 and the other I don’t remember. It was a lot busier tonight.
Have avoided museums so far, they seem too similar to the ones in London, Natural History Museum, Madam Tussauds, Legoland… More interested in the buildings themselves than what’s inside them, which is a bit silly because it’s incredibly cold and being inside would make more sense…