Berlin

Our first stop in Berlin was at the Radio Tower where the East Germans used to spy on the West Germans from.

Then it was off to the Reichstag which had a big glass dome on the top. We learnt about some of the history and then climbed around the ramp to the top. We got a good view of the city and had an Audio Guide to tell us things.

The next day we hired some bikes and went to the canal to find a path to ride on. Then we found a café that we called have breakfasts at. I got a muffin .then we rode to the Berlin Wall. It had lots of really cool graffiti on it. 

We rode past one mural and it showed how many people died trying to cross from east to west during the time it was up. The wall was there because after the war the Russians owned the east. There was a west side which you were safe in because it was owned by France, America and the UK but if you were on the east you were stuffed because the Russians didn’t want the people who lived in East Berlin leaving.

So many died trying to escape and lots actually managed to. It was sad looking at the berlin wall. There was something called NO MANS LAND. Where the army was guarding and shot people who they saw trying to climb over the wall.

We kept seeing lots of the graffiti. There are 2 famous ones. The first one is the graffiti of the car smashing throw the walls [ I think who ever in those day was there and walk past said ‘’ I wish that happened to us’’ and the other one was the two famous leaders kissing. 

Then we looked at an exhibition of photos from other walls in Mexico, Palestine and Northern Ireland. The Berlin Wall was very interesting and I learnt a lot.

We then rode through Berlin to the Brandenburg Gate which was a border crossing through the wall. There was a line on the road where the wall was and me and Emma stood in both sides of Berlin at one time.

 

Then we went for a ride into Tiergarten and saw the Victory Column and the Berlin Cathedral that got bombed out during the War. We took the bikes back and went out for dinner. It was great riding around Berlin.

The next day we went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and learnt more about the Berlin Wall and how people tried to and successfully climbed, flying foxed and got smuggled across in cars.

It was then time to fly to the UK but Berlin was D-Cool.

 

Rome

Colosseum

We got to our apartment and dumped our bags and had a chill out. They had a DVD with the film Gladiator so we put it to get an idea of the colosseum in the past. Then we went for a walk to the colosseum and got our tickets and walked around it. We looked at the bottom where they put the people in to fight. It would have been really scary. The stadium was huge and would have been unbelievably noisy.

Vatican Museum

The next day we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. It was a very long queue to get in but when we finally did we went to look at all the very special and valuable statues and paintings.

After walking around for a couple of hours we still hadn’t been into the Sistine Chapel but we went to the cafe because we all were really hungry.

 

Finally we went into the Sistine Chapel where the painting of the touching fingers is. It is a painting of God and Adam touching fingers. It was in the middle on the roof. It was very crowded and you weren’t allowed to take photos, which was annoying. 

St Peters Basilica

After the Vatican we went to St Peters Basilica, the head of the Catholic Church. When I walked in the church, I was amazed when I saw it. The roof was blue, white and gold and there were amazing statues all around. I think it the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Just as we were leaving it went mad with rain and lighting. It was horrendous!  We tried to shelter undercover hiding behind a column in St Peters square but we still got wet as the rain came in sideways. There were people selling rain coats and umbrellas but it was no use because we were already soaking wet. We tried to get home but it was really wet. We had to run through the puddles. I was really cold, so was Emma. I still had a great day though. I rate it a 10 out of 10

Trevi Fountain

Mum and Dad made us go to a lot of sights in Rome on our last day there. I was looking forward to seeing the Trevi Fountain because I had been reading about it in a book that morning and had made lots of notes that I wanted to read out when we were there. Eventually we got to the Trevi Fountain. There were lots of tourists there but we fought our way to the fountain and threw in a coin which means we will come back to Rome. 

I read out all of the information to Mum, Dad and Emma who found it very interesting.

I loved Rome it was a very interesting place.