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.