A quick visit to Berlin

I told Jon to bring walking shoes on this trip, and we set our benchmark early with a walking tour in Berlin. We were only there two nights, with a single full day in the city... according to my pedometer watch, we covered over 15 miles in the warm Berliner sun!

Buckley's solution to hot weather

I've stayed in Berlin twice in the past decade, and stayed in different parts of the city each time. This time around, we found a cool basement AirBnB in the Kreuzberg neighborhood south of the city center. It was already warm when we arrived, so after hauling our gear from the Hauptbahnhof (via S-bahn, U-bahn, and foot), we opted to take it easy and found a biergarten that had plenty of sours for Jon. In the morning, we put our walking shoes on and headed towards Potzdamer Platz, the Tiergarten, and the Reichstag.

It wasn't an especially busy Thursday, but Berlin is always humming. After a few days in the Netherlands, being in a car-centric city was an adjustment. It reminded me a bit of Portland in that there were many bikes cruising in designated lanes or on dual-use paths, but cars were running the show. This changed slightly was we walked through the Brandenburger Tor and down the main street "Unter den Linden," where tourists took over control from even the autos. This street took us through Bebelplatz (a window in the ground showed us empty bookshelves to commemorate the book burnings that happened there) and over the canal to the Berliner Dom, and then to Alexanderplatz, the heart of East Berlin. We also stopped at Hackescher Markt for Jon to try his first Currywurst! 

Berliner Dom

Fernseh Turm am Alexanderplatz

The rest of our afternoon was spent wandering Kreuzberg from one end (the river) to the other (Victoriapark). We stopped for some excellent Dönerkebap, pretentious (but delicious) Eis, and decent beer in a biergarten. Our wander home resulted in a brief pause for rest (and postcard shopping!) before a final evening trip to Viktoriapark. Tucked in the shadow of the Napoleanic War memorial is a lovely indoor/outdoor biergarten, sunk into the cool hillside and shaded by trees. We put our feet up and enjoyed some well-earned Radler!