The New City: Berlin

The last destination of our tour was Berlin. It was so last minute that we booked everything 20 days prior to our trip and we are glad we did. We stayed in Berlin for 3 nights 4 days and by the end of it we were super tired, craving authentic Indian food and just wanted to go home. I am calling it the new city as it was 80% ruined in World War II and is still very much in progress. The locals say (almost annoyed tone) Berlin is always under construction.

Berlin is well-planned with wide roads, great infrastructure, and excellent transport system. The highlight of our trip was the location we stayed in. We stayed bang opposite the Berlin metro station which was a tourist destination in itself. The sheer size of the station mesmerized us to no end.

We reached on a Tuesday at around 11 a.m and decided to take it slow as we were exhausted from constant traveling.

Day 1: After relaxing (read, sleeping like there's no tomorrow) we decided to visit the National Museum of Natural History, which was luckily just 10mins walking distance from our hotel. After a bit of research, we realized that they had the skeletal remains of Brachiosaurus, Raptor, T-rex and many more species so obviously, we couldn’t give it a miss. Well, I felt like a kid when I entered this place. It was simply amaazzziiinnnggg to see the remains and to imagine that something as big as Brachiosaurus ever existed on this planet. 

The science student in me was excited to no end. We spent pretty much our entire afternoon exploring this place. Post which we decided to visit the local store, buy some munchies and rest at the hotel.

It was so freakin huge, fitting it in one frame was difficult. Hence, the weird angle.

T-Rex

T-Rex

T-Rex Head

Just a perspective of how huge it is!

Raptors

The massive fish fossil

Day 2: We started our day early; by 10 we were out and about. We visited the tourism center at the station and bought the Welcome pass (more about it at the end of the blog) and decided to take the hop-on-hop-off bus to explore the city. It is definitely the best and the most comfortable way to see the place and as we were pretty tired from our earlier travels, this was just perfect. The bus timings are from 10:00 am to 6p.m and you can get down anywhere and spend time. It follows two routes (yellow route being the most popular) and is super convenient. 

We saw the Reichstag building, Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, Postdamer Platz, etc, etc. the bus covered all the spots. After two hours on the bus, we got down for some lunch and decided to do a boat tour of the Museum island tour which we had planned to do on Day 3. It was really interesting and a must-do in Berlin. We got on the bus post this and visited a few more spots and at 5pm we decided to call it a day.

Postdamer Platz

One with the bus! :P

Brandenburg Gate

Konzerthaus Berlin, it is a beautiful concert hall, which conducts several live performances.

Check-point Charlie

Day 3: We had decided to visit the Museum Island, which comprises of 5 museums on Spree Island in the district of Mitte: Altes Museum,  Neues Museum, Bode Museum, Pergamon Museum, Humboldt Forum (this is shut now and will open in 2019) out of which we visited the first three. I am a museum kinda girl and don’t really get bored. I love to soak in the history and can spend hours. For more info, click here. 

After spending considerable time here, we took the tram to visit the East Side Gallery. Frankly, there is nothing much but yes, the historical significance, the pop of color, the modern graffiti's make it quite a happy place to be.

An entire story carved on a block of marble.

The museum is getting renovated but, the walls are still that of the old structure.

Mummy of a child

We discovered this beautiful place just behind the Berlin station, where we would sit for an hour or so.

Day 4: We had a flight back to Amsterdam in the afternoon so decided to spend it visiting the Berlin Wall Memorial which was just a 10min bus right from our hotel. I don’t want to say much about this place as we all know what happened here and the significance of it all. We spent not more than half an hour over here and decided to head back to our hotel.

The last leg of our tour was very interesting and we left the place with a heavy heart (me almost teary-eyed as the trip was coming to an end ☹)

Where we stayed: Ibis Hotel Berlin Hauptbahnhof, 15 mins by bus from the airport and right opposite Berlin Central Station. Book this hotel, pocket-friendly, the location is great, breakfast is yum and the rooms are comfy.

How we traveled: metro, tram, and buses using the Welcome card.

Where we ate: We ate at Mc Donalds at the Berlin Station, at a nearby Indian restaurant (Hotel Amrit), and some Asian place at the station itself which had an amazing buffet. Berlin station was really convenient as we found quite a few options to eat at when we were tired.

Welcome Card: This is the best thing we did. A welcome card lasts for a minimum of 48 hours and it includes traveling by any mode of transport, exclusive discounts on hop-on-hop-off, restaurants, museums, etc. If you are staying more than 2 days then you must get this. Mail me if you need more info or click here.

This post ends our Europe Travel Series and I am glad I managed to incorporate as much detail as possible. Hope you all enjoy it and get to experience our fun holiday. 
If you wish to know more about how to plan, Schengen visa, etc. do email me at bombaymode@gmail.com