Berlin - day 2

It was another hot and sunny day. Before breakfast Gavin and I went for a walk along the river and I took this photo of the Reichstag in the early morning light. Berlin has some wonderful modern architecture, especially in that area along the river. 

After breakfast we went for our booked visit to the Reichstag. The dome was designed by Norman Foster and is a wonderful glass and steel structure that blends in to the old architectural style so well. We then got an uber across town to see the Hitler museum, which is in an underground bunker. It was absolutely fascinating, we spent about 2 hours there but I could happily have spent many more hours there. I have always been fascinated with that period of history, particularly the holocaust, and this gives a very good view of how and why Hitler rose to power. We forget how popular he was when he first rose to power, seen as the saviour of a country utterly crushed by the allies after the war. There was even a photo of the queen as a little girl doing a 'Heil Hitler' salute taught to her by her uncle, obviously playing around but I imagine rather embarrassing for her today. 

Then another uber across town to the Fernseh Turm (TV Tower) where we had lunch booked. I could not find the email confirming the lunch and so we had a bit of a faff getting in - eventually after about 30 minutes the staff member found our booking and then while we were at lunch came with a cash refund as Gavin had bought tickets again for us to go up the tower. The views from there are excellent and one can clearly see the difference in architectural style between east and west Berlin. 

After lunch we went to see the Berlin Wall museum and learn all about the history of the wall. I think Berlin has such a fascinating history and there are so many excellent museums telling the story of Berlin. Today we certainly learnt so much about that history. Then we went across town again to walk another section of the Berlin wall, an area where the longest section of the wall remains and today it is covered in street art. There were some excellent paintings on the wall including the one of the famous kiss. 

I have added some extras here if you are interested. It is interesting to see the wall, I never realised it had a large no man's land section between two walls with watch towers all along the wall.

When we got back to the hotel we face-timed Adam. He starts exams tomorrow, on Bank Holiday Monday and is feeling rather nervous about it. The stress levels experienced at a university like Cambridge is very high at this time of year - Adam was saying the university do offer various forms of support to help the students.