Day 9

Our guide, Heidi, picked us up at 9AM for a 4 hour walking tour of Berlin. Heidi is a British ex pat who has lived in Berlin for 12 years and is crazy knowledgeable about the history and especially the WW II and Berlin Wall history. Heidi was accompanied by Daisy, her small mixed breed VERY well trained dog who is off leash most of the time and clearly knows this route by heart. Daisy stops at every curb until she’s told to cross and now and then Heidi puts her on leash in particularly crowded areas. 

Daisy taking a well deserved rest during our coffee break

The war and the wall are ever present in Berlin despite that the wall is gone and everything is beautifully rebuilt. Our tour took us through lovely residential neighborhoods as well as the historic sights of the city. The wall is marked by a cobblestone marker the entire distance of the wall. There is a short section that remains in the area of the old Nazi offices (all destroyed and replaced by a museum about the Nazi period) and another piece of the wall was preserved and current modern artists including Andy Warhol were invited to paint it.

We walked all over the historic area and saw Museum Island, the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz, the opera house, Humboldt University (any relation to OUR CA Humboldt??), and main government buildings. 

Brandenburg Gate

We walked through some cozy neighborhoods and into little alley areas containing local businesses and stopped for coffee in one of these areas. 

Funky alley of encouraged graffiti

Our coffee stop

We also walked through the Holocaust Memorial. It is a very large area covering about 2 city blocks and consists of a maze with pathways that are sometimes flat, sometimes hilly and take you through a “field” of concrete slabs of various heights and orientations. We each walked alone with the instruction to meditate on the exhibit and think about its significance. It was a very moving experience that each of us experienced in our own way.

Another way of memorializing those lost in the holocaust are small brass markers in the sidewalk in front of homes where Jews lived and were sent away to camps and died. Some have dates of death, others just the date of disappearance.

Another very moving memorial is a statue of a grieving mother holding her dead son, a "memorial to the victims of war and tyranny." 

We ended the tour by going to Checkpoint Charlie.

At the end of the tour, Heidi pointed out an Italian restaurant that she recommended for lunch where we were happy to rest our weary feet after almost 5 hours of walking and to feed our poor empty stomachs on a fantastic lunch that included excellent pastas, veal piccata, calves liver (the best any of us have ever tasted!!), some wonderful red wine, great bread and, of course, dessert.