Belgian Bloggin: Berlin

Brandenburg Gate

Two days after Christmas, we loaded up the car and headed for Berlin. The city was on our list of places we needed to see before we left. Honestly, it was not on our list when we moved here but it was suggested to us so many times that we figured it must be worth the journey. It took us about 8 hours. The kids did great (no sleeping as usual for them), but the one who gets the most credit is my mom. She sat in between those two car seats and those two chatty passengers there and back. This is the trip where Liam said to my mom "Watch and learn" as he showed her the IPad we had for one week!

A 5 day stay let us see the essentials plus a few kid-friendly things as well. It was VERY cold so we had to make sure we planned a mix of indoor and outdoor sight seeing.

The city is defined by the Berlin Wall. Of course we had known about the wall and even remember when it came down in 1989, but I must admit that being there was quite an eye opener for me. When you hear about it in a book, it sounds terrible of course but you think about two countries splitting apart. When I saw it I realized how one random day in 1961, families were split by this wall, streets cut in half, friends lost communication for almost 30 years. All this not so very long ago . . .

The majority of the wall is down now (minus pieces saved for historical purposes) but if you ever want to see where the wall was you just need to look down. The stone path in the street below weaves throughout the city so that they will always remember. Here we are standing in East & West Germany at the same time.

Liam is under there somewhere!

There are several different spots in Berlin to view the wall, each offering something different. The Berlin Wall Memorial really drives home the price people had to pay during this time. They either gave up their freedom or risked their lives. The picture below shows the view from a memorial tower where you can see the wall and what was called "no mans land". If you attempted to climb the wall the guards at the tower had a clear view and shot at you as you tried to reach the next barrier. It was filled with sand so that anyone who was there would leave visible marks. The graveyard in the back was actually split in half for 30 years, people who lived with apartments too close to the wall had to have their windows sealed with bricks so they would not jump, train stations nearby went dormant for almost 30 years.

Faces of those killed at the wall

A section of the Wall near the memorial

This is a section of the wall closer to Check point Charlie. It preservers many of the messages people would write to their loved ones on the other side.

There is another section called the East Side Gallery. It is a mile long and has become the largest open air art gallery in the world. After the wall collapsed, the government asked 106 artists from around the world to paint images on sections of the wall.

An American Painter's Dawn of Hope

Liam and Brenna getting hands on with the wall

On the back of the East Side Gallery, people are allowed
to write messages. Liam really likes to write the letter L, he had
just done it 40+ times all over our apartment!

Besides the wall, we were also able to visit the Germany's Reichstag or the Parliment. We registered for a visit at night, while my mom stayed with the kids, and were able to go to the top of the glass dome and get a great view of the city.

A memorial to all the Jewish people murdered in Europe

My kids loved this memorial. We actually lost them in it.

Next stop was "Check Point Charlie". Post WWII, Berlin was controlled by the Allied troops. Crossing Checkpoint Charlie meant you were either entering or leaving the American section. The Check Point Charlie museum was really worth the visit. My favorite part was that it showed all types of escape methods people used to get out of West Berlin. Cars with secret compartments, kayaks, zip lines, etc.