Berlin and Potsdam

Photo 1: Berlin Wall remnant showing artists’ work.

Photo 2: Bullet holes on an old pillar. Illustrates the war damage that had to be repaired.

Photo 3: Checkpoint Charlie. Note McDonalds in the background. How things have changed …

Photo 4: Holocaust Memorial.

Photo 5: Brandenburg Gate.

Photo 6: The Reichstag. The dome is made of glass and is accessible to the public. Apparently the views from there are terrific.

Photo 7: Cecilienhof Palace. The star of red flowers was originally established at the insistence of the Soviet Union and is still maintained.

Here we are on board the beautiful Norwegian Star. Like all NCL cruise ships it is well appointed and we have a good sized cabin and many restaurants to choose from when we want to eat. Cruising Valhalla :)

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On Wednesday we docked in the German port of Warnemünde and took a fast train to Berlin. It was a long day but what a day! We left just after 7.30 am and returned to the ship at 8.00 pm in broad daylight as the days are very long up here. At the moment sunrise is around 5.40 am and sunset 10.30 pm. Plenty of time to party!

The countryside on the way was beautiful rolling hills, farms, villages and forests. One thing we noticed particularly was lots of wind turbines and two very large solar farms. The Germans certainly seem very keen to move to clean, non-nuclear power generation.

Berlin is architecturally very patchy because so much was destroyed in World War Two. The rebuilding effort was impressive and is still continuing, with the reconstructed City Palace set to be completed in 2019. The Reichstag was destroyed but the restoration is marvellous. The Brandenburg Gate survived despite everything around it being destroyed and is now Berlin’s symbol of freedom and democracy and the place where all important national and city events are celebrated. To illustrate the pounding the Gate took from the Russians, the restorers removed over 100,000 bullets!

About 1.5 km of the Berlin Wall have been preserved and on one section international artists have painted 106 art works. A great way to change a symbol of oppression to something positive. Checkpoint Charlie – the old checkpoint for crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War – is preserved and it is hard to imagine that this city was once so divided. Much of the path of the Wall has been marked in different ways, for example via lines of stones, so that you can see where it went. Without those markings you would never know it had existed.

After seeing Berlin we travelled the short distance to Potsdam past beautiful Lake Wannsee. Potsdam is very historic, having been the playground of the kings of Prussia from the 18^th century to 1918. Frederick the Great’s Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam was his summer residence and is reminiscent of Versailles. We also visited the Cecilienhof Palace where the ‘Big Three’ – Stalin, Truman and Churchill (replaced by Atlee late in the day) redrew the borders of Europe in 1945. It felt a little strange to be in the place where such a significant historical event was taking place exactly 70 years ago.