Thursday 22 September 2011

BERLIN – GERMANY – A city of contrasts

Today we set off to explore, and as we like to do, we took the hop on hop off bus around town to get our bearings.

There were thousands of Police, along our route and on the railways bridges.

Not for our benefit as the Pope is here today too – on his first official visit to Berlin.

He could have come on the hop on hop off bus with us as he would have got a seniors discount but he seemed to prefer the hop on hop off pope-mobile.

 

The first thing I noticed is that Berlin is huge. Its like 6 cities all meshed together, each with their own personality.

Some parts are thriving whilst others are struggling.

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My second impression was that some areas reminded me of Canberra, and I couldn’t put my finger on why this was.

But I think it may be due to the number of buildings of 1950’s – 1960’s architecture that look like government buildings.

Concrete prefab! That's what it is… and its grubby..

But not all of it as we drove through Potsdamer Platz, built since the wall came down, and its sparkly, modern and new.

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A lot of these buildings built post war (because there was very little pre war city left) are now coming to the end of their lives and are being pulled down and replaced.

Graham is fascinated by Berlin, but it has changed so much since he was here 10 years ago that he is feeling disorientated.

 

Until next time, Red heartRed heartRed heart Kim

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