Berlin, Germany

Berlin was our very first stop during our Europe adventures during Easter Break. (I really should have done the posts in order but oh well…). This is my second time in Berlin and I didn’t know it was possible to fall in love with a city MORE. This city is the epitome of modern meets history. It is the perfect mix between both time eras as it holds the most historical landmarks such as: Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust memorial, Berlin Wall etc, yet it is also known for its modern atmosphere and art scene!

Without further ado, lets get into my time at Berlin!

DAY 1:

From Manchester Airport, it was an hour flight to Berlin. Once we arrived, it was pretty late in the evening so we dropped our bags off at our AirBnB and decided to go see the Brandenburg gate light up at night.

Spot the tourist

It looked so magical, and the skyline made it even more so

MINI STORY TIME: On our walk back to the AirBnB, we stopped for dinner at a kebab shop and not gonna lie, we looked like lost school children when we were trying to order. None of us knew how to speak German and the shopkeepers did not know how to speak English, so we were all literally using hand gestures or clucking our arms together to make chicken noises to communicate! However, a nice old man came to our rescue and recommended us to try the ‘halloumi chicken kebab wrap’. From that moment forward, it was love at first bite and I cannot tell you how many halloumi chicken kebab wraps we’ve grabbed for midnight snacks during our entire trip in Berlin!

DAY 2:

The next day, the weather was BEAUTIFUL! We decided to get up early to join a free walking tour of Berlin. (TOP TIP #1: JOINING A FREE WALKING TOUR is the best way to sight see when you’re on a budget! You have the choice to tip the tour guide at the end as a gesture of appreciation if you liked the tour.)

We saw a bunch of popular tourist attractions and our tour guide was extremely informative and gave us a mini IGCSE history 101 lesson too! The only criticism I had was that the tour went by the attractions way too fast that taking photos was such a stressful process as we’d always end up getting left behind and loosing the group #oops!

Casually posing in front of a museum

The architecture in Berlin was stunning!

I’m in AWE

Berlin TV tower

Berlin Cathedral

Berlin memorial

Look! The hotel which Michael Jackson infamously dangled his baby out the window!

The Brandenburg gate in the day!

Squad takes Berlin !

So the building behind me is a University! We were so jealous how the University buildings were so much prettier than ours!

After the walking tour, we decided to go grab some snacks!

In the afternoon, we had booked ourselves a time slot to enter the Reichstag building. This is the main government building in Berlin and it is ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING!

TOP TIP #2: BOOK A TIME SLOT TO ENTER THE REICHSTAG THE DAY BEFORE. Unfortunately, they do not allow walk-in entries so the best way to not miss out on the opportunity to see the Reichstag is to book online! Plus it is FREE!

TOP TIP #3: REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR PASSPORT OR SOME FORM OF IDENTIFICATION ON YOU. They are very strict when entering the building and conduct a thorough security check on every single person. They will also ask to see your passport so make sure to have that on you if you do end up visiting!

The front of the Reichstag

We took an elevator to the roof to this dome shaped thing!

Look at this architecture! I mean WOW

Views from the roof

We were each given a headset which gives you your own personal tour as you walk around the dome

After that, we just walked around the city in the evening and found a nice little Italian restaurant to eat in!

DAY 3:

On this day, the weather was pretty gloomy and cloudy so we were so thankful that we went sight seeing to all the main attractions the day before! It drizzled a few times throughout the day, but we didn’t let that get in the way! We decided to go a little further outside of the city to visit the Berlin Wall Graffiti area called ‘East Side Gallery’. HOWEVER, when we arrived, we saw that the long stretch of graffiti was mostly blocked by metal barricades. Apparently the police had placed it there to stop people from drawing over the existing graffiti. But never fear, we found a few spots where there weren’t metal barricades to take some bomb ass photos!

After that, I wanted to visit the Charlottenburg Palace, which was quite a journey away but we ventured there anyway! BUT. OF COURSE. IT WAS CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS.

how dissapointing 😦

TOP TIP #4: CHECK WHETHER THE PLACE YOU WANT TO VISIT IS OPEN OR IS UNDERGOING RENOVATION BEFORE GOING. Don’t make the mistake of wasting a long journey there only to be disappointed 😦

We then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the taking some more photos around various sights we came across.

For dinner, we wanted to embrace our last night in Berlin by chomping down on some traditional German food. After a lot of research, we found a German brewery called “Hofbrauhaus”. It had the whole German vibe, from German men drunkenly shouting to German music blasting in the background. The food was to die for, there was so much meat!

With happy stomachs, that concluded our trip to Berlin! We were on to our next destination: Prague and Amsterdam (click on the link to read about my adventures there)!

Thanks for reading and please follow for more! ❤

-Brenda