Berlin is a city that my family always wanted to visit and after thirteen years of living in England we finally decided to go on a holiday to the incredible city.
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Berlin is a city that my family always wanted to visit and after thirteen years of living in England we finally decided to go on a holiday to the incredible city. A city worth waking up at 5am to take a 8am flight for. My family thought to go to Berlin in the summer for the obvious reasons, the weather would be sunny and we would be able to enjoy the city more. Unfortunately, weather was not on our side. The moment we landed we could feel the cold air coming into the plane. When we stepped outside, it was windy and rainy and cold. Not what we had expected or had in mind. This is the type of weather that we were trying to run away from in England. While walking to immigration, we were dreading the weather that Berlin had in store for us as we weren’t prepared for the cold and brought summer clothing. As we got out of the airport, we hailed a cab to head to the hotel and of course the taxi driver did not understand a word of English so we observed the city outside the car quietly to ourselves. Besides the grayness over the city due to the weather, I noticed that Berlin is a city of art. Graffiti and street art was almost everywhere and interesting to take a look at, even in a passing moment. The streets were quiet on a Tuesday morning and buildings looked empty as no one had arrived at work yet. Although Berlin has an underground train system, it also has a tram system overground. The bright yellow trams go along the main roads and don’t stop for pedestrians, so do not cross the track when you see a tram coming. I thought these trams made the city more colorful and of course they are iconic to Berlin. On our first day in rainy Berlin, my family and I decided to visit the museums. All the main museums in Berlin are located within the same area, called Museum Island. There are five main museums and they are all different to each other. The most known museum is called The Pergamon Museum, the one which everyone was telling us to go to. It took twenty years to construct this building, from 1910-1930 and is now one of the most famous museums in Germany. However, at the end of the Second World War, the museum was severely damaged. The Red Army collected all the missing items and returned them to East Germany. This museum is the house for buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus, which have been reconstructed to be displayed in the museum. These buildings have been transported from Turkey and the museum is divided into sections of the Middle East museum and museum of Islamic art. Around 1,135,000 people visit this place every year. As my family and I only had two full days to see all of Berlin, on the second day we decided to take a tour of the city. The weather had cleared up a bit and it wasn’t raining anymore so instead of a bus tour we went on a walking tour. This tour consisted of five hours of walking around Berlin and though it sounds long and boring it was probably one of the most informational and interesting tours I have ever been on in my life, no exaggeration. Along the tour we made stops at the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, Hitler’s bunker, Museum Island, Reichstag, the Berlin Wall and many more sites. You would think that at the end of the five hours you would be tired and bored but you’re only enriched with more historical information about the tremendous city. Even through the cold weather, I enjoyed the tour so much and was able to take a lot of photographs. I definitely recommend anyone to take this tour if you’re in Berlin for a short while. Although our trip to Berlin was a short one, we left with so much knowledge about the city and in awe of how much has happened in just one city of the world.
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