Intentional traveler: First Day in Berlin

Friday, the 24th, was our first full day in Berlin and how the weather was when it dawned, we don't know. We had slept for 12 hours and because this was to be a day on our own - erroneously called in the brochure 'at leisure' - we took our time getting ready for the day and enjoyed a delicious breakfast in the sunny dining room be fore setting out to join our Hop On Hop Off Bus just across the street and down the block across from the Konzerthaus.

Before I tell you about this exciting day permit me to show you just a couple pictures from our arrival day.

Elva stands under a pink ground water removal pipe. Berlin is translated as 'swamp!'

All around the city are these narrow double brick lines. They define the location of the Berlin Wall. This one confirms the dates 1961 to 1989.

Checkpoint Charlie is a must see tourist stop, hence the KFC and McDonald's.

The pseudo soldiers make the site less important and more of a 'fun stop.'

They are actors doing a job and not too well in my opinion.

Now back to today's story!

We had purchased a two day ticket and it was good for both the guided and audio-guided tours and for all routes currently running. The plan was to do one and then the other but to do our best time wise we began on a red bud, switched to a green bus at Aleksanderplatz, and when green returned there switched back to red to finish the route. This way we had seen all the possibilities and saved ourselves from an over long return the next day.

We didn't do a lot of off and on because most sites can not be entered. To just walk around looking at buildings didn't appeal to us, maybe we were still hung over from arriving the day before. Since our hotel was at one of the major sites, Gendarmermarkt, we got off and returned to the room to get our second wind. It turned out to be a good plan. We set out to see the Brandenburg Gate at night. Our guide, Sebastian, showed us a photo he had taken the night before and shared it with us.

As is becoming the all too necessary custom, the landmark was lit up with the injured country's flag. Ironically this Gate is next to the British Embassy.

The attack in London happened just hours before we boarded our flight.

Thursday night, though, this was our view.

The Brandenburg Gate is not, I repeat not, part of the Berlin Wall. The Gate has been standing for centuries and was where tariffs were paid when traveling into or out of Berlin to or from the State of Brandenburg. Brandenburg surrounds but doesn't include Berlin. Berlin is both a city and a state. The Wall did run just ten feet behind the Reichstag separating it from this iconic landmark in West Germany.

I am by the Brandenberg Gate. Across the street, down the block you see the back of the Reichstag.

As I said, we set out, map in hand, to go to the 'nearby Gate.' However one misheard direction took us a couple miles in the other direction. The Topographie of Terrors caught our eye. We walked along some preserved Berlin Wall and then entered the museum. It was a history of the Third Reich beginning in 1933. A zigzag of walls filled with carefully organized photos, news stories, personal letters was arrayed before us. Most fascinating and we would have spent even more than the one hour we spared there but we were trying to find the Gate. A couple of helpful people turned us back around and soon we were there. Quite lovely and many tourists enjoyed the sight. One protester was upset with something going on in Italy and was loudly letting the world gathered here know it.

The Reichstag through the bus window.

This beautiful bridge with the S-Bahn crossing it allowed for traffic on the River Spree to move goods between Sectors.

This is the last remaining actual guard tower overlooking the Wall from East on that side to the West on this side. Notice that the Wall is rounded. We have seen many pictures of barbed wire topped walls. That was more easily accessed. People were will to cut themselves to escape. With the rounded cement tubes on top there was no way to get a grip to boost yourself over the wall in the quick time you would have had to do it.

Here this section of Wall is called the East Side Gallery but the painting is on the West side of the Eastern Wall. The paintings were done by invited artists after the Reunification to express the emotions of the city that had been separated for so long.

No one on the East side could get anywhere near it to paint or even scrawl graffiti.

There was a broad swath of No-Mans-Land. Here there was also the Spree.

The amazing thing is that the wall was not straight. It followed the lines of the Sectors of the Division by the Allies. All these years, in my head, I just thought it was a sort of straight 50/50 division. Perhaps in my youth I knew better.. Even more amazing is that the border was sealed overnight! The Soviets began laying barbed wire at midnight on August 112th and by morning of August 13, 1961 the East Berliners were trapped! Less than a day. then construction began with cement blocks and eventually re-bar reinforced cement.

I have a friend, Helga. I met her on a trip years ago. She told us her story of escape. With her brother and parents she lived in East Berlin but she and her brother crossed the border every day to work in a factory in the West. They were considered lucky and also 'safe.' She and her older brother planned for months to escape to West Berlin and then to Montreal, Canada where they had an uncle. Every day they would wear extra clothing to work and hide it in a drawer with a false bottom or a cabinet with a fake back. They would not eat lunch because in their lunch pail were hidden money and things they would need and that was the only way to bring it in, hidden under some particularly smelly cheese or sausage so that if it was checked the Officer would quickly close it.

The day came and she was extra nervous. That day she quietly gathered their small stash of supplies in a grocery sack. Just before the factory shut down and Helga's office in it closed for the day, her brother came to her and told her to go but that he could not leave the parents. He would bring them when he could. Helga didn't want to go but the brother practically pushed her along the street knowing she was not on the route home and time was limited before someone would realize she was gone. Helga was 18 and on that hot August day she was scared and alone. She was setting out on an adventure she did not want to take by herself. But she did. She risked it all, her life and her families lives, on August 12, 1961, just hours before the chance would be gone forever. Just hours before her whole family was encased in barbed wire and she was safe outside, looking in.

Helga made it to Montreal but she never said who helped her or how she did it. The tears would come and the conversation would be over. Not until 1990 did she get permission to see her elderly parents and kind brother again! In Montreal she married, raised a family of her own with grandparents they didn't know. When her husband died she met Heinz and he has a story of his own to tell but just shakes his head sadly if you ask.

Near the East Side Gallery Elva pauses on a ramp adorned with modern graffiti.

Riding back toward the historic center of the city we see again the Winged Victory. Three tiers are adorned with golden cannons to mark victories in three wars by three governments. The fourth tier has no cannons because the Nazi ruling party never won anything!