Easter Berlin

Easter Berlin

Breakfast greetings at the hotel:

An Easter Egg Tree, of course!

Look what the Easter Bunny left for breakfast!

Sunshine and sunglasses! L to R Rueckerts, Hawkins, Mathesons all making plans for the day.

Straddling the "Wall" with right feet on the East side and left feet on the West. In commemoration, bricks have been laid out throughout the city following the whole path of the Wall.

First on the agenda was a bus tour of the city. 

Just a few of the sights and things we learned....Berlin is quite different-looking than other German cities because the roads are straight and VERY wide! That's probably because it was rebuilt after the bombing. 

It has many waterways and more bridges than Venice!

With the unification of Germany in 1990, it was once again the seat of government and the home of numerous embassies. Here's the Rathaus (government building).

Interesting facts:

The Nazi book burning took place here.

It is a very busy city, 2nd largest in Germany with 3.4 million inhabitants. Even in the off season, it was quite full of tourists from everywhere! 

It is a city of many festivals. 

It has the greatest density of fashion stores and fashion schools in Europe. From the bus we could see inside the largest department store in Europe (KeDeWe) and it was packed!

There is lots of construction and renovations going on everywhere (which pretty much sums up all of Germany...now and for the past 70 years).

One third of Berlin is green space which is quite amazing for such a large city...come on summer!

Modeled after the one in Los Angeles, Berlin has a walk of fame for German movie stars.

Zoo: Out of 3,700 animals, only 91 survived WWII and a large part of the structure was destroyed as well. Among other double things in the city, two zoos were built, one for the East and one for the West.

It wasn't a surprise to see an Ostermarkt (Easter Market) on Easter weekend! 

Traditional foods: Berliner is a jelly-filled donut, Berliner Boulette (a meatball) and a currywurst (sausage in curry).

This is a monument to the four countries which occupied Berlin after WWII: United States, England, France, and Russia. 

Next Post: Checkpoint Charlie