Berlin Tour

This morning I woke up early (for a Sunday) and went to Unter den Linden to go on a tour with Dirk - the program director - as our guide. We started off at Pariser Platz, right in front of the Brandenburg Gate (below).



Dirk gave us an explanation of the significance of the Gate, how the landscape of the area has changed since the end of WWII in 1945, and what the other buildings in the area are, including the new U.S. Embassy.

From the Gate (which was in the old East), we made our way over the the West, passed around the back of the Reichstag to the new buildings that have been built to house the offices of the Reichstag members. Dirk explained that these new buildings reflect a lot of the new German sentiment in their architecture. For example, the division of the city and the people into two separate states as well as the desire for politics to be open to the people and ready for examination are reflected in the style of the buildings.


[buildings that lie in the old East and West connected by bridges]

From there, we continued to the front of the Chancellor's office, where we will be visiting later in the semester. Here, Dirk was keen to point out the low security that the Germans have outside such an important office, in comparison to somewhere like the White House.


[Chancellor's Office]

We continued to the front of the Reichstag, talked about the history of the building, and then continued down Unter den Linden. In front of the main building of the Humbolt University, a very famous university that lies in the old East, and the reason the Freie Universitaet was built in the West, we paused to look at the different buildings that were built by Fredrick the Great, showing his impressive tolerance for things like culture (the Staatsoper, or state opera, building), religion (the Catholic Church in a Protestant Area), and education (the Univeristy and large library).

From there, we continued onto Museum Insel, and briefly went over the different Museums that are located there. We also spent some time looking at where the old Palace used to lie. After WWII, it was somewhat destroyed, but the Soviets decided to tear it down, since it was a symbol of aristocratic oppression. In it's place, they built a very communist building for the use of everyone, a palace to the people. Unfortunately, the palace has a lot of asbestos, and has to be torn town section by section in a very slow process. Eventually, they plan the reconstruct the outside of the palace, but with a new inside that will be 'for the people'. We were also able to go by an organization that is trying to raise money for the reconstruction, that has an excellent model of what Unter den Linden looked like before all the buildings were destroyed at the end of the war.


[Map of Berlin for Orientation - click to make larger]

From there, we passed by where Hitler had his main Chancellery buildings, which also included his bunker complex where he committed suicide. Although there is a board with information about the complex and history, there has been an effort not to have too much there, so that it will not become a shrine for neo-nazis.

We ended our tour at Potsdamer Platz, where the wall used to cut through, making it a wasteland during those years. However, before and after the wall, it is a commercial center, now housing the Sony Center, an IMAX theater, lots of restaurants, and a shopping mall. A pretty cool place to see, although defiantly a very modern, touristy kind of Berlin feeling to it.


[Me and a giant giraffe made of Legos at Potsdamer Platz]

After our tour was over, Annie and I found some lunch underneath Potsdamer Platz. Our new Berlin favorite is the falafel in bread, the vegetarians answer to the ever-popular Doner Kebab- a common street food brought to Berlin and Germany by the many Turkish immigrants.


[my second falafel in less than a week in Berlin...]