A Wall, Dinosaurs, Cate Blanchett....What do they all have in common?
Our weekend in Berlin!
Last weekend we rented a 9-passenger van with friends (Ali, Paul, Dylan and Bailey) and decided to see our "#1 City We Would Be Embarrassed To Admit We Didn't Visit While Living In Prague".
Here is a photo summary of our trip.
Day 1
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed we take the "scenic route" to Berlin.
Our great flat (Thanks, again, Apartments Apart!) was located just inside of former "East Berlin". It was interesting and eery to be so near this recent dark history. Berlin has done a great job of informing tourists - there are information boards all over the city. Here are the kids by a remaining portion of The Wall, just around the corner from our flat.
Some zoned-out kids enjoy a cartoon before bed.
Day 2
We started our tour in Tiergarten.
The government buildings were moved back to Berlin from Bonn after the fall of communism. Here we are approaching the Reichstag with it's glass dome. In addition to providing a great view of the city, the dome allows the public to watch its politicians at work...a symbol of the transparency of the new united democracy.
Here is Mattias in front of Brandenburg Tor. The only remaining gate to the city. Built in the late 1700s, it stood in a no-man's land for 28 years between East and West Berlin.
We were impressed by the effective Holocaust Memorial. 2700 concrete slabs (one for each page of the Talmud) of differing heights undulate across the huge space. It succeeds in creating a feeling of unease. Particularly if you keep losing your children.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without seeing "Checkpoint Charlie", the former checkpoint between East Berlin and portion of West Berlin that was under US control.
We finished off the cold and rainy day at the Museum of Natural History, which was well worth the visit. Among other things, it hosts the world's largest mounted dinosaur skeleton.
Day 3
Here is the gang (minus me, the photographer) at the start of Museum Island (another UNESCO site - see last post). It is beautiful architecturally and holds many treasures.
We dipped into the Neues Museum, which hosts the Egyptian collection. Amazing! But nowhere near as child-friendly as the Natural History Museum. We admired another mom who was crazy enough to have her 3 children there with her...and then we REALLY admired her...it was Cate Blanchett!
We dipped into the Neues Museum, which hosts the Egyptian collection. Amazing! But nowhere near as child-friendly as the Natural History Museum. We admired another mom who was crazy enough to have her 3 children there with her...and then we REALLY admired her...it was Cate Blanchett!
A little more sight-seeing...a little more playing....
And it was time to take the less-scenic-but-much-faster trip back to Prague. Good sign of a great weekend? We were significantly less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
PS Other significant high-points of the trip included Dunkin' Donuts and Burger King!
3 comments:
That looks like a great trip. The blocks, some of them are that tall as shown in the second photo? That does make for an uneasy feeling.
hey Jeff K - yeah, the Memorial is interesting to see from across the street, but to be all inside it is different, very dramatic. The tops don't differ as much as the ground level dips and peaks. Each block is shaped like grave hole, each shoulder width apart. it's eerie.
I should post some videos we took while inside. Twice we had a panic, when the kids took off. They thought it would be funny to just .... run and scatter. Four adults chasing four kids in four directions between all those tall blocks --- total mayhem.
I have to comment how great it was to find Dunkin Donuts.
Well, it was a huge find for at least the two dads and all four kids.
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