Day 14 - Wednesday, August 3 - Berlin

 We awoke in the port city of Warnemunde on the coast of Germany just east of Denmark.

By 7:30 we were on a chartered train to Berlin with about 400 other passengers. It was a pretty ride through the countryside with some old oak forest, pine tree farms, fields of wheat, hay, corn and sunflowers. There were quite a few wind turbines and we passed a number of large solar farms - Germany really needs this to reduce this from dependence on fossil fuels and in particular, Russian natural gas.

We boarded busses for a short tour of Berlin with a stop at the Brandenburg Gate to take photos and see the bronze plaque where Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech in 1989, "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall". The wall had been just a few hundred feet to the west of the gate and there is a cobblestone outline to mark the path.

We were dropped off at a central square with the German and French Churches and the Berlin Theatre to start our 4 hours of free time in Berlin. We walked to Checkpoint Charlie and passed a wall which has a very informative history of the airlift, the wall, President Kennedy's visit here and the cold war with the Soviet suppression of uprisings in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

On the way back, we had a lunch of the traditional Berlin Curry Wurst with French fries and salad. From there we walked to the Berlin Cathedral and Berlin Palace which are on a small island where the river splits. The Palace was severely damaged in the war and a huge East German Parliament building was constructed in its location. After the wall came down, this building was torn down and a complete replica of the early 1900s palace was reconstructed!

I wanted to show Carmen the ruined church I had visited on a business trip about 20 years ago and we decided to take the U-bahn (subway) there. The first part went fine, ending at the main train station but we had a terrible time finding the connecting U-bahn line. We decided to use the WC there which one must pay for and had quite  a confusing time figuring out how to pay. We eventually found an S-bahn (tram) line to the church and were able to visit there. Although the church was damaged too badly to continue to use for services, fortunately much of the elaborate and gilded interior was intact and the building was stabilized to keep out the rain. A new church was constructed alongside which has upper walls completely constructed of blue stained glass manufactured in Chartres, France.

We were able to find the U-bahn to take us back to the meeting point at 3:30. It was 97 degrees and I was soaking wet. The train ride back was quite hot as the AC wasn't working in our car. I drank a liter of water on the way back, a glass of wine on the train, a beer back at the ship and copious glasses of water to recover.

Authentic Berliner Curry Wurst

Carmen at the Brandenburg Gate

Checkpoint Charlie

Remains of Berlin Wall

Old bombed church

Inside new church with spectacular glass


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