Day 4 - Berlin

What a magnificent day! We started off with a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and then went off on a bus tour with a guide from Berlin. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, the remains of the Berlin Wall, a museum of the former East Germany (DDR), and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. I took another 500 pictures today.

The Berlin Wall Memorial is really quite moving. It's such a scar from the ugliness of that time in our history. Our guide treated it so matter-of-factly - certainly because she lived through it and has probably already made peace with it. I just wanted to cry. At the "official" memorial, there is a place where you can peek through the western wall through to the east. You see what was "No Man's Land" where the land mines were and where it was patrolled by the dogs and soviet soldiers. Erie.

From there we went to the Brandenburg Gate. There are cobblestones in the pavement to show where The Wall used to be. It was CRAZY to be able to not only stand there and be perfectly safe, but also to cross over without any fear. I got some really great shots of the gate and the Reichstag (the German Parliment Building) just on the other side.

Then we went to the Berlin Cathedral and DDR Museum. It was 8 Euro to go inside the Catherdral, so my friends and I decided it was enough just to admire it from the outside. Kaiser Wilhem built this church, complete with carvings of Martin Luther on the outside.

I think my most favorite site today was the Memorial Church. I took some video inside of the guilded mosaics - just beautiful! There is also a picture of worship being held inside the damaged building - I think it was on Christmas Eve - and there is no ceiling. It had been completely blown away by the bombs.

Tomorrow we go to Leipzig and Dresden.