In April I finally went to Berlin! It’s been high on my travel wish list for a very long time and i’m so glad I finally made it. It was only a short trip (4 full days) but I packed in quite a lot. Here’s some of what I got up to.

My first morning I spent doing a few of the big things – the Holocaust Memorial, Reichstag Dome tour and the Brandenberg Gate. The weather forecast was very up and down for the previous weeks but I still did not expect it to start snowing! It was 28C the following week so that actually would have been worse for me. It was also really quiet the whole week – only places with tour groups felt anywhere near crowded.


I was surprised at how quickly I fell in love with Berlin – and felt at home. it’s so big and yet very relaxed and easy to get around. And there’s just so much history everywhere, and so much effort put in to creating memorials and information signs to make sure you can’t avoid thinking about all the things that happened here. The Holocaust Memorial in particular was an experience that will stay with me forever.


My favourite way to plan a trip is to put everything of possible interest into Google Maps and then pick out areas with a few things to do (museums, parks, shops, food) and list them on a separate page each. Then I could decide on an area or two for each day, depending on the weather and what I felt like doing. A sunny morning meant a visit to the Botanic Gardens, one of my favourite things to do every time I travel to a new city.


While I definitely noticed that they were doing major renovations when I added it to the list, I forgot about it and they turned out to be very major with large parts of the gardens closed or fenced off. There was still lots to see though and the weather really was perfect for wandering around looking at flowers and views.


I’ve watched a lot of TV shows/films set in Berlin and the TV Tower is such an iconic landmark. You can see it from pretty much everywhere and it’s even more amazing up close. You can go up it but I was happy just to enjoy looking at it – from every angle.


This area is where all the big museums are but it was still quiet enough to wander around with plenty of places to sit and have a break. I was quite tempted to do a boat tour but the weather was so changeable that it never worked out.

The Neptune Fountain is delightfully over the top – if you look closely there’s a crocodile, turtles and lobster. Presumably there is supposed to be water coming out the crocodile and turtle but not when I was there.