Let’s carry on with more of what I got up to on my recent Berlin trip. Here’s part 1 and some things I bought.
The Berlin Wall is obviously a huge part of the city’s history and I really appreciated all the different ways it has been memorialised. The most well-known is the East Side Gallery, the longest surviving section where artists from all over the world have created murals.
It’s the vast range of styles and skill levels, as well as overtly political statements, that makes it so unique. The art feels so free and spontaneous when it could easily have been heavily curated to avoid any controversy. I didn’t take a lot of photos as it’s really something you experience yourself.
There was also a memorial park close to my hotel, which is more of an educational monument and helps you understand how much of Berlin was destroyed to make room for the wall and how it affected the people and communities who lived right on the border. This area in the centre where graffitied sections of the wall were stacked up in 1990 and now nature is growing around them was really affecting.
The DDR Museum was high on my visit list and it feels a little weird to describe a museum about life in East Germany as fun but it really is. There’s so many objects to look at, from the everyday home items to government propaganda, and even vehicles and rooms.
It’s a much better experience being able to touch things and open drawers and cupboards to find more information. My favourite area was definitely the home with all the rooms decorated for the era and more objects displayed inside cupboards and wardrobes. It was a nice break to sit on the sofa looking through an old craft magazine while watching cartoons!
The closest tram/U-Bahn stop to my hotel was Naturkundemuseum (Natural History Museum) so after looking at the adverts every day I thought I should go check it out. It’s quite small but there’s a lot to see as they’ve really crammed in the exhibits. Above left is boxes of insects and the covered the whole wall from floor to ceiling and you can see some are going even further. There was also a massive room with thousands of different minerals and a room of bottled things that I did not enjoy.
My favourites areas were space (including a mini planetarium show) and dinosaurs/fossils but I spent the most time in the taxidermy rooms where they had a fascinating exhibition of how they make all the taxidermy and models and exhibits. I had never really thought about this before but it requires so much skill and creativity. Really glad I went.
My plans ended up being a bit more spontaneous overall due to the changeable weather which is how I ended up in the Tiergarten at the end of my final day. I didn’t get to see as much of it as I would have liked (it’s huge – a bike would have helped a lot) but it was so quiet with lots of flowers and water areas – and benches!
And that’s about it. I’ll probably have one more post with some other random info and tips I’d like to remember for next time – and I really, really, hope there will be a next time.
