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 6. August  2016 - 12. August  2016

Berlin

Berlin and the sun is shining we got to our hotel in Alexanderplatz, not quite 5 star but comfortable. Dinner was Italian in the square. I got extra with my wine 4 fruit flies!! Now one is an accident but 4 that’s plain careless, no tip for this restaurant.

The next day we wandered around the local area just taking in the sites and the sunshine. For lunch we had sausage we ordered the local sausage and a soup tureen came out, we said we ordered sausage they looked at us and set down the tureen which had boiling water with spring onion and sausage floating in it. We removed the sausage with tongs and devoured the delicious meal.

We joined Carsten our very dear friend for dinner Vietnamese food lovely and lots of talking we finished with ice cream we could be in Sydney. We then had to have an upsucker which is an after dinner drink so we went to an old local place and drank whiskey.

Having been to Berlin a few times we decided to go to Spandau. I love the t-shirts with a “S” a panda and a “U” on them No room in my suitcase so I will have to come back.Spandau Prison located in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin. It was constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. The site was later rebuilt as a shopping centre for the British forces stationed in Germany.

The Spandau Citadel (Zitadelle Spandau) is a fortress which was pretty interesting , one of the best-preserved Renaissance military structures of Europe. Built from 1559–94 atop a medieval fort on an island created by the meeting of the Havel and the Spree rivers, it was designed to protect the town of Spandau, which is now part of Berlin. In recent years it has been used as a museum. Furthermore, the inner courtyard of the Citadel serves as an open air concert venue in the summertime since 2005. â€‹The citadel has been attacked twice and surrendered both times so is in very good condition.

We met Howard and Judi; Ross’s cousin and his wife for dinner we had German food, Schnitzel etc. in what Carsten described as a tourist area but we are tourist and loved it.

The following day Ross and I went to Potsdam. We have been there before with Carsten and Andreas so decided to do the hop on, hop off to see the rest of the sights. Potsdam is where the German Kings built Summer Places so is a lovely place Palaces and gardens abound. The area like Berlin was a swamp and the Dutch were brought in to drain the area so there is a German quarter. Of course some of Potsdam was Russian in the cold war so there is a Russian quarter were the soldiers and their families lived. It has lots of log cabins. One of the palaces we visited Cecilienhof was the palace the Potsdam treaty which split German after WW2 was signed it was very interesting seeing the rooms that Churchill and Eisenhower had used and the table the three powers sat at etc. It is also a wonderful building. We walked on the bridge that was used whenever spies were swapped in the cold war, (the treaty doing nothing to keep any form of “friendship”) and saw the buildings used by the KGB in an area that was closed to all German people at the time. We were so exhausted after our day that we had dinner in the hotel. (Something we try not to do).

The next day we met Howard and Judi and went to Kurfürstendamm to check out the shopping KaDeWe here we come. I did manage to find a t-shirt That I purchased but will not tell anyone what it cost!!! We had lunch on the top floor under the glass dome it is a funny system. The food is put together by cost and a plate of the same costing food is weighed and that is what is paid a bit like a sushi train but pay by weight not by colour, we had a lot of fun sorting out how it worked, lucky the locals are nice. We also managed to fit in some sight-seeing visiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Church and the Helmut Newton Photographic exhibition. 

The last day in Berlin we were by ourselves, so we took ourselves for a walk and ended up doing a cruise. A great way to see all the main sites of Berlin. Not to be missed

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