I've got a new stamp in my passport!

It's a shame I need to renew my passport soon as I've just gotten another stamp in it from my trip to Berlin, Germany, at the end of January.
I guess it's a good reason to continue travelling - filling the blank pages in my next passport!

The Berlin trip was really cool, although super cold and very tiring! I went with my friend from London, Jamie, and we stayed for three nights so we were able to cram in heaps of stuff. Our hostel was close to the East Side Gallery so we went and saw that on the first day before just walking around. The East Side Gallery is the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall that is still standing (1.6km), and is the largest permanent outdoor art exhibition in the world.

The area between the walls was the 'death strip' - you'd get shot if you were trying to get across it

This was my favourite section

On each of the next three days we went on a walking tour to see and learn about as much a possible. The first two days we had Kiwi guides! On Tuesday it was a general central city tour:

Brandenburg Gate

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Another of the three remaining pieces of the wall

Checkpoint Charlie (complete with actors for the tourists' benefit). This became one of the most important checkpoints/wall crossing points

The beautiful concert house in Gendarmenmakt - a very pretty square

French cathedral in Gendarmenmarkt

German cathedral in Gendarmenmarkt

Humboldt University - the square in front was where 20,000 books were burnt at the start of when the Nazi party was in power

On Wednesday we went on a day tour (with another Kiwi guide!) out to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp - separate blog post. On Thursday we did an Alternative City tour to see the street art and underground scene:

An old hospital that is now a major squatter's residence

The far side of the picture was East Berlin, the right hand side was West Berlin, and the park in the middle used to be the death strip

We did lots more in the afternoons/evenings after the walking tours (with several breaks to warm up!), like go up the viewing dome at the Reichstag Parliment building, walking around Alexanderplatz (the central touristy area with the TV tower in the middle), walk around the funky courtyards and shops in the old Jewish quarter (Hackescher Markt), walk through the 'museum island' - full of massive old beautiful musuems, and finally treating ourselves at one of the world's largest chocolatiers, Fassbender & Rausch, back in Gendarmenmarkt. There was still so much more to see after all of this though! You could do a whole trip there just to go through all the old museums, and another to see all the world wars/cold war museums and memorials.

One of the museums

Brandenburg Gate

The viewing dome at the parliment building

A church with the TV tower in the background

Beautiful Berlin Cathedral

And again

In front of the concert house

I think as we were there mid-week, mid-winter it was hard to pick up on the vibe/atmosphere that the city is famous for (partly from it's nightlife and alternative scene). Still a great city to visit - definitely something different to over the top touristy places like Paris or Rome (not that I'm not going to visit them at some point too ;) ). If I make it back to Berlin some day it'll definitely be in the Summer though! Here's some pics showing how cold it was: