city by bike (berlin)

To wrap up my Berlin posts, I would like to share (in detail) how we spent our Saturday… exploring the city on bikes! I posted a few weekends ago about this day but since it was a “weekend in 3″ post I didn’t share too many photographs with you. So here’s the day in more detail!

So as I mentioned, we rented bikes from our hotel in the morning and made our way to Schloß Charlottenburg, a palace constructed in the late 17th as a residence for Sophia Charlotte, wife of the Elector of Brandenburg,Frederick III. Here’s a photograph of the beautiful palace…

From there we biked back through Charlottenburg, in former West Berlin (our hotel was in Schöneberg), past the Berlin Zoological Garden to the Tiergarten park, the largest urban park in the city of Berlin. We biked down the Straße des 17. Juni to the Victory Column…

Then turn a turn into the park…

(This is how I biked all day, map in hand, haha)

And found a small rose garden…

We ended up at the eastern rim of Tiergarten, at the Brandenburger Tor, the former frontier between East and West Berlin. From there we biked along the water, with the Reichstag to our left, up Friedrichstraße and parked our bikes at the U-bahn station Oranienburger Tor. We went to Dada Falafel, located at Linienstraße 132 in Mitte, for plates of falafel and shoarma. It was absolutely delicious!

We then came across the Kunsthaus Tacheles or “Art House Tacheles,” a large 9000 square meter art center on Oranienburger Straße in the district Mitte. It is identifiable by the huge graffiti-style murals painted on the exterior walls, and the modern art sculptures that are featured inside…

Across the street from the Kunsthaus Tacheles in the Neue Synagoge or “New Synagogue,” originally built from 1895-1866 but demolished for the most part in World War II. Today, services are held in the synagogue and the building next door is used as a Jewish museum and center.

From there we biked a small part alongside the former Berlin Wall in the East, to Bernauer Straße, where the Berlin Wall Memorial stands today (it so happened that it was the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 2011, the day we were there). Here are some photographs of the memorial…

From there we biked through the neighborhood Prenzlauer Berg, and down to Oderberger Straße, recommended by a friend of mine who spent a semester abroad in Berlin…

She said we HAD to stop by Kauf Dich glücklich (Oderbergerstraße 44) for “trinkets and waffles” and oh my goodness, were the waffles a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Check out my previous post for a picture of the waffles. Oh and don’t you like the seating outside?

From there we biked back (mind you, this was at least a 45 minute bike ride!) to our neighborhood and stopped at the Kurfürstendamm - I spotted the United Buddy Bears exhibition! The United Buddy Bears are an international art exhibition with more than 140 two metre tall fibreglass bears. “Under the motto, ‘We have to get to know each other better, it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully,’ more than 140 countries acknowledged by the United Nations are represented, promoting tolerance, international understanding and the great concept of different nations and cultures living in peace and harmony” (source).

Not so sure what to make of the Dutch bear…

Or the Canadian one for that matter…

Berlin is an amazing city. I definitely recommend it for history-buffs, art-lovers, students and parents… everyone. See all my Berlin posts by clicking on the following links: weekend in 3 (#17), Berlin (Favorites), Berlin (Buildings), Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie), Berlin (Street Corner), Berlin (East Side Gallery) and Berlin (Friedrichshain).

friedrichshain (berlin)

So Friday was definitely a busy day (and a tiring one at that, so much walking!) as you might know if you’ve been following my Berlin posts – we started the day at Checkpoint Charlie, walked to the Neue Nationalgalerie, then through Kreuzberg to Curry36 and from there we took the U-bahn to the East Side Gallery. To top it all off, I decided we walk up to the district of Friedrichshain - I was on a mission to visit all the districts of Berlin! And I had read about a great microbrewery called Hops & Barley on Let’s Go Travel Berlin (which I highly recommend for budget travel!)

Hops & Barley makes its own cider, pilsner, and lager on site for locals (and tourists, like us). You can get 0.5L beers for 2.80 euros!  Hops & Barley is located at Wühlischstr. 22/23 in Friedrichshain.

We then walked around the neighborhood. Friedrichshain has a slightly run-down atmosphere, and its lower rents following German reunification attracted students and artists. It’s kind of an eclectic area, which lots of art and graffiti (kind of wish I had gotten these postcards featured below)…

What a wonderfully busy day in Berlin! Up next: biking in Berlin, a second post! See other Berlin posts: weekend in 3 (#17), Berlin (Favorites), Berlin (Buildings), Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie), Berlin (Street Corners), and Berlin (East Side Gallery).

street corner (berlin)

A few photographs of a street corner, on our walk from Checkpoint Charlie, past the Museum für Kommunikation Berlin or “Museum for Communication Berlin” (featured below) at Leipziger Straße 16, through Potsdammer Platz, past the Keith Haring statue “The Boxers” to the Neue Nationalgalerie.

See other Berlin posts: weekend in 3 (#17), Berlin (Favorites), Berlin (Buildings, Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie), Berlin (East Side Gallery),Berlin (Friedrichshain) and Berlin (City by Bike).

checkpoint charlie (berlin)

A visit to Berlin isn’t complete without a visit to Checkpoint Charlie (and because of this, the area is tourist-infested, if you will.) Checkpoint Charlie was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.

In 2006 an open air museum was constructed around Checkpoint Charlie. Gallery walls along the Friedrichstraße and the Zimmerstraße inform on escape attempts, how the checkpoint was expanded, and its significance during the Cold War. Here’s an photograph of an image along the wall…

And this one in particular caught my attention. It’s a photograph of artist Keith Haring painting the Berlin wall! In 1986 the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in West Berlin asked Keith to paint a 350 foot wall mural. Here are some photographs of the final mural.

In 1991 Haring spoke of his mural for his authorized biography by John Gruen and said,

I decided on a subject, which is a continuous interlocking chain of human figures, who are connected at their hands and their feet –the chain obviously representing the unity of people as against the idea of the wall. I paint this in the colors of the German flag–black, red and yellow.

And what’s interesting is that when we were walking to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Mitte, I spotted this statue and immediately knew it was one by Keith Haring.

The statue can be found at Eichhornstrasse in the district of Mitte. See other photographs of Berlin: weekend in 3 (#17), Berlin (Favorites), Berlin (Buildings), Berlin (Street Corner), Berlin (East Side Gallery), Berlin (Friedrichshain) and Berlin (City by Bike).

buildings (berlin)

When looking through my photographs of Berlin, I decided to put together this collection of photographs called “buildings” because I had so many different shots on our walk from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (featured below) all the way down Unter der Linden to Alexanderplatz in Mitte.

You can see the Fernsehturm, or “television tower” at Alexanderplatz in the distance…

In this photograph you can see 3 important buildings – the Reichstag on the left, the Brandenburger Tor in the middle and the US Embassy in Berlin on the right…

Again, the Reichstag in the distance…

And the Brandenburger Tor…

The Museum of the Kennedys, located at Pariser Platz 4a…

A few shots taken walking down Unter den Linden…

This is a view of he Bebelplatz, taken from Unter den Linden with the State Opera to the left, St. Hedwig’s Cathedral straight ahead and the Alte Bibliothek of the Humboldt University law faculty to the right…

Details of the Alte Bibliothek of the Humboldt University law faculty…

Here’s a view of the TV tower with buildings of the Humboldt University of Berlin in the foreground…

This is the Berliner Dom, or “Berlin Cathedral,” consecrated in 1454 as Roman Catholic  St. Erasmus Chapel. See the website for church services and tours.

Finally the TV Tower at Alexanderplatz!

And we ended the day at the wonderful Mexican restaurant Dolores, located at Rosa-Luxemburg-str. 7, for delicious “California gourmet burritos.” We sat outside at a picnic table with other students, and when I looked up this was my view…

See other posts of Berlin: weekend #17, Berlin (Favorites), Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie), Berlin (Street Corners), Berlin (East Side Gallery), Berlin (Friedrichshain) and Berlin (City by Bike).

city trip: berlin

I’ve been trying to get my Berlin posts out for a week now but I’ve been so busy with my orientation program in Amsterdam. Here’s a small collection of my favorite photographs of my recent trip with my boyfriend, just to get started. More to come!

See other city favorites: Portland, Montreal, Paris, London and Istanbul. And for more Berlin posts, click on the following links: weekend in 3 (#17), Berlin (Buildings),Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie), Berlin (Street Corner), Berlin (East Side Gallery), Berlin (Friedrichshain) and Berlin (City by Bike).

weekend in 3 (#17)

This past weekend was spent in BERLIN! As I mentioned in last weekends’ post, my boyfriend arrived from Calgary to visit me for two weeks, and even though I wanted to show him a different side to Holland that he had already seen (just Amsterdam), I wanted to take a short trip to another city. I had visited Berlin once before, but in the winter a few years ago. He had never been to Berlin so it seemed like the perfect place to spend a long weekend. We left by car on Thursday morning, arrived in the mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the days exploring this incredible city.

I’m going to be posting a lot about Berlin in the next few days so I’m going to focus on Saturday, the day we spent biking around Berlin (yes, I know, I’m obsessed with biking, especially in different cities, aka Paris, Montreal, San Francisco, Amsterdam, etc.) We had rented bikes from our hotel in the morning and made our way to Schloß Charlottenburg, a palace constructed in the late 17th as a residence for Sophia Charlotte, wife of the Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick III.

From there we biked back through Charlottenburg, in former West Berlin (our hotel was in Schöneberg), past the Berlin Zoological Garden to the Tiergarten park, the largest urban park in the city of Berlin. We biked down the Straße des 17. Juni to the Victory Column and then took a right turn into the park to the Rose Garden. Here’s a picture of how I biked all day, map in hand (it worked quite well, surprisingly)…

We ended up at the eastern rim of Tiergarten, at the Brandenburger Tor, the former frontier between East and West Berlin. From there we biked along the water, with the Reichstag to our left, up Friedrichstraße and parked our bikes at the U-bahn station Oranienburger Tor. We went to Dada Falafel, located at Linienstraße 132 in Mitte, for plates of falafel and shoarma. It was absolutely delicious! From there we biked a small part alongside the former Berlin Wall in the East, to Bernauer Straße, where the Berlin Wall Memorial stands today (it so happened that it was the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 2011, the day we were there). Here’s a photograph of the memorial…

From there we biked through the neighborhood Prenzlauer Berg, and down to Oderberger Straße, which was recommended by a friend of mine who spent a semester abroad in Berlin. She said we HAD to stop by Kauf Dich glücklich (Oderbergerstraße 44) for “trinkets and waffles” and oh my goodness, were the waffles a-m-a-z-i-n-g. I know this is supposed to be a “weekend in 3 photographs” post but I have to share this waffle with you – a fresh waffle with warm cherries and a vanilla custard…

Also, if you’re on this street, my friend recommended Bonanza Coffee (Oderbergerstraße 35) for the “best coffee in Berlin.” From there we biked back (mind you, this was at least a 45 minute bike ride!) to our neighborhood and stopped along the Kurfürstendamm before meeting my parents for dinner at Savignyplatz. What a wonderful last day in Berlin! More posts to come!

Update! Check out all my Berlin posts: weekend in 3 (#17), Berlin (Favorites), Berlin (Buildings),Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie), Berlin (Street Corner), Berlin (East Side Gallery), Berlin (Friedrichshain) and Berlin (City by Bike).