With the temperature lowered and some light drizzle about, we set out by rail to the East Side Gallery. This is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall at 1.3km. In 1990, it was turned over to artists from across the globe, creating the world’s largest open-air gallery. Many of the ‘pieces’ are thought provoking and in some cases moving. It made a nice stroll.
From the square we walked to the site of Checkpoint Charlie, one of the best known border crossings between East and West Berlin. The site looks a tad shabby at the moment as a new museum is being constructed, but there were a number of informative panels that gave a good overview of this area’s history. We went into the Checkpoint Charlie museum, a privately owned enterprise, and fought our way through throngs of French school groups to the counter. Unfortunately, the museum did not improve much beyond this point. It was absolutely packed, with walls covered in text in three or four languages, with no apparent order. While there were a couple of interesting exhibits, it was nice to leave.
Philip had his mind set on dining in a Turkish restaurant before we left the city, as the Turks make up a reasonable slice of the population here. The word on the street was that BΓΌlowstrasse was the place to be for Turkish food, so off we went into the outer reaches of Berlin. Once we arrived at Nollanderplatz station we couldn’t help but notice a distinct lack of commercial enterprises. However, after some 20minutes of walking the streets, we were about to settle for Ethiopian when all of a sudden the Hasir came into sight, done. Needless to say, the food was excellent and a most enjoyable evening ensued.
No comments:
Post a Comment