Monday 15 September

Blue skies and sunshine today, so we set off rather early to make the most of the glorious weather. First stop East Side Gallery... Thought Pete blended in rather well!

Then we caught the train to Kurfurstendamm, one of Berlin's most attractive shopping boulevards....and very expensive too. Obviously the shops were full of winter gear so I wasn't too tempted to buy anything.  We did stop and have delicious pastries and coffee in KaDeWe, Europe's largest department store...the gourmet food section was extraordinary.

Towards the end of Kurfurstendamm is the Kaiser-Wilhelmina-Gedachtnis_Kirche...the tower of the original church...next to the new tower being built....serves as both a memorial and reminder of the terrors of war .

After a small rest and some lunch at home we rode out to Potsdamer Platz....I really enjoyed seeing this area, the architecture was simply amazing. The area was wasteland for many years after the destruction of its buildings in WW2 but after the fall of the wall it became Berlin's biggest building site.

Above and below are taken in the Sony Centre, Potsdamer Platz....

I am standing on an enormous strip of grass...parkland...in the middle of all the buildings in Potsdamer Platz. Only a few hundred metres away is Kulturforum which we were keen to see especially the Philharmonie, home of the Belin Philharmonic.

This is our park next to our apartment block at nearly 7pm as we were walking back from the station...we were so surprised to see all the people!

Sunday 14 September

Since it was raining when we woke this morning we decided to lay in bed for a while. In keeping with the sad grey day we decided to visit the Jewish Museum and Topographie des Terrors.

The Jewish Museum was unique, never have I been so captivated in a museum....the architecture was amazing and the layout of the exhibits was so easy to follow. We spent hours there. This is a photo of one of the rooms on the museum.

This is a photo of a pool of water in the centre of the Topographie des Terrors ....a museum? They call it a documentation centre in the area where the three terrifying NAZI institutions...the SS , Geatapo and SD were before and during WW2. Below is a photo of the remains of the cellars where prisoners were tortured.

A beautiful window of the school of Arts andCrafts which was occupied by the Gestapo during WW 2, the building survived the bombing when everything around it was destroyed.

A statue of Axel Springer in front of his publishing company building in Kreuzberg , which was right next to the Berlin Wall....

Whilst walking in Kreuzberg , we saw these jolly chappies, drinking their beer and pushing the pedals.