Unification Day, Berlin October 2016

I love it when I travel and get to see a special holiday or event in that country.  I was in Berlin on a holiday, Unification Day, the day when East and West Germany were reunited.  I didn't know that much about German history other than the obvious, the Hitler stories, the Holocaust.  We took a Berlin Free Walking Tour and learned a lot about Berlin.  We visited Checkpoint Charlie, Several pieces of the Wall, Brandenberg Gate, ended at the Holocaust Monument.




Alexanderplatz - City Center TV tower, clock with only cities friendly towards the Germans, big beautiful church

We learned that some buildings and monuments were bombed during war but they didn't wipe the black burnt scorching off the outside of the churches to remind people of what had happened.  The horror as a reminder


Dorotheenstat--Neue Wache
Monument of mother and child with a hole in the ceiling to represent universal hope, & universal suffering.



Little memorials of people who died in the Holocaust--like little tombstones-tributes to people

Checkpoint Charlie -  where Americans could cross



At the end of our tour, at Brandenburg gate there was a street fair.  Tons of food booths, kids rides, balloons--very festive for a national holiday.  We enjoyed a great glass of wine (Riesling and some local food.  I went back to the food stalls to try and get more, but it began to pour--so I bought two something or others (hamburger and some sausages) for nothing.

Some went back to the hotel but two co-workers and I went to museum, It was wrong museum - we wanted to see the Berlin Historical museum, instead it was some museum with artifacts, statues, carvings we could have seen anywhere.  Oh well.

Our guide Paul at the Holocaust Memorial.

This is the museum we went in to by mistake.