Berlin: Arrival, Neukölln, and Shopping

For a long weekend, we planned to go to Berlin before Corona came to Germany. Unfortunately, the booked show in the evening was canceled, but our reservation for the largest hotel in Germany remained.

So we found our accommodation on Sonnenallee in Neukölln and explored the multicultural neighborhood on the day of arrival. We heard many different languages during our visit to the ice cream factory, where we enjoyed homemade ice cream in nice weather.

The next day, we went shopping and strolling in the city center. We started at Kurfürstendamm and continued to Tauentzienstraße - of course with stops in some stores, including the KaDeWe.

To catch a glimpse of some sights during our journey, we took bus 100 and drove through the Tiergarten, past Schloss Bellevue, Reichstag, and Brandenburg Gate, until we finally arrived at Lustgarten via Unter den Linden.

We only saw the many museums from the outside (this time) and also admired the somewhat overloaded facade of the Berlin Cathedral.

We took a walk along the Spree to the Nikolaiviertel, a medieval residential quarter of Berlin that was destroyed during World War II and later rebuilt. It is the oldest settlement core of Berlin.

There, we initially enjoyed an iced coffee with a view of the Spree and the Cathedral before strolling through the small alleys of the quarter.

Afterwards, we made a detour to the Red City Hall, the official seat of the Governing Mayor, which was built in the 19th century.

The interior was freely accessible, and a tour led through the impressive main staircase to various halls of the town hall.

In the afternoon, we returned to Berlin Palace. There was a brief talk about the architecture of the palace and the planned reconstruction as the Humboldt Forum. In the meantime, you can already see the reconstructed facades through the construction fences, even though it will still take some time until completion...

Afterwards, we made a detour to Alexanderplatz, where many Berliners and visitors gathered.

We then took the bus to Potsdamer Platz, where we had dinner at the Sony Center, protected from street noise but outdoors.

Our bus ride back to the hotel was interesting: a stop was closed due to a police operation. Later we read that a bank robbery had taken place there, and the perpetrators were being hunted, but they managed to escape. The police officers were heavily armed on the street and cordoned off the building.

We saw many passengers on the bus who were not wearing masks, violating the mask requirement. One passenger not only wore a chin guard but also brought a can of beer with him and spoke to any fellow travelers who got too close. He was somewhat offended when the young ladies subsequently kept more than 1.5 meters away from him...

After a lot of hustle and bustle on the hot bus, we were happy when we finally arrived at the hotel.