A previously mentioned in my last post i have just got back from a 5 week trip around Europe! Honestly, one of the most amazing and extremely busy experiences in my life so far. Travelling around on trains every 2 to 3 days and ending up in a different country most of the time was mind blowing. The whole trip went so fast and it never truly sunk in each time we arrived at a new destination, where we were. In preparation for the trip i kept trying to stumble across tips and advised places to go from people who had already travelled Europe. Of course, there was so much and everyone's opinions were hugely different. I wanted to shed a light on my personal opinion on the places i visited and am going to start with my first stop Berlin...
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| Fat Tire Bike Tour |
Berlin was our first stop and it was a shock to the system to say the least. After getting off the flight and eventually finding the train station closest to the Schonenfeld airport(a 5 minute walk) we hit our first hurdle. As it was late at night there were no staff to help us figure out which train we had to get on and we could not find any heading for Alexanderplatz, despite it being the main area of Berlin or so we'd heard. Finally, we asked a man for some help and he put our destination into his phone and showed us which train we needed, hallelooooo. If you're thinking of going to Berlin, try to figure out the trains in advance(like we should have done). Upon eventually arriving at our hostel with more chaos following the poorly written directions we stumbled into our room at 11pm. To greet us was 6 sleeping people who weren't too happy with us scrambling around attempting to make our beds with an iphone light. After a few minutes and a man declaring we had 'already woken everybody up' we turned on the lights, said our hello's, made the beds then went off for a well deserved beer!
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| Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe |
We only had one full day in Berlin and had planned to do the Fat Tire Bike Tour which lasts around 5 hours with a stop in the beer garten half way through for drinks and food (well deserved may i say). Now i am not the fittest person in the world, although i have always danced i was a bit worried about the prospect of a 5 hour bike ride. However i was very pleasantly surprised. It was a light bike ride on the roads of which the cars are all very respectful of riders, plenty of stops to look at main sights and the longest period of cycling was around 10 minutes. Perfecto. I thoroughly enjoyed the bike ride, stopping off to see lots of sights and the tour guide, i forgot his name :(, but he was American and lovely! Much of Berlin had been destroyed in the war so there were a lot of rebuilt buildings and a lot more concrete than i had imagined. Cycling around we heard a lot about the history of the Berlin Wall and the second World War and for me not being much of an intellectual, i actually found it so interesting. I could write so much about what i saw and learnt but i wouldn't want to ruin it for any future bike riders! Just know, it was well worth the money.
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| World Clock in Berlin |
A major downside to Berlin for me and my friend was the location of our hostel. We hadn't realised but we were on the complete opposite side to where all the bars, east side gallery and quite frankly all the fun was. Although we enjoyed the bike tour we just weren't too struck by what we had seen of Berlin in the day. It was only on returning to our hostel where we met two Americans that they explained where the east side gallery was and how it was so much more of a hub around that area. With that knowledge in hand and not wanting to miss out on a huge part of Berlin we headed over for the evening. We walked along the East Side Gallery, the stretch of the Berlin Wall with all of the amazing graffiti art work. It was amazing to see this after seeing many pictures online before, it was especially beautiful at night. We had some drinks around this area and then headed for a club to dance the night away. Some of the clubs in Berlin were quite strict and my friend not being 21 yet we could not go into the one we had wanted. However we did end up in Matrix which is beneath the underground and met some friendly faces and ended up having a decent first night.
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| East Side Gallery |
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| East Side Gallery posing
It was so lucky we had been advised by the hostel roomies to visit this side of Berlin otherwise we would have left feeling much more disappointed by the city. I would love to revisit here again and stay in the right area this time as it just seemed a hive for quirky bars and clubs with interesting people on every corner. I'd say it was so much bigger than i thought it would be and location is absolutely key if you are planning to visit. It was fairly affordable and had we had more time there we may have seen a lot more.
Hope this helps any budding travellers out there!
Over and out,
Pale (Abi)Gail
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