Berlin – The Berlin Wall Memorial

Day 2
Friday, October 30, 2015.

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

I woke up for the day at 4 a.m., not what I had hoped. The good news, however, is that Europe changes to standard time a week before North America, so we only have to adjust for an eight hour time difference rather than nine. Great.

Got up when I heard stirring in the kitchen, had a pre-Frühstück of yoghurt and muesli. Around 11:00 went for real Frühstück at the Café BilderBuch. John and I had “discovered” this café on our first visit to Berlin in 2010, and we became instant regulars, sitting each morning in the sunny sidewalk, soaking up the street, thinking “I love Europe!” When we visited again, two years later, the BilderBuch was closed for renovations, and we were forced to breakfast elsewhere. There was no loss, really, as there are many great cafés in the neighbourhood serving equally excellent breakfasts. But we were excited to be able to go back to our old haunt this time. Just as I remembered, breakfast was a huge platter of cheese, olives, and fruit, and a basket with four kinds of bread. The tea is a good Assam, and the Kaffee mit Milch is excellent. The prices are higher than I remember from 2010, but there are still great options for 5 or 6 Euros.

John and Ezra and the BilderBuch

The sun never did burn through the fog today. The bright oranges and browns of the leaves made for interesting contrast with grey sky and concrete. Katharina had some errands to run, so Ezra and John and I went off to the Berlin Wall Memorial, a section of the wall that has been preserved as it was before the fall. A small area is closed off completely, viewable only from an observation tower across the street. From there you can see the layers of security behind the concrete wall we’re all familiar with: the signal fencing, the anti-vehicle trench, a patrol road, a watchtower. The most harrowing of the stories are about people who attempted escape across this “death strip.”

Layers of security

There are information kiosks dotting the area now, where a visitor can watch videos and hear first-hand accounts, but after several visits to Berlin, we know the stories. We walked amongst the remnants to absorb the spirit of the place. With the bustle of traffic and the snap of tourist cameras, it’s not all that easy to imagine this place as anything other than a green space, a park, surrounded by thriving commerce, even as the relics loom over us. It feels like long-ago history. That's a good thing.

Sections of preserved wall, with encroaching foliage

Prosperity across the wall

And overlooking all, the Soviet radio tower

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One of my quests this visit to Berlin is to seek out knitting stores in the hopes of finding yarn I can’t get at home. One such store is not far from the memorial, so we walked there. KnitKnit was friendly but tiny, and I didn’t find anything unique there, but the walk through the neighbourhood was colourful.

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It needs to be mentioned: Berlin streets are full of smokers. Germany has been slow to adopt anti-smoking laws, but at least smoking is banned in restaurants, though not in bars. Smoking is endemic here. This means that to eat on patios is to breathe cigarette smoke, and to walk the streets is to dodge smokers.

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We had dinner at the Vietnamese place around the corner, excellent, fresh and healthy. Back home, a glass of wine and a slice of Katharina’s marzipan cake, and we crashed, for another long, restless night.




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