Trip report: Berlin
Dec. 16th, 2010 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izardWe live here in Germany for almost two years now, but never been to the capital city. This is easy to fix: hotels in Berlin are cheap, and so are flights and trains if booked in advance.
It was cold so we spent a lot of time inside, in museums and shopping malls. Unfortunately I don't have any picture from a museum: it was either forbidden to take pictures or I didn't want to make them.
This one was taken inside Gallerie Lafayette. They have a very good catering inside, especially Russian Pirogi, and French/Marcel cuisine (employees in both are Russian speaking.)
In the cold war/Berlin wall museum, there is a special exposition devoted to Mikhail Hodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. The most interesting sight there is the original of Mikhail Hodorkovsky's articles handwritten in prison. He is struggling without word processor but the thoughts are very clear and concise, and so is the handwriting. Other notable thing about exhibition is that on a big map of Russia they have swapped the location where Hodorkovsky and Lebedev are serving their sentences.
When I was trying to grep web for "best Russian restaurant in Berlin" I found some forum where someone wrote: "best russian place in Berlin is Georgian "Genatzvale"". And indeed it is. I was only surprised that it was nearly empty on Sunday evening, what a shame for such an excellent food!
After we've arrived, checked in to hotel we went to see Under den Linden str. First thing we've seen was Santa's parade in front of central Christmas market:
Nikolaivirtel - DDR designed "medieval" district around oldest Berlin church.
Just Unter den Linden, German history museum. (The only one where they don't have students discounts)
When there was a religious songs performance in the dome, I've seen a large flock of crows flying over it.
When the performance was over, crows were gone.
Kids sledging on Potsdamerplatz.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we liked the train, but did not like the timing. So I had plenty of time to try making pictures of German winter countryside from the train.
e.g. the typical Bavarian landscape in the winter morning.
We were not able to get into the Reichstag dome. All tour guides, including very recently printed tell that the entrance is free, but there is a long but fast queue. Since very very recently, it is not true any more. One have to send an e-mail to a special Reichstag e-mail address for a reservation, and the process is extremely badly documented. It even says on official web site that in winter one can join to some group, but the gate keepers are not aware about it and speak quite rude.
Few more pics are on my picasa album.
It was cold so we spent a lot of time inside, in museums and shopping malls. Unfortunately I don't have any picture from a museum: it was either forbidden to take pictures or I didn't want to make them.
This one was taken inside Gallerie Lafayette. They have a very good catering inside, especially Russian Pirogi, and French/Marcel cuisine (employees in both are Russian speaking.)
In the cold war/Berlin wall museum, there is a special exposition devoted to Mikhail Hodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. The most interesting sight there is the original of Mikhail Hodorkovsky's articles handwritten in prison. He is struggling without word processor but the thoughts are very clear and concise, and so is the handwriting. Other notable thing about exhibition is that on a big map of Russia they have swapped the location where Hodorkovsky and Lebedev are serving their sentences.
When I was trying to grep web for "best Russian restaurant in Berlin" I found some forum where someone wrote: "best russian place in Berlin is Georgian "Genatzvale"". And indeed it is. I was only surprised that it was nearly empty on Sunday evening, what a shame for such an excellent food!
After we've arrived, checked in to hotel we went to see Under den Linden str. First thing we've seen was Santa's parade in front of central Christmas market:
Nikolaivirtel - DDR designed "medieval" district around oldest Berlin church.
Just Unter den Linden, German history museum. (The only one where they don't have students discounts)
When there was a religious songs performance in the dome, I've seen a large flock of crows flying over it.
When the performance was over, crows were gone.
Kids sledging on Potsdamerplatz.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we liked the train, but did not like the timing. So I had plenty of time to try making pictures of German winter countryside from the train.
e.g. the typical Bavarian landscape in the winter morning.
We were not able to get into the Reichstag dome. All tour guides, including very recently printed tell that the entrance is free, but there is a long but fast queue. Since very very recently, it is not true any more. One have to send an e-mail to a special Reichstag e-mail address for a reservation, and the process is extremely badly documented. It even says on official web site that in winter one can join to some group, but the gate keepers are not aware about it and speak quite rude.
Few more pics are on my picasa album.
