Berlin

Berlin is an interesting place. It is full of travellers and young people looking for a good party and a good time. It is also a city with a difficult past, from World War II through to the days of the DDR and Cold War. The evidence of this history is everywhere.

It is well known that modern Berlin is full of aspiring musicians and artists, so I expected a vibrant creative city full of like minded people. I did, to an extent, find that there were lots of creatives, but the street art was lacking. Instead full of tag graffiti as high as arms could reach and the creatives were tucked away in the free spaces that weren’t immediately obvious to visitors. The music was around but again unless you had a Berliner with you it wasn’t always obvious what was happening and that seemed to be the way the locals like it.

We covered all full gamut of tourist basics while we visited the city: the East Side Gallery, DDR Museum, The Jewish Museum and Memorial, Check Point Charlie, The Bauhaus, The Brandenburg Gate, Mauerpark Karaoke and flea market, Templehof Park, Neueheimart, Urban Spree, nights out in Kreuzberg and a thousand trips on the U-Bahn around the city.

I feel like after two weeks we were just getting to know the city and that we might have just about figured out how it works. I think that while Berlin doesn’t really have the ‘WOW’ factor that other major cities have, it’s a slow burn where you could easily find a little corner to slot into and discover it slowly over time.