It was our first time going to Germany, and I was intrigued to experience a country that I always wanted to visit. I was expecting different architecture, interesting history and of course a German McDonalds (Which disappoints).

Hotel am Steinplatz

We stayed at the fantastic Hotel am Steinplatz which is a short walk from Kurfurstendam. The hotel was perfect in nearly every way and I would recommend the hotel to anyone.

Hotel Decoration: Recently refurbished and very modern. The rooms were some of the best rooms I have stayed in and very large, especially compared to the room size you would get in other European cities such as Paris and Rome.

Hotel Employees: were very friendly and more than willing to help.

Day One: We’ll walk through Tiergarten – IT CAN’T BE THAT BIG (Famous last Words!!)

Anybody who has been to Berlin’s City Centre park will know that saying it’s a big city, is an understatement, it’s actually huge and never-ending especially if you walk along the main road that cuts down the middle of Tiergarten. The moment I knew we had made a mistake walking is when we didn’t reach the first roundabout that represented a third of the way until about an hour of walking.

At the end of the long rainbow that was Tiergarten, we reached the pot of gold, Brandenburg gate. The world famous structure which is famous for its celebration scenes during the fall of the Berlin Wall. From Brandenburg gate you can see the Reichstag which we walked over to see hundreds of people sitting around in the grass relaxing and taking the view. We were so tired from the walk through Tiergarten that we actually didn’t go in, it was very hot and we decided to make the journey back to the hotel.

After crawling back the to the hotel we thought it was time for a well-deserved nap. It was a bad day to wear Stan Smith runners. Note to self to always bring walking runners when exploring a city!

Day Two:  Tour Bus Day and Loud Thunder

On the second day in Berlin myself and Nicole decided to take the tour bus to better explore the City. We started the bus tour on Kurtfurstendam (Took a while to pronounce correctly). The bus started off slowly taking a while to navigate the busy shopping street, but we were both delightfully entertained by the 1980’s dance music that was being playing on the earphones.

The tour bus is a must to explore a city as large as Berlin. The tour bus allows you really see the difference in architecture across the city.

We got the tour bus to checkpoint Charlie, which in all honestly was a bit underwhelming and looked odd against a McDonald’s in the background. Checkpoint Charlie is really just an attraction to tick off the list.

We both decided to get off the tour bus at Alexanderplatz, I was very excited to see the difference between west and east Berlin and you definitely see that difference the second you get to Alexanderplatz. Surrounding Alexanderplatz is a mixture of old and new buildings with old abandoned soviet apartment blocks to new redeveloped modern buildings.

After walking around taking in the former east Berlin we noticed a huge black cloud starting to form which meant one thing, getting back to the tour bus ASAP. As the tour bus started its east berlin tour the weather got so bad that the roof of the bus blew off and we swiftly scattered downstairs to shelter, as you can see in the picture below Berlin got a wee bit flooded.

Unfortunately the rain did mean we couldn’t get off at certain stops that we had hoped to see, even though it was a lot funny and scary at times.

Day Three: Our Last Day in Berlin

We had a lot of catching up to do because of weather the previous day. We went back to the tour bus and got off at east side gallery and walked along the wall of artistic sketches that are a must see and would be my number one recommendation for somebody who is visiting Berlin.

Berlin was a city I didn’t like at first but found it grew on me the more I explored this vast and immense city with a culture and history that I found to be intriguing.

My Personal Tip:

Fly into Schonefeld airport, it only takes approximately 30 minutes to get into Berlin by train. The train stops at all the major areas of the Berlin making it easier for you to get to your accommodation.

If you have any questions about our trip drop us an email.

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Happy Travels!

Bryan