Berlin Day One: Prenzlauer Berg and Wall

Prologue

We flew to Berlin on different flights, due to my booking earlier to use frequent flier miles and John booking later once his work trip was 100% sure to go ahead. John arrived early Saturday and checked into our airbnb in Prenzlauer Berg, went for lunch and had some relaxing time. I arrived Saturday afternoon and Mildred met me at the airport. When I came out of the gate, she was helping a young man at the airport who asked her to film his reunion with his brother.

After a while he found that his brother had entered through a different arrival door, so we parted ways with him, and Mildred and I continued on our way toward Berlin on the train to Alexanderplatz. From there, we changed trains and walked through the neighborhood to our airbnb, picked up John, went for another walk and saw Mildred’s flat, and then had dinner at a lovely small place called Zula. After all that, we were getting really tired and called it a night.

First full day in Berlin

The first full Day One was about seeing the Zionskirche, Mauer Park and the Wall Memorial. All are near where we are staying in Prenzlauer Berg, which is a “kiez” or neighborhood, that is located in the former East Berlin. Our kiez is really lovely!

The church “Zionskirche” is important in the history of emerging civil rights in East Germany – in the 1980s, it became a center of the opposition to the East German government policies.

In 1986, a group called the “Environmental Library” met inside the church and published Samizdat zines that gave information about human rights, peace and the environment, which was a bold act in a time of the East German government withholding of information and spreading misinformation. We saw an exhibit inside the church that included the very copy machine that the group used! Humble but mighty machine.

We also walked up a very tight spiral staircase to the first balcony and got a great view of the city.

We then walked to Mauer Park, where there is a flea market on Sundays. The park is adjacent to the former East German sports stadium, and you can see some of the former watch towers that have been left standing.

We then walked to the nearby start of the Wall Memorial, which is a historical park that runs along the stretch of the former wall (and reminded us of a historically charged version of the high line or 606!) At this point we paused and remarked that wow, Berlin is doing a really great job with memorials. Memorials and historical notes are visible all over the city, and many are simple markings on the ground or plaques on the wall with photographs in addition to some large dedicated memorials. The Wall Memorial uses a lot of ground markings to show where the inner and outer walls were, and also noting where tunnels were with more ground markings.

Bernauer Strasse underground train was a ‘ghost station’ in 1988 when I was there, and I remember the train not stopping, since the station was in the East. It’s open now! (Has been for decades!)

Changing gears really dramatically here but later in the day we got falafel / doner kebabs, really good! Mildred’s son Simon said that doner is his favorite food in Berlin, he has a compelling argument!