Berlin

I used to think that Prague was my favourite city, with its unspoilt charm, cheap food and drink, and cool Eastern European style. But in the past few years, because of cheap flights on easyJet or Ryanair, it seems to have become festooned with beer swilling, prostitute-using idiots who seem to be trying their best to ruin it for everyone else before getting deported by angry Czech policemen (who hopefully batter them before putting them on a plane back home). So Prague has lost its charisma a little for me. Not to say that I'd never go back, but it has some pretty serious problems now.

Then there was Rome. Full of history, beauty and class, I thought I was in love with the place until I visited Paris, which blew me away. So for a while, Paris was my favourite city. Even New York couldn't topple it, but last weekend, the title of My Favourite City went to Berlin.

It was my second visit, the first time I was there it was because my brother was about to get married so we'd taken him there for the weekend. This time around, it was the turn of one of my best mates to get engaged - so when trying to decide where to take him, Berlin came off as the obvious winner.

My brother is a very convincing liar, so he had been tasked with telling Neil that we were taking him to Ullapool. We laughed from the bottom of our bellies at the disappointment he tried hard not to display at the prospect of freezing his ass off in a dingy town here in Scotland for his 'stag' weekend.

Struggling to hide his despair, Neil contemplates a weekend in Ullapool

It was only when we got to the airport and after a few fake phone calls that we told Neil that we were not in fact getting picked up by 'Alastair the Minibus Driver who was taking us to the train'. He was delighted that we had actually planned something decent, and that he was going to be freezing his ass off in Berlin instead. That made the effort of arranging everything worthwhile.

'Ah, ich spreche Deutsche! Ich hasse Ullapool.'

So on our descent into Berlin Schonefeld, we were greeted by snow covered fields and temperatures which were well below zero (apparently -20c at night). I'm not going to write an account of the entire weekend, but I'd like to write about some of the best sights we saw during our visit. Berlin is rammed with things to see, and if you're willing to stay in a Hostel, I'd thoroughly recommend The Circus Hostel at Rozenthaler Platz. It's clean, it's cheap, it's in a brilliant location (two stops from Alexanderplatz), it has great staff and a really nice Cafe and Bar for breakfast and booze (not necessarily in that order).

Great Places in Berlin

Pergamon Museum

I think the Pergamon Museum is great. When you walk into the main museum you're given an audio guide and headphones, which make the whole thing vastly more interesting than if you were looking at the exhibits with no idea what they are.

The Museum is split into three main parts, the central area which contains the stunning Pergamon Altar, and the two wings which contain the Market Gate from Miletus, the Ishtar Gate and some of the facade of the Temple of Artemis. It was certainly worth a visit, and you could spend hours there, poring over the incredible exhibits which take you back in time.

Tacheles

A lot of people who visit Berlin will never hear about Tacheles. And some who do would be afraid to visit there, fearing they'd be out of place or unwelcome. But it's a place that everyone should visit, since it is about as 'Real' as Berlin can get. (Click on the pictures for larger versions)

Tacheles, before the facade was repaired

It's quite hard to find, being tucked away in the Jewish area of the city. But it's a big place, having been a department store, then an office of the SS. When you walk in, there are artists selling their wares, usually prints of works they've done previously. It's pretty dark and every wall is completely covered in graffiti. On the first floor there's the club where they have paneled windows and a proper bar, with a DJ. Some people seem to think that having glass windows on Tacheles means it's not the same as it used to be. Further upstairs there are corridors with lots of locked doors and mysterious sounds coming from behind them. Some large areas are filled with bits of junk, some sculptures and yet more artists hoping to make a few Euro by selling their stuff. At the top there's an open air bar next to the gig venue, which serves beer by the bottle and lets visitors sit down on manky couches to look out over the city. You can see what's now this area if you look at the photo, at the top floor where the roof arches.

Tacheles isn't the kind of place you forget in a hurry, it's a view onto a completely different world.

Berlin by Bike

The other great thing we did was hire bikes. Even though the temperatures were well below zero, there was snow and black ice everywhere and we had no experience of cycling on busy German roads, we decided that the best way to see the city would be to hire bikes rather than walk everywhere or use the U-Bahn.

We covered about 22km on the day, which isn't bad for a few hours. You can see our route on this map:

Our route through Central Berlin

Starting out at Rozenthaler Platz, we went down Friedrichstraße to Unter den Linden which contains the foreign embassies and a few car dealerships, as well as the Brandenburg Gate at the bottom.

Jolley struggles to hide his delight at finding a hat almost exactly the same shape and colour as Neil's

The Reichstag is pretty awesome, but it takes hours to queue up to get inside, so we stood outside for a bit and admired it. Apparently Hitler wanted the Riechstag to form the gatehouse of the Welthauptstadt Germania, which would have made it part of the biggest building the world had ever seen. But of course, Hitler was an idiot and it never came to fruition because instead of the biggest building ever seen, he started the biggest war the world had ever seen. Still, the Reichstag is very impressive.

David wishes he was as tall as the Riechstag. Now THAT would be fun.

The Tiergarten is beautiful when covered in snow. It's nice to be able to cycle through a park without fear of your tyres being punctured by broken glass or a used syringe, and to have the confidence that you won't be beset by neds who want to nick your bike and sell it for money fur ra dancin'. Berlin is a world apart from the likes of Glasgow. It's full of culture, intrigue and the people of Berlin really love and take care of their city, rather than attacking each other and wrecking everything they can.

Alan just does not agree with Calum's sock-glove choice

By this time our collective nuts were beginning to freeze off. So preferring to keep at least the option of having kids in the future, we decided it was time to get some warmth. So we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts (not for the first, nor the last time on this trip) and refuelled. Then we arrived at a showcase section of the Berlin Wall. Across the street from the wall, there was an enormous advert for iPod.

The contrast between the old iron curtain divide between East and West and the new, colourful 'free world' image of the iPod was quite cool.

Maybe it was just me, but I always loved the Trabant. I think it's a symbol of East Berlin, communism, and the acceptance that people must have had for the crap technology to which they were subjected by their regime. The strange thing is, that even though it was small and unreliable, smoky and uncomfortable, the Trabant was loved by East Germans. It's still popular today, even after all this time.

When I saw a whole load of Trabants across the road, I had to have a look, while nobody else appeared to be interested. If I had a collection of cars (as opposed to one rubbish car), I'd definitely add a Trabant to that.

Next time I'm in Berlin, I'm going to hire one of these

Once we'd seen the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and the old Air Ministry, we headed up towards Eberswalder Straße, where I'd heard that the best Currywurst in Berlin could be had. I wasn't wrong! Then we visited the flea market and headed home before our fingers fell off from the cold.


Capt'n Schillo

On our final night we went to the Capt'n Schillo restaurant, which is a barge tied up on the Spree. We were running late, so basically sprinted across Berlin and onto the S-Bahn to try to get there on time so that we wouldn't miss our reservation. We needn't have bothered: we were the only people there! Not sure why, because it was a great little place. A single waiter served us really excellent fish dishes (some had steak) and kept his Amy Winehouse CD on repeat (that was a downer). Then it was speech time. Each person had to give a speech about Neil and why they'd enjoyed the weekend, as well as why he was a good guy who was worth the time and expense of visiting Berlin.

Petrie folk are notoriously emotionally and linguistically stinted, so the best speeches came from others who spoke about the past we'd all had together, the good times and hopefully the better times to come.

All in, Berlin was brilliant. I'd go back again and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

More pics can be found on Photobucket