Day 13 - Berlin - More Sightseeing. Checkpoint Charlie, the Reistag, Brandenberg Gate, and a Boat Ride!

Today we started off as a group again with an early morning visit to Gendarmenmrkt Square just after sunrise to view the two magnificent churches and the concert house.  Stunning, especially in the early morning light.  This also the site of the world famous Christmas market, and as most will agree, Berlin certainly knows how to celebrate Christmas!

Next up we rode the Metro to Checkpoint Charlie where we took photos with the guards at the gate and then toured the Black Box Museum.  It amazed all of us how Berlin self-identifies itself with The Wall.  Let it go for goodness sake.  We all understand that it is a historical, horrible moment in our past..but the tourism industry just dwells and dwells on it...EVERYWHERE.  There is so much, much more and we had to look far and wide to get past it.

We decided upon an early lunch at a nice sidewalk cafe and enjoyed a sumptuous German style meal...too big, too much, and too full.  From there we walked to the Memorial of the Holocaust. That was certainly sobering.   The memorial is a modern effort to honor the millions of Jewish citizens that were murdered during the war.  There are no placards or discriptive markers.  Just rows and rows and hundreds of steel blocks.  You left to your own interpretation.  The artist meant it to be this way.  We roamed the site for about an hour and then each shared their own impressions of what they saw and felt.

In the forested park, several hundred meters from the main monument, hidden in the trees was a separate monument to the Gays that were killed in the camps.  This for me was even more moving and also more sad that the artist felt he had to hide this monument in the forest.  The symbolism was riveting.  There was a single opening and a video playing inside.  Hundreds of tourists roamed the main site.  Only us and one or two others visited this one.  I guess we have more work to do.

The US Embassy is across the street an down a block is the Brandenburg Gate.  At this point we split up and went our separate ways.  We wandered the plaza at the gate and then walked over the to Reistag, Berlin's Parliament House.

We caught a bus and rode through the Tiergarten Park, Berlin's "Central Park" with the hopes of visiting the zoo and the pandas.  Alas, it was too late when we got there to justify the $20 entrance fee so we had a coffee at the Bikini Shopping Center...largest in Berlin and then called it a night.

Gyros sandwiches and Netflix until bedtime.....