Tourists on the loose

Downtown, Downtown!

A fringe benefit of having so much company is that we get the opportunity to play tourist again and again in a place that's become our home. And once we leave our comfortable little neighborhood, we're reminded that this really is a city of three and a half million inhabitants. Here are some random "postcard" shots from recent forays into downtown Berlin with friends.

Hannes the gatekeeper, in front of Berlin's central landmark,
the Brandenburger Tor.
The Berlin Wall jagged out from the east
to claim the Brandenburger Gate for East Berlin.
President Reagan stood right about where Hannes is standing here
when he gave his famous 1987 speech:
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

This is one of the astounding skyscrapers
that tower up from Potsdamer Platz,
before World War II the busiest traffic center in Europe.
It was mostly destroyed during World War II,
and then for years during the Cold War it was the no-man's land
or "death strip" behind the Wall, a scene of desolation.
There are still scraps of the Wall left behind,
but definitely no more no-man's land.

Here's a view from inside the Sony Center Tower
at Potsdamer Platz.
We're down below sipping coffee and tea
at Jost's favorite historic watering hole, Cafe Josty!

A corner of the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament.
This building bordered the Wall on the west.
Photos displayed inside show it as a blackened hull
after the bombing of World War II.

This new glass cupola sits atop the old Reichstag
to replace the old conventional cupola destroyed in World War II.
We got up early to avoid the three-hour wait to visit the cupola
and enjoyed a spectacular panoramic view of Berlin.

Not far away is the new and very unusual
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Designed by an American architect, it's an entire city block
of tombstone-like columns on uneven ground.
The ground sinks so low at times that you can feel truly entombed.

Here's another memorial in front of the Reichstag
with the names of the government officials
who were killed during the time of the Nazis.

And finally, the true tourist shot:
Lara, Hannes, and Anna in front of
a remaining grafitti'd chunk of the Berlin Wall.