A Whirlwind Trip To Berlin

Eighteenth birthdays are always a special event and recently my (not so) little brother celebrated his. I wanted to do something different to mark the occasion that would be remembered longer than a bottle of expendable aftershave or another t-shirt. Racking my brains I eventually came upon the idea of taking him away somewhere for a city break where we could have a few beers and explore the sights. I began suggesting cities to my cousin, who would also be joining us on our little adventure. He jumped at the prospect of returning to Berlin where he had previously gone on a school trip and his enthusiasm was catching. I'd never even been to Germany before, from reading other people's blog posts and hearing stories from friends I thought it looked like quite a cool city to visit.

On a sunny Thursday afternoon we flew from our local airport to Berlin, a journey that took us less than two hours. Living by London Southend is pretty handy! Despite our intent to go for a weekend we actually ended up booking for six days, which I thought would be more than enough time to see everything. I was wrong. If I could go spend a month in Berlin I still don't think I'd manage to do everything, there's just so much to see and absorb. I'll be the first to admit that I am geographically challenged and our attempts to sight-see with just a map and a train pass were unsuccessful. We ended up walking for an hour in completely the wrong direction. Luckily there are many tour buses just waiting to take you round the city and show you where everything is. We gained a better perception of the scale of the city this way and it helped us return to certain places later to explore more thoroughly.

I'm not quite sure what it is that I love about museums so much; the items that have been collected over hundreds of years, that it's probably the closest we'll come to time travel or the collective silence of strangers marvelling in unison. Museum Island was pretty near the top of my to-do list and is now part of my to-do-again list. Centred in the middle of Spree river in the Mitte district are five-world class museums, so internationally acclaimed that they are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We managed to have a quick look around two of them, the Bode Museum which houses an extensive collection of sculptures and the Neues which takes you back in time to Ancient Egypt. I found both museums fascinating and informative, I really wish I'd had a chance to look around the other three.

Despite being apprehensive about German food (having heard it's mainly quite heavy and stodgy) I actually really enjoyed it. Berlin is filled with choice when it comes to restaurants and you can probably eat food from any country. We tucked into German, Italian, American and Vietnamese dishes in our time there, all of which were delicious. I was also pleasantly surprised by how beautiful the weather was, I'm not sure why but I thought it would be cloudy and raining! Instead we were blessed with glorious sunshine and 35 degrees of heat which had me longing to jump into one of Berlin's many lakes.

Berlin truly is a beautiful and culturally rich city with so much to offer, I hope that someday I can return to continue exploring. From visiting Brandenburg Gate to posing with waxwork models at Madame Tussauds we really did try and fit in as much as possible. I had a wonderful time, I just hope my brother enjoyed it as much as I did!