First look at Berlin

Last Saturday I took a day trip into Berlin to scope out the scene. It strikes me as a city interesting more for its neighborhoods than the "downtown". In fact, there isn't really a single center of the city, but many centers.

I arrived in the newly constructed Berlin Hauptbahnhoff. It is impossible to get a decent picture which displays how big this train station is. The view here is the platform at the top level. Four levels below is another set of tracks running perpendicular to these tracks, with shopping, ticket sales, etc on the levels in between.


Iva says that a city cannot be considered European without a statue of a man on a horse, with a sword. Well, here you are.


Just down the street from this is the infamous Brandenburg Gate. Apparently there used to be numerous gates for roads leading out of the city (this one leading towards Brandenburg). This is the only one which survives, although one can tell where some of the others were located as there are U-Bahn stops named after them.


At the opposite end of this street is the Spree river, with an island full of museums. Beyond this is the hip part of the Mitte neighborhood. Here's a typical street scene which includes many of Berlin's essentials: public transport, old buildings, communist-era buildings, modern glass buildings, construction (lots of things being remodeled or built), and bicycles.


I'll end this entry with two pictures taken at Potsdamer Platz. This plaza was the center of commercial action in West Berlin and is now one super swanky shopping/commercial zone. Both guidebooks I have put this on their list of places to see and, frankly, I'm not sure why. With the exception of viewing the huge lego giraffe (see second picture below), made with normal-size legos mind you, there isn't really much to do. Oh, well. From here I proceeded to a couple other interesting neighborhoods about which I will report later.