Berlin by foot

Took a walk around Berlin yesterday. It's huge. The scale of things screws up your perception too. I started from the Zoological Gardens and walked through Tiergarden Park. The Victory column in the centre is absolutely enormous. The walk therefore took far longer than expected. Still, you can see over into the zoo so I got to say good morning to some llamas and an emu.

Stopped for a quick bite to eat at Cafe am Neuen See. By the lake, obviously (to those of you who speak German anyway). Potato and sausage soup and a mediocre espresso (I’ve yet to find a good one in Berlin). The soup was surprisingly good though. Salty, as you’d expect, but it hit all the right spots.

The park used to be a royal hunting ground. There’s a couple of awesome statues near the cafe depicting victorious hunts which you’ve gotta check out. Slightly less impressive was the stretch Trabant limo I saw driving through the park. There’s a couple of Trabants still belching out fumes around the streets of Berlin. If you’re really interested, there’s a Trabant museum and hire shop at the other side of town.

There was also a juggler working one set of traffic lights in the park with an ingenious pitch. She’d wait for the lights to go red then step into the junction and do a little juggling. She’d time it perfect to throw some clubs, do a little bow, remove her hat, and then skip through the stationary traffic accepting any coins that were dropped into her hat. It was kinda cute.

The Soviet war memorial lies between the Victory column and the Brandenburg Gate. As you’d expect, it’s huge.

I called into the ticket office for the Reichstag building. It’s free to visit the dome, but you need to book in advance. Two full days notice are required for online bookings but you can join the queue at the ticket office to book entry at short notice. I queued for about twenty minutes and just as I got to the front they came round handing out instant passes to anyone who fancied going straight in. This is a working government building so you need to clear security. The usual airport type checks are performed. My backpack got rescanned and they confiscated my whistle of all things! Completely forgot it was in there - I clipped one in when I went walking in the Lakes.

Bear with me on this, but the Reichstag dome is amazing. It’s another genius creation from the mind of Sir Norman Foster. The same chap who designed the Millau bridge - beaten only by the Humber Bridge in a game of ‘bridge Top Trumps’ with Catherine. The whole concept is of a transparent parliament. Anyone can take the elevator to the top of the Reichstag and look down on government sessions through a glass ceiling. Space permitting, members of the public can actually sit in on government sessions in the public gallery. I learned all this from the free audio guide, which runs continuously once started and is timed perfectly as you walk around.

There are two spiral walkways – one leading up and the other down. At the top of the dome is a viewing platform. A column of angled mirrors at the centre of the dome provides light into the chamber below, a huge revolving shield moves with the clock to control the amount of light, and the open eye of the dome maintains natural air circulation and cooling. I was completely in awe.