End of Tour - Saying Good-bye

We thoroughly enjoyed our beautiful room last night. The sun is shining on the Brandenburg Tor just outside our window and I take a picture. This small Brandenburg Tor leads to the big one in Berlin. The square is empty this time of morning except for the street sweeper. It is early because we have to be ready to go to Berlin at 8:00 for our tour at 9:00. Guess there wasn't any flexibility in the time for the tour. We have breakfast at 7:00, a yummy one, too. It is about a 45 minute drive to Berlin from Potsdam. We go in two taxi vans. Jessica will take our luggage to the hotel in Berlin. The four of us are staying in a two bedroom apartment in the hotel - HSH-Mitte.  We have enjoyed this arrangement on other trips.

We have a tour of a couple of the underground bunkers in Berlin. Our English speaking guide gives an interesting, sometimes humorous tour and talk about these bunkers. One was from WW II and the other was built in 1977 during the Cold War. These bunkers were meant to protect the citizens of Berlin but they were woefully inadequate. They could only hold a fraction of the population. It was a very interesting tour. We walk with Philipp and see other Berlin Wall related sites. We see where the dividing line was on Bernaustrasse. It is very hot and we are roasting! We get to the hotel and our luggage has been delivered to our rooms by Jessica. Philipp tells Dave that he has left his iPAD at the hotel. (He later arranges for a taxi to bring it and it arrives within the hour.) A bunch of us go to lunch with Philipp at a nearby biergarten. Philipp says goodbye but nobody moves. It's obvious people are reluctant to say their final goodbyes. It's always hard at the end of a trip.

We are hot and tired but decide we will do another underground tour by the same organization that did our tour this morning since it was highly recommended by Philipp. We ask the person at the desk how to get there. She says it is easy by S-bahn train. There is a station just a short walk away. We buy a ticket good for five people and specifically ask if it is for 24 hours or just the day and are told 24 hours. When we get off at Gesunmundsee station, we spend at least 10 minutes trying to find our way out of the station! It is very confusing. By the time we do, it is 3:10 and there are only 3 tickets left! We see Linda and Chas who have gotten their tickets. We feel disappointed, frustrated, hot and tired. We decide we need to go back to the room and regroup. We find a supermarket nearby to get stuff for breakfast. It always takes a lot of time to find what you want in a foreign food store. 

None of us have done much preparation for this trip in terms of reading, thinking about transportation and so on so we take some time to read the chapter on Berlin from the Rick Steves book and to study the metro map. We discuss what we want to do for the two days we have here and come up with a plan. 

The day ends with a light dinner at a restaurant along the Spree River, a short distance from our hotel. It is pleasant sitting by the water with a breeze providing much appreciated cooler temperatures. In the end, we feel better about the day. I think we are all exhausted from the bike trip and the heat. Hopefully, we can get a good rest tonight. The hotel has provided small fans.

         Miniature Brandenburg Tor in the morning light as seen outside our hotel window

                                       Jessica, Michela, and Philipp - our leaders

                                        Shows where the Wall was off Bernaustrasse