For Easter, Claudia and I joined Faye, Sabrina and Joachim in visiting Berlin. Faye, Claudia and Joachim stayed in style at the Gendarmenmarkt Hilton, while Claudia and I stayed at the rather more modest Eastener hostel.

As always, more photos available in the Photo Gallery…

Our first day in Berlin dawned grey and rather cold. Disappointing given that we had left London basking in a deeply unseasonal weekend of fine weather and 20+ degrees celcius. Undaunted we joined a walking tour of London with Terry, a British ex-pat and ex career diplomat who had served in Berlin before, during and after the Berlin wall. Terry was a font of knowledge, though so over-generous with his knowledge that Claudia and I were forced to beg off to join our dinner appointment at 6pm while still not having seen Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag or Potzdamer Platz. Faye, Sabrina and Joachim later reported finishing seeing these in the dark at 9pm!

That night, we dined as guests of Carola’s parents. A very pleasant meal of Raclette at their lovely apartment on the outskirts of West Berlin.

The next day we took quietly. Joachim spent the afternoon in the Sauna while, the rest of us met with Carola for lunch at Mövenpick. After lunch, Sabrina, Faye and I went off to see Potzdamer Platz and go up the Daimler building while Carola and Claudia indulged in a spot of shopping. By this point, it was already nearly time for dinner, so we returned to change and then reconvened to officially celebrate Faye’s birthday dinner. The restaurant was called Zur Leztzen Instanz and is claimed to be the oldest in Berlin having been opened in 1525. Certainly both the food and the beer were excellent.

The Sunday dawned with a glimmer of slightly improved weather, so we chanced our arm and headed out to Potsdam to see castle Sanssouci. With the weather still not entirely brilliant, and the gardens not yet in full bloom, Sanssouci proved to be a pleasant, if somewhat uninspiring visit, but I was deeply impressed with the specialty chocolate cafe that Carola took us to afterwards!

Monday was our last day in Berlin. Faye and Sabrina had fairly early flights out, so we said farewell early and went to take in the museums on the Museum Island. We said out to do a high-speed striding tour of the highlights. The Pergamon museum includes a number of full scale reconstructions of temples stolen from around the mediterreanean, including the Pergamon altar (actually large enough to be called a temple in it’s own right), so this was rather fun, but I must say I found the other museums rather dull. We dined early and briefly with Joachim at a competent but unexciting Italian restaurant on Gendarmenmarkt, before heading for the plane home.