A Week In Berlin | Travel

Coming from a semi-big town, metropoles have always been intriguing to me. They seem to be so full of life with so many different, interesting people roaming the streets and there must be so much to see and explore there.

That's why Berlin has always been a city that I dreamt of - it is the German metropole. Sadly, I had never gotten the chance to visit it - well, until the beginning of July.

That's when my classmates and I set off for a trip that we've been planning for months.

Obviously, the trip was initiated by our school, which meant that we had worked out a schedule of what we would see with our teacher, but it still had a holiday-like atmosphere.

outside the Bundestag

inside and on top of the Bundestag

After we had arrived in Berlin on our first day, one of the big items on our "to-see" list was the Bundestag, which is where Germany's current parliamet sits. After we had plenty of time to take artsy pictures in front of the building, we were let inside where we got to listen about a talk about its history and architecture, which was pretty interesting even for someone like me who's pretty clueless regarding those two subjects.

Following that, we were given the opportunity to take the elevator all the way up to the top of the building, which we obviously did.

The view was absolutely breathtaking, especially as we were there at noon and got to watch the sunset over Berlin's skyline.

I would totally recommend visiting this place when you're in Berlin, even if you're not a sucker for politics - if only for the view. It really is that good!

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

We didn't have too much planned for our second day other than a city tour in the morning, shopping in the evening and going clubbing at night, so there weren't too many things worth taking photos of.

During our city tour, however, we stopped at the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Eurpe", also known as the "Holocaust Memorial", which consists of nearly 3000 concrete slabs seperated by small paths, allowing you to walk in between them.

Standing in the middle of that field of slabs gives you such an uneasy feeling, it's really hard to describe. The atmosphere was really heavy and even though it just looks like bare blocks of concrete from the outside, you'll get a completely different view from the inside. It was moving, but very impressive.

"Unter den Linden"

Brandenburger Gate

After only a few hours of sleep and with quite the aching feet due to the dancing the night before, we explored Berlin mostly by foot on our third day.

We walked the famous boulevard "Unter den Linden"- that means "below the linden trees"- which sits at the heart of Berlin's historic center.

We obviously didn't want to miss the Brandenburger Gate, which was nearby. It is Berlin's widest known symbol and we felt almost obligated to take a few pictures in front of it. Because have you really been to the Berlin if there's no photo of you in front of the Brandenburger Gate?

Potsdamer Platz 

We also visited the Potsdamer Platz, which is one of Berlin's important public squares and one of the places practically pulsing with life. There's so may things to see here, from one gigantic cinema, to loads of food shops , to the "Arkarden", a huge mall that we sadly couldn't fully explore.
Especially the coffee shops were my friend and life saver during this week while I was running on around four hours of sleep every day - because I can rest when I'm back home, right?

Checkpoint Charlie

Later that day, we had planned to see the more historical sights of Berlin, one of which was the Checkpoint Charlie. While we didn't have too much time to explore due to an insanely full packed schedule, looking around and realizing that once Berlin was seperated into different sections right where you were standing was a weird feeling that I'll not forget for a while.

Berlin Cathedral

I think it's safe to say that the Cathedral was one of the prettiest, if not the prettiest building I came across during our week in Berlin. It's so huge that you can already see it from afar, but up close, it's even more impressive. All the little detailing that went into the outter design of it actually made my jaw drop a little, no lie.

Inside the Cathedral, you can not only explore the crypt of a royal German family, but also climb the stairs all the way up to its dome for another breathtaking view over Berlin.

"He who wants to world to remain as it is doesn't want it to remain at all."

East Side Gallery

One of the greatest sights we visisted was the East Side Gallery, which is a 1.3km long fraction of the original wall that was painted by various artists in 1990.

It's both the longest obtained piece of the wall that once divided Berlin and the largest and longlasting open-air gallery in the world. Wow!

I really enjoyed walking along the entire wall and taking my time to look at all the paintings even though we were kind of rushed. All the artwork is amazing and there were some really deep and inspiring quotes featured on there as well.

In my opinion, this is the one thing you simply have to see in Berlin, even if you don't have time to check out anything besides this.

Olympiastadion

On our fourth day in Berlin, we were shown around the Olympiastadion, which was originally built for the Olympics in 1936 and has been used as a football stadium ever since then.
There is so much tradition surrounding this stadium and as someone who is pretty into football, I was so excited to see this with my own eyes.

Our guide even showed us around the places you'd never see during a match on TV or even when you're attending a game yourself, like the area the guests of honours are seated as well as the place they get to hang out before and after the match or the press conference room which was still decorated from the Champions League final.

Definitely a must see for sports fans!

Viktoria Park

During the rest of the day, we visited a museum amongst a few other places which I sadly didn't get to take pictures of.

Our last stop was Viktoria Park which is located in Kreuzberg. This is definitely one of Berlin's hidden gems, a quiet park with some seriously nice waterfalls and, once you've climed up a humongous hill, this nice view that I took a snap of.
Such a nice, peaceful place to come to once the city gets a little too much for you and you want to take a break to breathe.


Sadly, we had to leave the next day which left us all devastated as we felt like we didn't get to see everything that we wanted to and that there were still so many more places left for us to explore.

If you've always eyed up Berlin as a place that you might want to travel to, I say go for it.
It is a huge city that has so many things to see for people with a lot of different tastes so that you'll always find something that you absolutely love about the city.

Next to all of the people we met during our journey were super nice and helpful, some even randomly decided to help us out when they realized that we were completely lost without us even asking them for directions.

I've visited quite a few cities here in Germany, but Berlin is by far my favorite - and I'm sure that we'll meet again.

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