As it turned out, the wall ran very close to the hotel, just a couple of blocks east. It is commemorated in two ways: in some areas, the path is marked with bricks set into the pavement and in other areas actual pieces of the wall are preserved. We started out following the bricks next to the river:
The path of the wall let us to the Reichstag building. This is the historical building constructed to house the Imperial Diet (in German that's Reichstag). It was opened in 1894 and housed the Diet until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a suspicious fire. After World War II, the building fell into disuse; the parliament of the German Democratic Republic met elsewhere, while the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany moved to Bonn.
The ruined building was made safe against the elements and partially refurbished in the 1960s, but no attempt at full restoration was made until after German reunification in 1990. It then underwent a reconstruction that was completed in 1999 when it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament: the modern Bundestag. There's a public restaurant inside that looks across the street at Angela Merkel's office. We heard that she wasn't there...she was off handing out money to the Greeks. Needless to say, security's tight at the restaurant. Here's the Reichstag:
The wall now led us to the Brandenburg Gate. The gate was inaccessible for many years due to the proximity of the wall...right down the west side of it.
Just a little farther west, the spot at which President Ronald Reagan gave his famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech:
Still following the wall, a preserved piece near a modern shopping plaza:
A guard tower:
And the largest section that is preserved in place:
We're both fans of the fictional police detective Bernie Gunther in novels by Philip Kerr. Old Bernie worked on the Alexander Strasse, in a building they called "The Alex". That's it, just on the other side of the wall.
Nearby, much to our delight, a tribute to the favorite East German car, the Trabant (Trabi World is a real museum! With a gift shop!):
Still following the wall, we were on our way to Checkpoint Charlie, where the famous signs are still up:
We finally gave up the wall walk and detoured through shopping streets over to Unter Den Linden and back toward the Brandenburg Gate. A stroll through the Tiergarten returned us to the Sandstone Bridge near the hotel. Here's some detail from the bridge:
A long day, to be sure. Our hotel was right next to the train station, and the next day we were on the train, headed for Amsterdam.
