Saturday 27 April

We are staying at the Westin Grand hotel in Berlin, beautiful hotel in a great location Central to the city centre, leaving the hotel it was a surprise to find that it was a really chilly morning so up early to find breakfast and then to catch the hop on hop off bus, but firstly we were on about 700 metres from Check Point Charlie and headed towards it, lucky at this hour hardly any visitors around so a quick look a few photos and shopping at the souvenir shop and we headed on to find the bus, on board we did our usual thing and completed a complete round and worked out what we wanted to get off and see, my wish list comprised of the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg gates, and the Jewish memorial and found that they were all within walking distance from our hotel so would complete that tomorrow, now this route on the bus took nearly two hours to complete a full circuit, the longest one I have ever known, eventually getting off at what could be called the Paris end of town with all the high end brands located we sat down at the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and then a walk around, catching the bus again we went on to the point to catch another line that took us into the Berlin Wall side of the city, very interesting

Sunday

Wake up to find that there was rain over night and although cleared it was still threatening, but we made our way to a cafe and had breakfast which once again consisted of coffee and croissants and then made our way to pick up the hop on hop off bus there were still a few sights that we wanted to see especially on the east side, and getting of to see a stretch of the wall still standing this section is very heavily graffitied which is sanctioned by whoever and completed by graffiti artists from all over the world, very impressive but I felt it took something away from the wall, getting back on the bus we went to the next scheduled stop and this was also about the wall and in this case the section still standing is not painted and is in its original state just solid concrete and with this you actually had the impression of what misery the wall was, another section is like park with steel poles representing the wall and the walk has sections of photos and history of that section of the wall, which also has several tunnels under the ground, very interesting and well done,
Getting back on the bus we headed back to the hotel to start packing as we leave The hotel tomorrow to transfer to the airport hotel for our early flight out to New York via London



Monday
Today is our last day in Berlin so a bit of a sleep in as we don't have to be out of the hotel until 12:00. Also it is raining, went out and had breakfast then last minute shopping and back to the room to finish packing and then book out, as we are leaving for New York early Tuesday morning we have booked into a hotel near the airport so eventually left the Westin Grand and booked into the airport hotel and dinner and early to bed


Tuesday
Alarm set at 4am, up and out of the hotel to get the shuttle bus to the airport at 5am, encounter a bit of trouble at the passport control as Chrissies passport had not been stamped when leaving Kraków and they wouldn't let her through until someone in authority checked it all out and stamped it, finally all ok and we are airborne at 7am to London Heathrow airport.