Day 13

Big day today, a lot of ground to cover as we attempt to see as much of the as possible on foot. We left the Park Inn hotel in Alexander Platz around 9am to follow our map that has all the major landmarks on it. Alexander Platz has been a great central location and all the major attractions are generally within a 3km radius. We grabbed a coffee and set off for Rathausvosplatz which is a huge public space in running centrally west through the city. Berlin is always improving its public spaces and Rathausvosplatz is currently under public review for a make over. At the end they are currently constructing a huge new museum that will book end the plaza between museum and the Berliner Fernsehturm which is the city tallest tower and in my opinion one of the ugliest I've seen. So the plaza will become one of the cities most important. We got a few picks in front of Neptunbrunnen fountain before continuing on.

Berlin has lots of space as apposed to Munich and the city spreads as far as the eye can see even when you're viewing from up high. What I love about Germany is the amount of space they provide around their most important buildings. The forecourts can sometimes stretch for hundreds of metres before you reach the front door. This creates an amazing sense of arrival, grandeur and also throws your sense of scale off a little.

Lustgarten was one of my favourite places in the city. Lustgarten is basically an enormous forecourt bound by two extremely prominent buildings, the Altes Museum and the Berlin Cathedral. I was in ore of the Atles Museum because of its prominence. It perhaps doesn't have the intricate detail like the Cathedral and it doesn't even look that impression when photographed... I'm actually struggling to find the words, it's Massive!! These buildings somehow survived air strikes during WW2 and they are heavily heavily scarred from war with a patch work of restoration on every surface. When you're in the presence of such a sight you can't help but be impressed with it.

Ryan and I continued to cover off the major landmarks, the Neue Wache, Brandenburg Gate and the Siegessaule Monument. We climbed the Siegessaule to get a sense of how far we'd come and realised we had a long walk back (around 8km). We decided to walk through Tiergarten, the cities largest garden. It's actually more like a forest with little rivers running through it. We stopped again at the Topographie of Terror and Check Point Charlie where I grabbed some souvenirs.

By the time we got back to the hotel we'd covers around 18km and my legs were absolutely spent. We've got into the habit of eating late dinners which will serve us well in Spain.

We decided to head back to Monbijoupark by the river to try some Thai food. The place pumps all afternoon and you can lounge on the lawn and people bring you drinks and food. We had a couple of drinks and dinner before calling it a night around 11pm.