The morning started later than planned after a relaxed breakfast in a cafe around the corner from Nollendorfstraße . Today we had a plan and it was a visit to the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) on Museum Island. We caught the Ubahn and have now become experts on the Ubahn just as we are leaving the city. A word of explanation about the galleries on Museum Island. Museum Island is the name of the northern half of an island in the Spree River in the...

Back in Berlin. We left Riga in the rain, we always take the good weather with us, sorry Riga. We arrived at Tegel airport, now officially one of the worst airports I've ever been to, picked up our luggage and into a cab; "Nollendorfstraße achtundzwanzig bitte" and off we went. We are staying at an Airbnb apartment/guesthouse. Our host David is charming. The apartment is enormous with a huge marble kitchen, dining and lounge room area as well as a bedroom wi...

We have moved from our Airbnb in Die Mitte to a hotel in Kurfürstendamm where our tour will begin. The hotel is a busy tourist district and has a very different vibe to our home of the last four days. The tour started with journey around Berlin with a home grown Berliner who has a degree in German literature and history. The first half of the day he took us around Berlin and we visited many of places we had walked past earlier in the week.The guide provided t...

Its hard to reconcile that nearly 30 years ago this city was two cities East and West Berlin. Today we are headed to the epicentre of control in East Berlin the Stasi Museum. We decided to walk to the museum, as it didn't look that far away, but it was in the end. Our journey started at Alexander Platz where the huge Telekom tower can see all Berlin. The tower was intended as both a symbol of communist power and of Berlin. It is easily visible throughout the ...

The humans of Berlin are a mixed bunch, lots of tourists, bicyclists, hipsters and smokers. The day was another day of walking. We decided to walk to the Reichstag and then take a boat trip down the Spree. Our journey took us down Leipzig Strasse to Potsdamer Platz. It was a Monday morning and the streets were thick with traffic and the smell of smokers walking, standing and even riding a bike. I'd been in Germany in 2007 and over the intervening years I'd th...