Berlin Wall

Don’t go to Berlin expecting to see a big wall. ;)

It’s gone.

I remember watching the Berlin Wall coming down on TV when I was younger, and not really understanding the significance. I couldn’t get my head around a city being divided and how that worked in practice.

By Checkpoint Charlie, there are hoardings up on the streets with photos and information about the Wall and the successful and failed attempts to breach it. I was amazed at how narrow the actual wall was – I had imagined it to be as thick as a rampart so that people could march upon it.

Only a few minutes walk away, you can see a section of the original Wall on Niederkirchnerstraße, which is now part of the “Topography of Terror” museum. It looks very drab, grey and quite ordinary. But upon closer inspection, you can see all the marks made by tools where Berliners must have chipped away the top layer of graffiti as souvenirs in the days just after the Wall fell.

The berlin wall was pretty cool, definitley go in the Museum am Checkpoint Charlie :]

Bottom line, the wall failed its mission. But what stories of escape, confrontation, separation, reunification over the 28 years of existence. Fascinating.

And how clever that now one can follow the path of the wall through Berlin as it is marked by a line of bricks in the pavement, across sidewalks, etc. with small plaques reading, “Berliner Mauer 1961-1989.”

This is a must see- place you must go to before you die.

The paintings on the wall are so well created. But please, if you go there don’t grafitti the wall- Show some respect.