"Good Morning, Germany!"

[Sing it like you’re in Hairspray]

My first morning in Berlin I joined a free walking tour to cover all of the main sites. While it’s nice to explore a city on your own, I really love learning the nerdy bits of information attached the buildings and monuments that make a place unique.

Our guide, Barry, lead us around town for about 3 and a half hours. The majority of the tour took place in East Berlin… you know, the part that was Soviet controlled. You can tell what part of the city you’re in by checking out the pedestrian signals. If you see these guys below, you’re in the East.

The most striking site on the tour was by far the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The title was purposely so specific. Walking through the monument was eerie and peaceful at the same time. The inside is much more complicated than it looks due to dramatic rises in the concrete you walk on.

The next stop on the tour was the location of Hitler’s bunker. Of course, you can’t see it… it’s deep underground and filled in with rubble. On the surface level the area is a car park. In order to avoid the bunker becoming a shrine, Berlin wisely decided to keep spot a bit hushed. Only recently did the city mark the site with a simple bulletin board type display due to the influx of tourists from the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Much of the tour related to the Cold War era when East Berlin was under Soviet rule. Like this happy little mural done in the socialist realism style. The depiction of communism made me chuckle a bit… I mean, do you ever see children getting along like that?

In certain areas of the city you can still see remains of the wall that once divided Berlin.

Here’s the famous check point Checkpoint Charlie. This is the checkpoint that foreigners in the city used to move between the East and the West. Now it’s a super cheesy tourist spot.

Gendarmenmarkt is a pretty little square.

Here is the site of the famous Nazi book burnings. Any and all works that did not comply with the party were burned. Now the site features a memorial of empty bookcases below ground level.