Throughout October and November we have all been so busy, with family and friends visiting, trips home and uni work all five of us have rarely been in the same place at the same time! So we decided we wanted to find a few days that we were all around and to book a trip before we all left for the Christmas holidays. After a lot of thought, we narrowed it down to wanting to go somewhere in Germany because of all the Christmas markets as we were looking at going in December! We debated going to Munich, Frankfurt or Berlin and after researching for days we decided we were going to book to go to Berlin. None of us had been before and it is said to have some of the best Christmas markets in the world and that definitely swayed our decision.
We flew out very early in the morning on the 4th December and arrived by 9:30. After 2 hours sleep we were ready for our first day of exploring as we went to see The Vaccines at The Riviera Madrid the night before! We had planned a rough itinerary and saw as much as possible in the 3 days we had in Berlin. Before arriving we knew we specifically wanted to do all the typical tourist activities such as The Eastside Gallery, Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, The Holocaust Museum and The Reichstag Building.
On our first day we didn’t arrive at the hostel until about 12pm so we went straight for lunch at Madami, a Vietnamese restaurant as we were planning on having some German food at the markets later that evening! After refuelling, we went to Alexanderplatz to see The Fernsehturm then the Cathedral and then spent most of the afternoon looking around a huge Christmas market, ate some classic German food, drank mulled wine and then headed back to the hostel for an early night.
The second day of our trip was packed full of seeing all of the sights so we decided to buy a day pass for the metro to make sure we could fit everything in. We started off our day in a breakfast bar called ‘What Do You Fancy Love?’ where I had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. After eating we went to The Eastside Gallery, then onto Checkpoint Charlie then The Holocaust Museum. All of the sights in Berlin are so historical and interesting and I would recommend to visit them all if you have time. We then stopped for lunch in a VERY ‘German’ pizza and pasta restaurant before going to the Brandenburg Gate and The Reichstag Building and then onto yet another Christmas market which was in Potsdamer Platz. This was one of the most recommended Christmas markets however it was surprisingly small. Although this one had a donut snow slide the one in Alexanderplatz had so many more stalls.
After a very quick trip, it was our third and final day. We started off the day at The Factory Girl, a breakfast type restaurant. Then throughout the day we went to multiple exhibitions/museums such as The Pool Gallery, The Pieces of Berlin exhibition and The DDR Museum. Unfortunately, The Pool Gallery only had a very small exhibition while we were visiting so it was a bit of a disappointment. However, we stumbled across The ‘Pieces of Berlin’ exhibition by accident after going to visit an area full of street art in ‘Haus Schwarzenberg’ which turned to to be where the exhibition was located. The DDR museum was a hands on, interactive museum based on the history surrounding the city. It cost €6 to enter, however in my opinion, it was a really different and interesting way to learn about the history and I would definitely recommend visiting to anyone going to Berlin.
On the first day of our trip Kelly found a tour by ’Berliner Unterwelten’ who did multiple tours all based around the history of Berlin. It was the most recommended tour so we decided that we would do it on our final day. We did the ‘Under the Berlin Wall’ tour. It was €12 for students and lasted 2 hours. We started the tour very unsure because of a very over excited tour guide but then realised how interesting the tour itself was. We went under the wall through tunnels into bunkers and through escape routes that the Germans used to try and escape from East to West or West to East of the wall to reunite with their family and loved ones. Although the tour may seem a little pricy I would definitely recommend it and if I was to visit again I would do one of the other tours they offer.
Our flight on the Friday was at 12:35 so we just had a buffet breakfast at the hostel then headed to the airport. Overall I had the most amazing, Christmassy trip and can’t wait to travel to another country during my time here. Berlin was so nice and very different to Madrid, especially at Christmas. There was so much to do and I think we done everything that we could and even more than we planned had planned. I would definitely recommend it for a city break.
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