Goodbye to Berlin

When you go out for breakfast and you decide to have a croissant and coffee, that is what you think you will get. I figured it will hold me maybe till lunch. Well I was very pleasantly surprised to find more than a croissant! It was one of the nicest breakfasts yet, mind you it cost 15€ for two of these! But we sat outside in the sunshine. 

There was muesli, yogurt and strawberry sauce, fresh buns, butter, croissant, cantaloupe, orange, kiwi, and strawberries, honey, jam and Nutella, and tea, coffee for Norman.

You will remember my phone was dead yesterday. Off we go to the Apple store on the Kurfurstendamm, Berlin's glossy retail street (yes, Christon, there is a Rolls-Royce shop on the corner, and a Tesla display a little farther). Norm, to Starbucks for coffee. You gotta love Apple guys! With a little dusting and actually blowing into the socket, the phone slowly came back to life with some of the Apple store's electricity.. 

At noon today I thought we might go listen to the lunchtime concert  at the Berlin Philharmonic performance hall. And it is free! First 1500 only allowed in. Maybe not the most intimate concert to see. However, by the time we had recharged the phone it was near noon and Norm had other plans. I could choose between a string quartet or climbing a mountain made of rubble. Well the choice was clear....to the mountain we go. 

You can see how beautifully executed the path way through the park is. Grunewald park is huge. 

The purpose of this adventure was to walk to the top of a mountain (really a hill) that was made from train loads of rubble coming out of Berlin after the war. Norm thinks he found some.

And amazing fungi.

 At the top of the hill there were radar antennas in the past tracking all the aircraft especially the Russians. But today the hill has been abandoned and taken over by squatters. It is still a fortress. Barb wire, three layers of chain-link fencing, "keep out" signs and a feeling that this is not a place to try to break into. Walking around the outside was as close as we could get.

And the view from near the top was breathtaking.

If one hill is good, two is better. So Norm convinced me to climb another one right beside Teufelberg, or Devil's Mountain.

View from the top, looking east to central Berlin.

Looking back at the once all-seeing radar station. 

As we came down the "mountain" we were only a couple of train stops from the site of the 1936 World Olympics. 

For an 80 year old structure it looked pretty good. 

We didn't take a tour but as we left, we came upon a little known museum that really needed some visitors, so in we went to the West Alliierte in Berlin e. V. It is a museum that is trying to preserve the 49 year old old history of the Allies in Berlin from 1945-1994. It was actually very informative and the person volunteering gave Norman lots of information.

Although most of the items showed the U.S. I did find some recognition of Canadians. 

Food items dropped into West Berlin via the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 which continued for more than a year. 

As we left to catch the U-bahn Norm had an overwhelming urge to be an athlete.....

Tonight is our last night in Berlin so we went for a lovely Italian dinner at Toto's just a block from our hotel. Arriverderci! Looks like laundry hanging and it is, baby clothes. Like a real Italian village.

Pasta for both of us. Delicious. 

Tomorrow back on the bus but only a few hours this time.