barrantes tour and travel: A Day that Started with a Victory & Ended with a Bearpit

Todd and I at Victory Column before the climb

While our legs were refreshed from a good night's rest, we headed over to Victory Column to climb the 270+ stairs to the top. Victory Column sits in the middle of the Tiergarten, a straight shot down the road from the Brandenburg Gate. The column was built to celebrate Germany's win over France in the Franco-Prussian War. Although it was a bit gray and foggy, the views from the top as well as the mosaic around the base were beautiful sites to see.

With my zoom lens, you could (barely) see the Brandenburg Gate...

and the Reichstag

and the Washing Machine (aka the Federal Chancellery)

The lady atop the column up close

Damage from the world wars

From Victory Column, we walked straight up the Strasse des 17 Juni which runs up the middle of the Tiergarten between Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate. We next went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Germany's Holocaust Memorial which sits across the street from the American Embassy at the end of the Tiergarten and near the Brandenburg Gate. The Memorial is made up of 2,700 concrete slabs that vary in height and are set up in a grid-pattern over gently sloping and uneven ground. At the lowest point, the slabs tower above you. It's a very unique and moving memorial - one of the things I absolutely didn't want to miss in Berlin.

From here, we did part of a Lonely Planet 'walk the wall' walking tour which brought us past sections of the wall along the line where the wall originally stood. We passed by an East Berlin guard tower which is still standing. Although it looks teeny tiny among the tall buildings which it now sits, it was probably the tallest thing around when it sat on the East Berlin side of the no man's land between the walls.

The brick is where the wall was and the words are which side was which.

East German Guard Tower

It's nearly impossible to see but this building was built around this part of the wall.

Trabis, the East German cars

Checkpoint Charlie was next, and this was the most touristy thing we have yet encountered. This was the crossing point between the American sector and the Soviet sector. Now there is tourist insanity all around it. I liked the art installation that had a photo of an American solider staring at what was the Soviet sector and vice versa with a Soviet solider. After a few pictures, we blew on out of here.

Next stop was supposed to be a local soccer game at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin where the 1932 Olympics were held (Jesse Owens, Hitler, etc etc.), but we clearly misread the schedule, because when we got to the stadium, there was barely anyone there! Despite the joke being on us (game was Friday), we opted to spend the 7 Euros to tour the stadium (cheaper than the game tickets would have been!). While I believe it's a lot tinier than the Olympic stadiums of today, it was still pretty impressive.

Outside the stadium

Jeff and Becca at the torch end of the stadium

All the winners of each event!

Clearly there were a lot fewer events.

From the stadium, we split up, and Todd and I headed over to Mauerpark to check out the weekly Sunday market and Bearpit Karaoke as well as pieces of the wall that are now in the park. The Mauerpark Flea Market happens every Sunday and features hundreds of stalls that run for over a kilometer down the park. It's crazy. You can buy anything from furniture to jewelry to funky Berlin t-shirts to food. All we bought was a yummy-gyro-like wrap that we couldn't pronounce and didn't know exactly what it was, but everyone else was eating them. It was delicious!

Also taking place in Mauerpark on Sunday afternoons is Bear Pit Karaoke. At 3pm on Sundays, this guy sets up his speakers and computer (for the lyrics) in the park's amphitheater and invites people to come and sing karaoke. There were easily 500+ people watching - it was crazy!! Some of the singers are good and some are not, but regardless, the crowd seems supportive. We saw singers from Germany, Australia, and the US, and there are clearly some regulars. A smart young entrepreneur was walking around selling beer. We took a video of an older German gentleman singing "My Way" in German, but it's on Todd's phone. We'll add it to the blog once we get home. Here are a few Bear Pit Karaoke pictures as well as some pictures from the pieces of the Wall that have been installed in the park.