Zuiderdam MegaVoyage 2018-2019, Berlin, Germany, Part 2 of 2

We left Rostock for our 3-hour drive to Berlin... The drive was pretty scenic with lots of farmlands and small villages along the way.  The fields of yellow rapeseeds were very striking!  On arrival in Berlin, the tour began in West Berlin at the Charlottenburg Palace...we drove through the former British sector along Berlin’s Champs-Élysées...the Kurfürstendamm Germany's most famous shopping boulevard with a stop at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and victims memorial...this Church was bombed in 2016 during the Christmas market... this area of Berlin is the home of KaDeWe, the largest department store in continental Europe...nearby was the Reichstag, Parliament House, the glass dome designed by architect Sir Norman Foster is one of the city's major landmarks...next we drove by the Victory Column, a landmark that celebrates the military successes of Prussia over Denmark and then we passed, Bellevue Palace, the official residence of the President of Germany, the Congress Hall, the Soviet memorial, the Memorial to the Murdered Sinti and Roma as well as the Paris Square. During the lunch break we walked through Potsdamer Platz and tasted a delicious German sausage. Next, we headed to East Berlin and the to the site of Hitler’s bunker…  Not much there anymore, just an acknowledgement of the location.  A highlight was stopping at the spectacular Brandenburg Gate, the only remaining city gate of Berlin -- formerly used to represent the separation of the city between East and West Berlin.  Ironically, the Brandenburg Gate has now come to symbolize German unity. Some almost naked guy on a platform was a truly unnecessary addition to this historic place.  We made a stop at the and nearby Memorial to the Holocaust victims (The memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe).  It was very moving, hard to get your mind off the atrocities that happened during WWII to the Jewish community all over Europe.   Next, we stopped at the only remaining Berlin Wall watchtower.  I climbed the narrow and steep ladder to the top through a confined space. In 1961 the East German State closed the last "loop hole" in the Iron Curtain with the construction of the Berlin Wall. Until 1989 this barrier divided East from West in and around the city. Today a few remnants can be seen in the city of the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall before reaching the former site of the Headquarters of the SS and Gestapo, today known as the Topography of Terror open air museum. A brief stop was made at Checkpoint Charlie guardhouse, the most famous crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. It has devolved into a tourist stop in somewhat poor taste.  We continued to Gendarmenmarkt...17th-century square and the site of the twin French and German cathedrals...then to Schauspielhaus Concert Hall, a masterpiece of German classical architecture along Unter den Linden the tree-lined street stopping at the beautiful State Library, Humboldt University and Bebelplatz, the square where the Nazi Party held its infamous book burning. In keeping with the theme, we passed the World War II Memorial next to the Bebelplatz Square. Before boarding the bus for our return to the ship, we saw the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Museum Island and the Berlin Cathedral. On our way out of Berlin, we passed the Alexanderplatz with its iconic TV Tower and Red Town Hall. This was 12-hour day filled with so much history...we enjoyed every minute….  Thanks to Alla tours for another wonderful tour!