Köln, Germany

Today, I am sharing my last post recapping my awesome 2016 Europe trip. I am sad to be finished recapping, while also relieved because it has taken me far longer than it should have to complete this post :-)
Köln, Germany was beautiful. We arrived in the evening on Tuesday, headed straight to our hotel for a quick check in since our train was delayed and because of technical issues we had to change trains part way through. But never worry, we were able to watch both parts 1 and 2 of the 7th Harry Potter movies just in time. Because we were checking in after hours at our hotel, we had difficulty checking in and I had to turn on my cell phone to call the hotel for them to let us in remotely. 
We dropped our bags and looked for a place to have dinner nearby. We ended up at a Mediterranean place down the block and it turned out to be one of our favorite meals on the entire trip. We went back to the hotel for a good nights sleep for our last full day of my leg of the trip. 
We woke up on Thursday morning and headed to a local coffee shop for espresso and pastries. It was my last day, so we were going all out. After breakfast we walked to the main square to check out the Köln Dom. It is spectacular from the outside with its gothic architecture. Sadly, they were doing a lot of external renovations, so there was scaffolding around the outside of the church. Nevertheless, it was beautiful. 
We went inside to check out the interior and so that I could say my usual prayer of safe travels and healthy living for my family and friends. The stained glass windows and the architecture and the artwork and the sculptures were just breathtaking. It is free to enter the cathedral; however, when you walk in and at each corner and at every alter there were collection bins. Which was totally fine. I am happy to donate. But I drew the line at the fact that the priests were wearing (yes, I said wearing) collection containers around their necks and while we were sitting at one of the alters, someone came around to collect the money from one of the bins. Can't you do that after hours? It was really disappointing. When I travel, I love to visit churches and to say a prayer. For me, it is a spiritual experience. Now, I understand that that isn't the case for everyone, but I was really upset at hour touristy the church was. If you are hurting for cash, charge an entrance fee and then leave people in peace to take from the site what they will. {end soapbox}

After we finished walking through and admiring the beautiful cathedral, we walked across the famous Love Lock bridge: Hohenzollernbrücke over to the Rhine Promenade for some beautiful cityscapes and views of Cologne. We walked back over into Old Town by Deutzer Brücke and we headed to the Chocolate Factory. I wouldn't recommend the tour. It was kind of pricey and if you have done a Chocolate Tour before, you have done them all. But definitely make sure to enjoy a spiked Hot Chocolate. Caitlin and I both enjoyed the Geist der Azteken - hot chocolate made with chili, tabasco, tequila, white rum and whipped cream. Oh.My.God. This was soo good, I can't wait to replicate it!  

 

After the Chocolate Factory and lunch, we headed over to the birthplace of the famous Eau De Cologne 4711. We walked around the shop, I dipped my hands into the Eau De Cologne Fountain and I found a perfume that I loved to purchase. We did a little shopping, since we were so close to the shopping district then for the rest of the day we brewery hopped. We had a few beers at one brewery next to the Cologne Cathedral and then went to another for our last dinner. 

As we got further away from Munich, the beers got smaller. 

We ended our day with a yummy German dinner - even if our waiter ended up being kind of an a-hole...
The next day, we went back to the same cafe for breakfast, went to the train station to figure out how we were supposed to get to the airport, bought train tickets, checked out of our hotel and headed to the airport. Caitlin then flew on to continue her solo trip, and I flew from Cologne to Munich back to San Francisco. 
This was definitely a trip that I will forever remember. I learned a lot about traveling with friends and myself. I for sure have the itch to travel and have already started planning my big trip for next year to celebrate my big birthday that I will not mention :) 

Berlin, Germany

After Praha, Czech Republic, we headed on the train to Berlin. We arrived in the Berlin train station that is massive. Like, whoa. I was very surprised. We had to ask information how to get to our hotel, because we couldn't find a map in the station that we could understand. HA! 
We made it to our hotel, dropped off our things and decided to head down to Checkpoint Charlie. We got down there and walked around a bit but felt that it was definitely a tourist attraction and we were expecting a bit of a different experience. We ended up getting tickets and audioguides to walk through the Checkpoint Charlie museum that ended up being extremely informative and really interesting. Both Caitlin and I felt like we didn't know a ton about the history of the Berlin Wall and the history of Germany after World War II. I highly recommend the Checkpoint Charlie Museum - there are a ton of stories from people who lived through the occupation and explained a lot of the history of the division. That being said, I would not recommend getting hung up on the attraction that is Checkpoint Charlie - it is almost like Disneyland and just overly crowded. 
After the museum, we popped into a Tapas restaurant bar that was nearby. It was delicious and a nice change from sausages and beer.

These signs are not the original, the posts are. 

This was our first site of the wall on our trip. 

The next day we woke up and headed down to Pariser Platz; where Brandenburg Tor is located for breakfast and to meet our guide to start our walking tour. Our walking tour was about 2.5 hours and we walked around the main sites in Berlin. Our guide was awesome, very knowledgable and very engaging. 

 Our tour included: 

Pariser Platz

Brandenburg Gate

Site of Hitler’s bunker

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Checkpoint Charlie

Gendarmenmarkt

The Berlin Wall

Luftwaffe HQ

Bebelplatz

Book burning memorial 

Humboldt University

The air was cool and crisp, the sun was out and shining and it was a perfect day to walk around the city. 

 After our walking tour, Caitlin and I headed to the East Side Gallery by way of the TV Tower and the Berlin Dom. The church was very busy with a ton of tourists, so we decided to admire it from afar. Which was kind of a bummer because it's so beautiful from the outside, but we figured it would be frustrating trying to walk around and get out of it what we wanted. 

Before we visited the East Side Gallery, we stopped over at Burgermeister for the best burger in Berlin. It definitely did not disappoint and it was perfect timing because it started pouring rain once we sat down to eat, so we were protected by the overpass. Once we finished our burgers and the rain had stopped, we headed over to the East Side Gallery to admire the murals and artwork painted on the still standing portion of the Berlin Wall. Obviously, most (if not all) of the art was very politically charged. 

We then headed into the hipster district of Berlin for drinks and dinner. 

On our last full day in Berlin we took the subway over to Mauerpark, which translates into "Wall Park." The park is located on the East Side of Berlin and, when the wall was still standing, it was right up against the wall, hence the name. The park was actually pretty ugly, there was trash everywhere and the grass was brown where there was still even grass. On Sundays, there is a market with music and lots of people, and this day was Monday, so I hope that it was just looking rough because the market was the day before. 

After we walked around the park for a bit to soak up some warm sunshine, we headed over to walk through the Wall Memorial. We spent a bit of time walking through the memorial then headed over to do some window shopping and have lunch in another trendy area of the city. 

Throughout Berlin, you will come across these stones on the rode. This signifies where the Wall once stood. When you can read the plaque right-side-up, that means that you are on the West side of where the wall stood. Our walking tour guide told us that they did this because the East Side was 'wrong' and if you couldn't read the plaque ride-side-up, that meant you were on the 'wrong side of the wall.' Kind of interesting note...

After lunch and window shopping - it was only window shopping because all of the shops were closed because it was a national holiday - more on that in a minute - we headed back to Pariser Platz to walk over to the Reichstag to see if we could hop on a tour either that afternoon or the next morning before we headed to Cologne. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a tour, so we just looked on from outside. 

On our walking tour, we walked through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and since we really just passed through, we wanted to revisit the site and walk through the museum. We spent a couple of hours in the museum and walking through the memorial and to say that it was overwhelming is an understatement.  

We walked back through Pariser Platz and headed to the Adlon Hotel (where Michael Jackson held Baby Blanket over the balcony) to sit outside on their patio with a glass of Champagne and a charcuterie plate. We had a great view of Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. Now for the National Holiday. We just so happened to be in Berlin for the Day of German Unity - which is the Day of German Reunification. So, there were a ton of people, street performers and there was a festival going on on the other side of the gate. 

We thought that we had wanted to hang around the plaza and be part of the excitement, but at one point a man wearing a nazi uniform and flying a nazi flag walked by. We decided that we didn't want to get in the middle of anything political so we headed back toward our hotel for dinner and to get to bed early.  

We spent the next morning, before our train to Cologne, back in the trendy area where we had lunch the day before, to do some more eating and shopping. 
 Berlin ended up being another one of my favorite cities. Mostly because we were able to experience a lot of culture and learn a lot about the history of Berlin and Germany after World War II. 

The architecture is just beautiful and I hope to revisit Berlin someday!