Sizzlin' in Berlin or "There's no extra charge for the sauna"

The countryside between Rostock and Berlin



This double line of cobblestones marks the site of the Berlin Wall throughout the city





Sections of the Berlin Wall



A memorial to victims of war and dictatorship



Checkpoint Charlie



The Brandenburg Gate



The Reichstag in Berlin



(This is yesterday's post...couldn't connect to the internet. The quote in the title is what we heard, quite often, from a man on our excursion to Berlin.)

Yesterday we took a trip by bus into Berlin. Our ship docked at Warnamunde, a port just outside of Rostock, Germany. We left at 8 a.m. and the trip took a little over three hours on the Autobahn, which has a speed limit for busses but not for cars. It was a beautiful drive through a countryside of farms, woods, and wind turbines. Germany gets 15% of their energy from these turbines. We picked up our guide, Markus, in Berlin, and we proceeded to tour the main sites of Berlin. We visited the Museum of Allied History, where we saw a WWII guardhouse, section of the Berlin Wall, WWII plane, plus other memorabilia from the war. We saw Templehof Airport where the Berlin airlift took place. We ate a traditional German lunch at Kempinski Hotel...sausage and saurkraut, pork loin and gravy, and apple strudel for dessert. We drove by a memorial to Holocaust victims, the site where it is believed that Hitler’s bunker was located, and the original location of Checkpoint Charlie. We saw several sections of the old Berlin wall here and there in the town; most of them have been artistically decorated. There is a line of cobblestones in the streets to mark the site of the Berlin Wall. We also saw the Brandenburg Gate (through which Napolean entered the city) and the Reichstag building. It was a long day; we didn’t get back to the ship until after 9 p.m., but it was amazing to see all the history in Berlin. The temperature was also amazing...our bus registered 42 degrees Celcius, which by our calculations was 107 degrees Farenheit!! It certainly felt like it; thank goodness there was a breeze and very little humidity! Our guide stated that this is unusual weather for Berlin; we saw lots of people sitting under trees in the parks, as many of the buildings are not air-conditioned.
Last night we left Warnemunde around 10 p.m. and sailed a short ways to Kiel, Germany. We have an excursion into Lubeck today. Hopefully it will be cooler than yesterday! Happy 5th Birthday to Finley!!