Posts tagged 'Germany'

One very cold a miserable morning I went to see Sachsenhausen concentration camp, out at Oranienburg. The camp was about a two kilometre walk from the station in literally freezing cold mist.

I did a huge amount of exploration around Berlin appreciating the street art, probably at least 4-5 days whole days worth in total if you added it all up. I did a few "self guided" walking tours (as in I had an itinerary or stuff to look for that I found somewhere online), A ton of randomly wandering after spotting a cool piece by chance, and a "Real Berlin" free walking tour that turned out to be quite heavily street art focused.

Once I'd gotten into Berlin and checked into my hostel I got in contact with my friend Erin, an American who I met in South Africa who lives in Berlin on a semi-regular basis. We arranged to meet up for dinner and she offered to give me an introductory tour of the city. It was pretty lucky timing as Erin was leaving Berlin for a month just a few days after I arrived.

We walked all around the city, past the museum island, Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, The Jewish Memorial, and loads of other sites around the city. It was quite the whirlwind introduction to the city, we even visited a small Christmas market that was up and runing very early and got to have some gluhwein! Delicious spiced wine served hot, perfect for the cold nights leading up to Christmas. It was lovely to see Erin again and it felt like a really nice way to get to know the city being shown around by someone who obviously loves the place.

Breaking chronology for a change because I love these photos so much.

There's a lot of old abandoned things in Berlin; there are entire sites dedicated to what's out there, how to get in, what are the risks, etc. I've always been fascinated seeing old places that would have been someone's home or workplace for years on end, but one day left to rot and let nature start reclaiming. I love seeing photos of such places, and the few abandoned places I have been very cool experiences.

One of the places in Berlin that really sounded unique was an old theme park, the Spreepark, which existed way back in the days of East German, becoming more westernised after the reunification of Germany. It was abandoned in 2001 and has since become thoroughly derelict. I read that you can get in to the site through gaps in the fence, but there are often security you have to watch out for, possibly with dogs, so when I found out that they'd started doing tours of the place on Sundays I decided to take the easy way out and pay to get in there legitimately.