Staying in another random’s flat

Feel a bit elderly talking about city breaks but we went on another one to Berlin recently so I thought I would note it down a little.

This was another Airbnb trip which went well – I honestly wouldn’t consider doing anything else unless you are travelling somewhere very strange and need a hotel for security/facilities.

I guess stereotypes are always there for a reason but typical German efficiency has produced an amazing transport system that is cheap, quick and easy to fathom so that helped us along every day.

First thoughts

Kreuzberg as an area was great, quite a lot of places to go and fairly quiet. Away from the station there were some cool looking places that we only stumbled upon on the the last evening. Gorlitz Park seemed a no go area at night though – each entrance was guarded with a young’un…it was quite a strange sight.

The first real thing we noticed was the size of the city – it really is spread out over a huge area. It is full of contrast but not visually appealing one way or the other which was slightly annoying.

The influence of the wall on architecture and culture is starkly apparent in places. Charlottenburg’s shops feel like 5th Avenue whereas Alexanderplatz feels like Russia (guess the snow didn’t help with that feeling either!).

Talking of snow it was bloody cold – got down to -6c on one day which was quite tricky to deal with. I am now a convert to longjohns – they helped a lot and at least going home it didn’t feel as cold as it normally does.

Embracing the tourist inside

Obviously we saw Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenberg Gate which are both tourist staples that you have to do whilst there.

We visited the Topography of Terrors which stands on the site of key Nazi buildings. Outside it felt pretty eerie, the museum was very good if a bit of an information overload.

Tempelhof Airport was interesting to see albeit from Tempelhof Park as it seems closed apart from commercial usage. We strolled back through the surrounding houses – later we discovered the quiet area we were walking through had been part of the Columbia concentration camps…bleak stuff.

To round off our uplifting museum selection we checked out the Stasi (secret police) and DDR museums. Both were a decent mix of information and interactivity – especially the DDR museum.

We walked along a mile or so of the original wall which has been reworked and turned into what is called the East Side Gallery. Pretty crazy to imagine what it would have been like only 25 years ago.

The Zoo was a hit and miss affair. Some really amazing animals that seemed pretty happy with captivity – like chimps playing up to the crowds before feeding time. However a few looked really sad and clearly had behavioural problems. A polar bear, rhino and jaguar were all exhibiting the classic circular movements.

Further frivolity

The Mauerpark and flea market is definitely worth checking out – more for the experience than anything else. It does seem completely different in the winter to the summer pictures of thousands of people relaxing and doing karaoke.

Had a great coffee at Bonanza Coffee Heroes near Mauerpark – the guy had a cracking moustache which I was sadly unable to snap a picture of. The place was kind of like Berlin’s version of Taylor Street or Small Batch in Brighton.

On the last day we went to Grunewald forest which is a massive area of woodland which the locals seem to use for dog walking and running in the snow (crazy Teutons).

Nerd confession to make – I maybe took a little too much joy in the knowledge we had stored our bag at Ostbanhof in the same place Matt Damon did in The Bourne Supremacy. Sorry for oversharing…

Overall Berlin is a great city, probably not fair to compare it to Copenhagen which I prefer, but I would definitely recommend taking a trip over.

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We walked about a lot but also bought the Copenhagen Card for transport and free entrance to some museums. Everyone spoke English which was great but once again made me feel guilty for having no real language skills – a classic Brit I guess.

Shopping was much more fun here – there are amazing furniture and design shops pretty much everywhere.

We also found a great camera shop called Photographica – they had a lovely 1967 Leica M4 which I got for my girlfriend as an early Christmas present.

Freezone, dangerzone

We went to the hippie freestate area of Christiania which seemed to be mainly people enjoying the fact that drugs are sold and smoked openly on the street. I was more excited by photographing the NO PHOTOS sign and wandering around checking out the graffiti. It did feel somewhat uneasy in the area but I am sure that is more knowing what goes on there than actually being exposed to it.

We also took a stroll around the National Art Museum which had some great work from across the ages housed in a gorgeous building – would definitely recommend spending a couple of hours there.

On the final day we went to Roskilde which had some beautiful houses and the Viking Museum which houses boats that were only recently restored.

Thawing out with coffee

It was mighty cold so that became a decent excuse to eat a lot of pastries and drink a lot of coffee. Everywhere we tried seemed to be good, over here you have to be careful where you get a coffee but it seems everywhere else in the world knows how to make a good cup.

The food was tasty, probably my favourite meal was at the cosy little Dyrehaven pub. We had sausages and potatoes with a cheese and parsley sauce – about £25 in total.

At the flat we enjoyed not being cold, getting in a caffeine frenzy and reading photo books. We also had great pizza from a little takeaway near the flat called Leo’s.

Hoping to cover quite a lot more short breaks in 2013 but this one was a lot of fun. Overall Copenhagen is a lovely city and the pace of life seems a lot slower than Brighton at least. I know everyone says they would live where they went on holiday but I think Copenhagen would be a great place to be.