I think that might be in the Pergamon(?) which I didn't actually visit, though it was recommended to me.

Yes, you are right. Getting my Museums mixed up. So many on the Museum Insel and so much wonderful stuff to see.

Gourmet-wise Berlin was one of my least exciting experiences. Interested to see what you found.

>>gourmet experiences<<

Haven't I recommended an incredibly inexpensive 2-Michelin-star lunch at Fischers Fritz here on this forum?

BTW, the Maritim ProArte is not a bad choice. Excellent location, modern art in the lobby and the corridors, all the comfort you expect from a business hotel, pool and often good rates.

I went up in the TV tower last time I was there. The view was amazing. I feel like I am in Berlin with you!

I loved the art in the Maritim, Traveller1959 - they had different paintings right outside the lifts on every floor so you knew where you were the minute the doors opened, without having to look at the numbers. I do take a mark off for the fact they didn't have tea and coffee making facilities actually in the rooms though - unforgivable from a British perspective!

MarthaT - did you eat at the cafe at the top of the tower?

bmk to read later.

Enjoying your TR.
Am hoping to revisit Berlin next year (last time was 1986!).

RM67, No I did not eat up in the tower. I had already eaten lunch that day.

Thursday

I had two more full days in Berlin, but my stay at the Maritim was over. Happily, due to the generous midday check out, I had plenty of time to take a leisurely breakfast before departing. It was 18 euros for the buffet which I thought quite pricy, but there was a very varied and generous selection, so costly as it was I don’t actually think it was bad value. There were the usual pastries and cold cuts of meat, but also a vast selection of yoghurts, fruit piled high in old apple crates, an entire cheese counter including expensive soft oozy ones, cereals with just about every type of milk on the planet (soy, rice, buttermilk etc), and a station where hot food was cooked to order – generous omelettes, good quality bacon, mushrooms and so on. I had an omelette with bacon on the side, a plate of Danish pastries, another plate of poppy seeded rolls and dark rye bread with pale, unsalted butter and various preserves, black cherry yoghurt, pink grapefruit juice and tea.

Check out was quick and painless – the two free minibar items a day meant I only had to pay for some nuts I’d scoffed as a midnight snack – in my case all the drinks were gratis. I headed for Freidrischstrasse S-bahn with my luggage, poster tube from the conference and handbag – a taxi probably would have been easier especially as the poster tube kept annoyingly falling off my shoulder, but I was determined to get my money’s worth from the transport pass, and before I knew it, I was one stop west at Berlin Hauptbanhof.

My next hotel - the Steigenberger – was right beside the station. This was quite different in flavour to the Maritim – an unassuming concrete exterior hiding a very stylish interior with good use of colour (teal, mustard, pink, rust) sweeping staircases, giant modern chandeliers and intimidatingly beautiful desk staff – all whippet thin and clad in immaculate dark suits. Despite this slightly intimidating introduction, service was excellent, quick, friendly and efficient.

My room was to the side of the building and nice and quiet. A black bedcover with a thin edging of gold gave a slightly oriental feel, the flatscreen tv was neatly recessed, the bathroom had a choice of shower heads, limestone tiling and mirror mosaic edging. There was also a kettle (hurrah!) with a box containing a selection of four or five different types of tea and a Nespresso machine and multiple capsules. I also discovered a pillow menu (lavender, spelt-chaff or lumbar support), speakers in the bathroom and some quite nice stationary including the worlds poshest biro styled like a Montblanc, which I was itching to nick from the moment I saw it. Only downside was having to get one of the housekeeping staff to show me how to work the complicated lighting!

http://www.booking.com/hotel/de/stei...=total;ucfs=1&

My plan for the afternoon was to head south west to explore Tiergarten, then on to KaDeWe, the big swish department store for some window shopping, so once I’d unpacked and had a quick cuppa, I nipped onto the S-bahn and made my way further west.

Tiergarten is a sizeable park in the middle of Berlin with ponds, boating lakes, cafes, statues and monuments, and on its fringes, also the zoo. Sandy paths criss-cross the vast expense of parkland (more than 500 acres), fringed by lanterns and lamps from bygone eras (some have little signs on attesting to their Victorian pedigree for example). Outside the park nazi era lamps line the road, (though I doubt they are similarly labelled to fete their origin!). I wandered for an hour or so enjoying the relative tranquillity of the park, away from the hustle and bustle of the traffic. The colours were surprisingly autumnal for February – a sea of red and gold leaves – but there was a chill in the air and a light but icy drizzle. Coming upon a clearing in the wood I saw a restaurant by a boating lake. The boats were all drawn up on the shore and out of commission for the duration of winter, but the restaurant was full of customers, sitting at marble topped tables with elaborate Gustavian candelabra.

Though I’d barely scraped the surface of the park, I'd enjoyed my brief bout of fresh air and was quite happy now to succombe to the pull of retail therapy, so retraced my steps to the S-bahn, heading for KaDeWe…

Had I not been on a schedule I would have loved to get off and explore the town and monorail properly. I found the structure both fascinating and slightly sinister, with somewhat machine-age looking stations and turning loops scattered along its considerable length.>

Yes I was also enthralled by the Wuppertal 'metro' - just as you so aptly described it - I made a special trip to gritty Wuppertal - an industrial town - to see and ride this weird device - that goes down the middle of a river in the town center - suspended over the river.

Thanks RM for going into that - brought back nice memories of my day in Wuppertal (as a town very forgettable except for the monorail as I recall).

RM - really enjoying this TR which is bringing back fond memories of our trip to Berlin a few years ago - we got as far as the top of the Fernsehturm but hadn't booked so were shown the door, and like you we missed out entirely on the Reichstag - a good reason to go back.

we only had 3 days so stuck mainly to the east of the city so I'm interested to read what you thought of the west.

Keep it coming!

Thank you both - writing the next instalment as we speak...

Thursday cont:-

I used the U-Bahn for the first time on my trip, to complete the journey to KaDeWe. Timely, clean and efficient in true Teutonic fashion, but a little bit lacking in character imho. Utilitarian stations with little individual identity and corrugated yellow metal trains with much harder seats than the tube. But it got me there, so no real complaints. The department store was just a stone’s throw from Wittenburgplatz station and in no time at all I was in the ground floor beauty hall (having bypassed the Omega and Hermes concessions as being beyond my budget).

The beauty hall had a huge range of global brands and I enjoyed daubing, sniffing and rubbing all manner of lotions and potions. I tested the new L’Occitane facial oil, the Sisely Black Rose balm and let the Byredo lady spritz me in gallons of Bal D’Afrique, before buying a hair perfume in the same scent – much cheaper than in the UK (37 euros vs £37).

I then ventured upstairs to the bag department. This was full of grogeous things – a clutch that looked like a copy of Alice in Wonderland, a pink leather elephant coin purse, the fab new Coccinelle collection, and a lovely silver satchel by Proenza Schouler. As if by magic(!) a shop assistant appeared from nowhere and insisted I ‘model’ the Proenza Shouler bag in front of a mirror. I felt a bit of an idiot doing this, and even more so when the price tag was whipped out showing me that I would need to part with 1100 euros if I wanted to take my Proenza home with me. When I said this was a bit beyond my budget it was suggested that I take out a store card for a 10% discount. Tempting, but when you have dripping taps at home and your laptop takes 15 minutes to warm up, it has to be a no.

I said I would think about it over lunch and escaped to the food halls – replete with bright red lobsters on ice, apple tarts the size of Luxembourg, and champagne bars at every turn. A lot of the food counters had stools that you could pull up if you wanted to stop and nibble. I seated myself at a mini kitchen where two white hatted chefs were cooking pasta dishes to order. I had a delicious salmon lasagne, stuffed with huge chunks of pink fleshy fish and fresh green spinach, a basket of bread, and a glass of Pinot Grigiot for about 17 euros. I watched other customers ordering panzanella and spag bol, the chef grating fresh parmesan from a block the size of a housebrick. After lunch I spotted what at first appeared to be a patisserie counter, but actually turned out to be a collection of savoury dishes cleverly styled to look like sweet treats – for example small but very thick slices of beef sandwiching a savoury mousse that looked for all the world like a macaron. I ordered a choux pastry swan filled with cream cheese here as a sort of second course come pudding.

After lunch (I really had finished this time!) I explored the confectionary section and bought some marzipan for Tommy, (Stilldontknow/Weegie/Uruabam) who had given me lots of tips for the trip, including the KaDeWe food halls as a lunch suggestion, address for the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery so I could just punch it into Google maps, and even a play list of German themed music for me to listen to on my journey over from the UK. Resisting temptation to revisit my 1100 euro satchel, I left with my bank balance mostly intact and headed for my final destination of the day, the Berlinische Gallery.

I’d picked the gallery because it had late night opening during February. Housed in an old art deco warehouse in a residential area a 10 minute walk from the U-bahn, it specialised in modern art by German artists. I started off in the small theatre area watching a film in which actors debated the merits of capitalism vs socialism (much better than it sounds!), then headed into the gallery proper to see works from the late Victorian era to the present day. A good mixture of impressionist, cubist, photography, pop art and sculpture. The internal space was very impressive with the works sparsely arranged which gave them extra impact. Being late at night and fairly empty it was also quite eerie - only a handful of severe looking security guards for company.

After completing my tour of the gallery and having had a quick browse round the gift shop, I headed for the bar next door (Bar Dix), which I at first thought had closed, it was so dark inside, gloomy purple lighting creating an otherworldy atmosphere. I got mildly told off for helping myself to a bottle of fruit juice that was in a refrigerated unit in the middle of the table seating, so ordered a wine as well to atone for my error. Reviewing my photos later I noticed that there were no men present so think I might have unwittingly stumbled into some sort of gay/singles late night opening. No-one attempted to chat me up though. Or it may have been social ostracism due to the self-service faux pas...

Back to the hotel to tend my blisters and lament the lack of a kettle in my room…

I said I would think about it over lunch and escaped to the food halls – replete with bright red lobsters on ice, apple tarts the size of Luxembourg, and champagne bars at every turn.>>

I think that I would just have taken up residence there for the rest of the day! congrats for being so forbearing.

There's actually a café on the very top floor, above the foodhall, which I somehow missed, so I feel I have unfinished business, Ann...

"I said I would think about it over lunch and escaped to the food halls"

A few years ago I stayed at a hotel five minutes from KDW....had breakfastn/ lunch
combo at food halls each day...
Very nice dept. store...I liked staying in the west...

I like the sound of that lasagne and pinot grigio. I never got to KDW foodhall and it's on my list for next time. And I'm glad to hear you got a little something for Tommy... was wondering where he figured in all this!

>was wondering where he figured in all this!<

At home slaving over an itinerary for a mammoth Thailand/Vietnam trip at the end of the year. A man's work is never done.

Friday

Friday dawned sunny and clear, so I decided to venture out for breakfast rather than dine at the hotel (the fact the Steigenberger was charging 24 euros for brekkie was a major factor in this decision btw). Using Google and my trusty smartphone, I looked up a list of recommended places for breakfast and brunch and plumped for Distrik Coffee, frequently cited in the top 10 cafes in Berlin, a few minutes walk from Nordbahnhof S-bahn station. The menu promised buttermilk pancakes and toasties which I thought would make a nice change from the vast buffets I’d been consuming up till now.

The walk from the S-bahn was short, through a quiet residential area with the occasional tram clanging past and the distant sound of schoolchildren playing in a playground somewhere. Opening the door of the café I was assaulted by a wave of chatter, every table occupied by the young and hip, students doing last minute homework and trendy art and design types hunched over their ibooks. I had a fair old wait for table – one lovely guy ahead of me in the queue asked if I’d like to share seating with his party, but his girlfriend looked daggers at me so I politely declined.

Eventually I was seated on a large scrubbed pine communal table next to a stack of inviting books, and overlooking a small courtyard where bicycles were parked. I perused the menu, which had lots of healthy-ish options like toast with avocado, bircher museli and (less virtuously) a ham and cheese toastie with pickles, finally plumping for a helping of grilled banana bread with fresh bananas, lime butter and candied walnuts, all to be washed down with a flat white. The coffee was brewed on some vast vintage machine by hipster beardy types and was excellent. Opposite me a woman with a batwing jumper and 80s wedge haircut drank ginger and lemon tea from a jam jar, matchsticks of ginger floating in the hot water.

Struggling a bit with phone reception for the first time, I used a mixture of slowing loading internet pages and my trusty Time Out guide to finalise my next destination. Chatting to Tommy over tea at the hotel that morning via Messenger I had tentatively decided to visit Treptower Park, home to several dramatic Soviet war memorials - however on examining my guide a bit more closely over breakfast I spotted a short paragraph in the Treptower chapter mentioning an abandoned theme park nearby – Spreepark. This had been a gift to the people of East Germany, opened in the late 1960s, but closed down around the millennium when the park owners went bust.

An image search on Google revealed a host of tantilising photos of rusty rollercoasters, ghost train tracks, circus tents, abandoned carousels, model dinosaurs and even a Viking longship, all overgrown with weeds. Some of the web links suggested that even though none of the rides were still functional, walking tours of the park were still held from time to time. On the spot I abandoned my Treptower plans, and with my heart beating a little faster at the thought of the fabulous photo opportunity that awaited me, got the bill sorted before heading back to Nordbanhof to commence the journey south east to Spreepark!

That's more like it. I can see and taste the brekkie. And the ambience sounds just perfect. Only in Berlin. My kind of place!

And I'm looking forward to the Spreepark...have never heard of it. I wonder when it became a sightseeing spot? Last time I was in Berlin was 2008/9 and I don't remember it then but there are always so many places to visit, you can't get to 'em all. Looks like it is just past Treptower Park... I certainly went there. How annoying to miss it.