Catching up; East Berlin.

At last! We have wifi at this site. We are now in the lovely Mosel valley, in a traditional, quiet wine village called Mesenich. We stayed here two or three years ago, but more of that later. Now to catch up.
On Monday 16th May we decided to visit Prenzlauer Berg in the former East Berlin as the guide book said it was interesting and gave a feeling for the city at the time of reunification. We started our visit in Potsdamer Platz, which is now very modern, but which was the heart of the city before it was razed in WW2. There were bits of the Berlin Wall there, brought from various parts of the city and joined up by displays of historical information. There was also an "East German soldier" who was stamping tourists' passports with an East Berlin stamp. Oddly, there was also a man on a sledge (with wheels) driving a team of huskies along the street!
On the U-Bahn, Berlin's underground, heading for Prenzlauer, the infrastructure became older, and the people looked poorer. The whole of the Prenzlauer district consists of street upon street of tenement blocks used to house East Berlin workers. Happily, many are being renovated, but there are still some which remain untouched and these had an eery atmosphere of Eastern Bloc days. We had a pleasant walk, and found a lovely square with coffee shops and a park.
Alexanderplatz, however, was not as nice. It was huge, cold and windy, and was surrounded by huge eastern bloc style buildings, one of which is now a C and A. It was dismal, and not just because of the weather. It reminded us of Piccadilly Gardens on a bad day ie. groups of teenagers, fast food bars and cheap shops. This was the centre of old East Berlin.


However, we also visited two very old churches, which managed to survive, and Tony had his picture taken with the statue of Marx and Engels. He said that they were his heroes!
Although it was a cold, wet day, we did enjoy our visit Prenzlauer and the former East Berlin in a funny sort of way. It was interesting and we were glad that we had decided to get off the beaten track.
We ended the day by putting on the heating in the van, and suggling up with our books!