VERDICT: WE GAVE 5 OUT OF 5 TICKETS AND HERE’S WHY!
Cold War Walking Tour, Berlin, Germany.
Our guide took us to some of the city’s most significant sites from the Third Reich and Cold War eras, including the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie. We were able to have a much deeper historical understanding of Berlin and the struggles people endured at the time.
Read more about – Berlin’s Best: Third Reich & Cold War 2 Hour Walking Tour
Our story: On our first full day in Berlin, we headed out quite early as we had pre-booked a Cold War Walking Tour with Insider Tour, through Viator.
http://www.insidertour.com/tours.php/cat/27/id/42/title/Cold-War-Berlin
We were to meet in town at a McDonald’s, so in true Franklin (My Return Ticket) Fashion, we arrived about an hour and a half early. We can’t stand being late or rushed & since we had to navigate the underground in a completely different language, we thought we’d just get ourselves there & then have a wander about until the tour meetup.
We actually found our way fairly quickly, only stopping to ask a couple of questions… of course we did discover that many locals over the age of 55 refused to speak English to us, despite our efforts to speak German, so we found it best to ask younger people. They often spoke excellent English & smilingly corrected our attempts at their language.
We saw an outdoor Christmas Market that was still running (but not open until late afternoon) & found an amazing old church, Gedenkhalle, but could see it had been damaged in the war. Massive beautiful round windows, that probably had held stained glass at one time, stood empty with dark, scorch marks all around them. It was still very beautiful, a work of art.
We met up with our guide & fellow tourists for the walking tour & set out after getting underground day passes (don’t forget to validate them!). It was pretty cold & damp but really only added to the feel of the whole history of the tour.
Sometimes, I suppose, as much as I like to think we’re open minded… I guess we can be quick to judge. We quietly said to each other how it was very drab & dull in Berlin… the weather certainly didn’t help much but it was just so… dismal. After having been on the Cold War tour with our excellent guide Rachel, we realized just exactly why it appears so sullen here… Berlin had just been through a horrific war, its people destitute, their homes & communities ravaged… only to have the Berlin Wall erected in less than four hours one evening, while most people slept.
They woke to discover they had been divided in half, East & West, leaving many families torn apart, some could no longer get to their jobs & some, who had been at work that evening, would not be able to get back home. No exceptions. Berliners, who had already suffered so much, now had lost family members, jobs & their pensions etc overnight… due to the Wall.
Our initial impression of a bleak Berlin was suddenly shown to be hasty & short sighted. As we shivered in the cold, we could sense the hopelessness, as Rachel described the years of struggle & sadness and we could only imagine the despair these people must have lived with. So many attempts to escape were made & thwarted. So many lives ruined. I felt guilty to know I could easily walk in to a cafe or restaurant to escape the cold & I could afford to buy something warm to fill my tummy when they must have wondered where their next meal would even come from… a very sobering day, for certain.
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