I’m skipping forwards to Tuesday because Sunday and Monday were travel days of trains and planes and a lot of rain in Munich on our way to Berlin. We did have an excellent Turkish dinner on Monday night at Osman’s Tochter in Berlin. Highly recommended.

So Tuesday morning we headed out bright and early to meet our son, E, who flew in from Melbourne. We caught the S-Bahn out to the airport and he arrived very soon after us. Collecting him we headed back to our apartment where he had a shower. E said he felt alright so we headed out to the Eastside Gallery. This is the section of the wall that has been kept as a street art gallery. We also checked out the bridge while we were there and then caught the train back to Alexander Platz. We’re big fans of the Bourne movies and there was a scene in the second movie set in Alexander Platz so it was fun to finally see the actual place—although there was no protest there today—or spy chases! Then we did a quick stop at the supermarket before heading back to our apartment for some time off our feet.

At about 3:00pm we decided to go out to the Berlin War Memorial and from there to dinner. We saw the two movies in the visitors centre then headed out to the open air section, which is largely situated where the death strip was. It promptly started to bucket down with rain so we made a runner for the U-Bahn station which was one of the ghost stations. There are displays set up to learn some more about this. When we came out the rain had stopped and we strolled through the rest of the memorial getting progressively colder until we got to the documentation centre and took refuge in there. That had information, photos and one of the spike mats set up in the death strip to deter escapees. It’s amazing the lengths the GDR was prepared to go to to stop people feeling and also the desperation that caused many people to lose their lives in the attempt.