Alexanderplatz

Turns out our randomly chosen cheap hotel is excellently placed for getting to the Alexanderplatz station and thence to just about anywhere on the U-bahn or S-bahn. So it was a quick hop along to Friedrichstrasse and a wee wander around the Reichstag, where I scored a free English guidebook that had been abandoned on a little roadside cube. Mandy says I stole it but it was just sitting there. Abandoned.

Then a wee wander through the park to the Brandenburg Gate via a little Holocaust memorial. If it was hard work trying to explain why the Soviets wanted to build a wall around half of Berlin and then would shoot people who tried to cross, explaining the systematic killing of thousands of Roma (don't think we got onto the millions of others) by the Germans was a tough one. Although it really highlights just how mental the whole thing was.

Anyway, after a well-deserved afternoon nap (just me), an evening trip up the Toothpick and then a tasty dinner.