After our super active September, we started October with some more family time. Dad had turned 60 last year, and Manjas and my gift for him was a tour through Berlin. Last week we had discussed splitting this tour over two relaxed days as not everything we wanted to do would fit into one day…. or it would be super exhausting.
So to prepare Manja and I headed off on Friday and got me some decent winter shoes – my nice leather ones are nice… but cause freezing and wet feet in winter 🥶
On Saturday Mum and Dad dropped by and I made us all a nice breakfast and we watched some pictures of their trip of the last few months down from Germany via France, Spain and Portugal and across to North Africa.
And then it was time for us to head off: Todays first stop was at the Berliner Unterwelten, who do underground tours of Berlin. As we had some time before the tour, we took a short walk up the Flakturm im Humboldhain – the flak tower in the Humboldhain park. It was a bit chilly, but the view was awesome and this classic monument to war-time Berlin was worth seeing.
The tour we chose was one which showed the various escape routes and attempts of people out of the DDR under the wall, how and where they tunnelled, crawled and swam. One totally fascinating component was the securing of the underground stations: the western U-bahn still drove through some east-german stations but was not allowed to stop. There were plenty of traps laid out to prevent people from being able to do this, as well as spiked gates which would open based on the exact pace the u-bahn had to take through this area. It was fascinating stuff, but we were unfortunately not allowed to take photos 🙁
The tour ended at the Monument to the Berlin Wall, which we toured for a bit, before heading back and taking a walk through our local Volkspark once more. In the afternoon we split up to let my parents head off to their next engagement for the evening. .
The next day the parents returned once more for the second part of our day – this time a bit more adventurous. We started our tour at Beach Mitte, which has a lovely adventure climbing area with a view of Berlin. Unfortunately Manjas bad foot prevented her from joining, so she entertained herself with photos. We didn’t realise how frozen the poor thing was until we came down.
Our next stop was accessed by bus – which allowed Manja to warm up a bit – and we headed to the Siegessäule. What we did not know was that there was a big protest that day, so the trains and busses were not running the whole way. We ended up walking down a 6-lane road toward it which was completely abandoned as the protest had moved through here a bit earlier. Unexpected and nice 🙂
We climbed the Siegessäule and enjoyed the view for a bit before heading to our last “official” stop: The Berlin Clock. This technological monument was at the intersection of design and technology back in the 1970’s, before digital clocks became common. Dad even built one at home in his younger years!
Finally we sought out some dinner at an English pub. Unfortunately they had a rugby night and it was super full and loud, so we quickly re-calibrated to Indian just around the corner.
Mum was brave enough to jump:
Okay, this one was HARDER THAN IT LOOKED!
The next day I was going to head off to work only to realised that some F*cker stole my bike seat. Ah well, we ordered a new one at Amazon and installed it by the end of the week, but seriously, who does that?!?!
As the parents would leave the next week, we spent some weeknights together still, meeting up with some extended family for dinner. On the weekend we had a final farewell dinner with my parents and many of their friends too.
The night before the parents headed off we had the opportunity to catch up one last time for the Festival of Lights kick-off, which is… well, a festival where plenty of buildings are lit up with fancy light installations. The kick off is at the Brandenburg gate, after which you can wander the various streets and watch the displays all around. Freya was kind enough to be our guide, showing us the absolute best locations. Below is a few parts of my favourites, I particularly liked the ones which made the buildings appear as they were 100 years earlier!
The last night of their stay we managed to do one more 1:1 catchup with them for dinner as a little more intimate farewell, before I dropped by the airport to drop them off the very next day. Unfortunately dad had caught a stomach bug, so he wasn’t feeling so fantastic… but well enough to fly he said 🙂
The next few weeks were all in service of our preparation for our next trip: Costa Rica!
But I leave you with this lovely album, as throughout the month summer gave way to autumn 🙂
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