Traveling to Germany was one big adventure from start to finish. In this post, I will highlight some things I love (and hated) about Berlin….

I could probably write several posts about Berlin, if time permits, but here are a few thoughts I have after visiting Berlin. (One post I would like to write is how Berlin Compared to Glasgow).

At 891.8 km² – this city is huge and is very busy. With over 3.5 million people living there, and however many visiting at any given time, Berlin is pretty crowded everywhere.

So you need to work out how to navigate the city. Public transport is very effective, well once you get the hang of it. It may be about my favourite thing about Berlin.

There are buses, trams, Ubahn/Sbahn and trains. The best thing about Berlin was how all transport integrates with one ticket. Not only that, it’s the honour system. You walk on and off of all their transport without really having to use your ticket (except for maybe buses where I did tend to hold my ticket in my hand as I passed). But really once you validate your ticket in any machine on your first journey you’re pretty much “good to go”.

I totally can’t imagine Glasgow (or even Britain) doing such a thing. I loved it.

For those like me who love looking at beautiful buildings this is a place for you. Do it on foot and consider taking one of the many boat trips along the rivers and or canals.

There are 170 museums and galleries, countless government buildings, churches, and monuments too – all of which, pretty much, were compelling. Seeing bits of buildings missing after having been bombed or shot at is pretty incredible. There is, and I guess pretty much always has been/will be, a lot of building and repairs going on after such an incredible amount of bombings.

So inevitably there is this interesting juxtaposition of old meeting new in Berlin. Or I guess in some cases new being built to look old. It’s fascinating. The downside of all this construction is that many of the most beautiful buildings had scaffolding around them or fences and so forth. Still it’s just one of those things.

One of the strangest things of note about Berlin, and the fact I loathed the most, was that card usage was less prevalent on smaller ticket items. So if you are going to Berlin make sure that you are always carrying a bit of cash. As someone who usually pays for everything with a card ans seldom has cash, I found that a bit disconcerting, even frustrating.

Even more challenging to me was the fact that there were not really that many ATM machines as readily available as I am used to in UK cities. Also a bit scarce for my liking, in such a big city, there were not tons of banks all over the place like they are here.

Again these are just my observations.

Thankfully I had Neil to pay when I needed cash and I eventually managed to find a bank to pull some out to pay him back! If I return to Berlin I will no doubt be more prepared, regardless.

I am a walker myself but Berlin is definitely a biking city with shops and apps to rent bikes all over the place. Neil kept trying to convince me to get a bike so we could ride around the city and see more but I wasn’t feeling it. I found Berlin to be overwhelming and bikes riding on pavements as well as the roads, cars coming at you from different directions and don’t get me started about pedestrians – it just felt too stressful on my first trip. Maybe next time I’ll feel more confident.

So walking it was. I covered around 25,000 steps each day on average (best was 28,000) and on foot was able to take photos everywhere. Ended up with over 500 photos between my camera and my phone. Will take a while to go through them all!

It was nice to see Berlin on foot and cover areas like the East Side Gallery, over the Oberbaum Bridge, passing the Molecule Man statue and so forth. In those five or so days I walked from one end of the city to the other and felt all the better for it. Well sort of. I think I managed to dehydrate myself, the effects I am still feeling in my body. Note to self: take more water next time.