Above and Below Berlin

I didn't get to see any boats in Berlin so no chance of a Boats! Boats! Boats. Instead, here's two views of Berlin.

Firstly from above, the best views are from the TV tower (above) as can be seen here:

Can you spot the tethered balloon near the sunset?

Another view of Berlin can be found by going on one of the tours of Berlin Underworlds. The one I went on visited a Second World War bunker and then a Cold War fall-out shelter, complete with airlock, shower and claustrophobic bunk beds:

Exhibition Review: Europe and the Sea

The museums of Berlin are pretty good, so good that some you have to buy tickets in advance while others are a bit dark (Stasi Museum anyone?).

But I saw an exhibition on Europe and the Sea that turned out to be very interesting and tickets were available on the door. It told the relationship between Europe and the sea via some of its major ports over the last few millennium, including:

• Athens
• Venice
• Seville
• Cadiz
• Amsterdam
• London

It felt refreshingly straight-up show and explain. There were lots of good maps of the various places and the main shipping routes of each of the ports:

This one was clearly the wrong colour:

As well as examples of cultural elements, maps, navigational tools (top) there were also some good quotes, from Homer to Sir Walter Raleigh:

Very interesting, worth a visit if you're in Berlin.

Berlin by night

Back to Berlin, with some night-time shots.

Rather than going to the endless Christmas Markets (yawn) I went out with my camera and tripod. Brandenburg Gate above, Reichstag below:

The Holocaust Memorial was pretty thought provoking, particularly at night:

A Berlin Christmas

Earlier this month I was in Berlin (above) and it looked pretty Christmassy:

You couldn't go more than 100m without having to fight your way through yet another Christmas market: I really don't get the attraction of these.

But it was rather Insta-friendly...