Today was Sunday and in Germany that means all shops are closed, even supermarkets. Years ago we were caught out by this in Munich, the city was absolutely dead! So today we slept in and watched some TV and didn't head out until about 11am.
We started by walking to Checkpoint Charlie which is only about 12 minute walk from our hotel. We've seen Checkpoint Charlie before and it is just a tacky tourist trap surrounded by American fast food and souvenir shops. This was not our destination but two nearby stops were. We've probably posted a picture of this before, many years ago, but here's another.
The first was the Trabi Museum dedicated to the Trabant, a car built in GDR (East Germany) and built a cult following after the Berlin Well fell. It was actually quite small and we spent most of our time watching an interesting documentary about the cars they had a small movie theature.
Secondly we visited Due Mauer (The Wall) Panorama. It was an almost 360% panorama, photo realistic by hand painted, created by an artist that wanted to recreate a slice of life in Berlin around the wall in the '80s. It was incredibly well done but the experience didn't last too long as there was only one panorama to see.
After this we hopped an underground from Checkpoint Charlie and headed to a stop nearby Museum Island. This train was dirty and full of people we wanted to keep our distance from. The stop we got off at was full of drunks, druggies and homeless. It didn't feel safe at all and we got out as quickly as possible.
We walked back along the river to the first set of Christmas Markets we had seen yesterday. Surprisingly they were open. Today I sampled a 1/2 metre hotdog. The sausage may be 1/2 meter long, but the bun isn't, so they cut part of the sausage and put it inside the bun. Tastes the same but loses the affect.
The weather continued to be cold and wet today. There was an underground nearby so we returned to the room to watch TV for the rest of the afternoon.
For dinner we ventured out into the suburbs via train for a Chinese Buffet restaurant. It was quiet outside but inside the restaurant was quite large, full of people, bustling busy. Thankfully they could seat us quickly without a reservation. Now for a another first, they had robots delivering food to tables! The food was nice and we left satisfied. By the time we returned to the room it was 9pm.
Tomorrow is our last full day in Berlin.
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