We had a slightly more relaxed start today than yesterday, with our first scheduled event at 11:00, when Amanda and Cassy planned to take an underground tour of Berlin. Tickets could only be purchased on the day of the tour, and the website warned events could sell out before their scheduled start times. We weren’t running super-early, I skipped a walk to a local bakery for breakfast to make sure we had ample time for the two required subways to the tour site.
All-in-all, Berlin’s public transportation has been an extremely positive experience, with subways, trams, and buses available to get visitors nearly anywhere. Getting on and off is a breeze, and with the Berlin Welcome Cards I ordered in advance, there was never a need for us to buy or validate a transit ticket while we were in the city. We just carried the printouts when we traveled, available to display if prompted by a transportation company official.
Noah and Emmie are all smiles on the Berlin U-bahn train.
We did struggle a bit finding our way from the S-bahn train we left to the ticket spot for the Berlin Underwelten tours. We went down and up stairs and escalators before finally finding the exit from the connected U-bahn station to street level to the tour ticket office. The ticket buy was successful, leaving Amanda and Cassy a half hour to kill while the kids and I went back to the U-bahn station to continue our morning journey to the Berlin Aquarium.
Noah was especially excited that the trip featured two aquarium stops so he could see everything from deep sea creatures to tarantulas. The Berlin Aquarium was a piece of an expansive zoo complex; admission could be purchased separately. We skipped the zoo in favor of a more detailed visit to the indoor aquarium.
Noah and Emmie were thirsty following our 15-minute walk from the U-bahn station to the aquarium entrance, so our first stop was the cafeteria, where we shared bottles of overpriced apple juice and 7-Up. Once finished, we began a systematic walk through the three-floor facility, starting with insects and ending with fish.
We stopped at every exhibit, and especially for the insects and amphibians, we were playing a game of sorts where the older kids and I were trying to find the creature inside its exhibit when it was often camouflaged. Though the aquarium felt a bit dated, it was uncrowded and well-organized, making for a fun 90-minute stop.
Noah points to a clear tube, mounted to the ceiling, with thousands of ants crawling through.
Emmie made this face every time she successfully spotted a creature within its exhibit!
Amanda writes about her Berlin Underwelten tour. Pictures weren’t allowed so this portion of the blog is text-heavy.
From WW2 bunkers and flak towers to Cold War-era nuclear fallout shelters, a wealth of information regarding Berlin’s history can be found just beneath the streets. Children under 7 are not allowed on the tours, so after being dropped off, Cassy and I chose to tour a WW2 civilian bunker. Our guide was from Brazil, yielding an interesting mix of a German and Portuguese accent for our ears. One of the first things he told us was that the “bunker” we were visiting was not a bunker at all. The definition of a bunker would be an area that is built to resist bombs, but the space that we would be touring was actually a maze of storage and maintenance tunnels located between the street level and the subway tunnels.
The Nazi Germany infrastructure did not have the time or the money to construct many real bunkers, so the Nazis found an underground space, outfitted it with some fancy doors, benches, and toilets, and then told the civilians in the area that it was bomb-proof. The bunker was designed to hold around 1,000 people, but sometimes as many as 6,000 were crammed into the space, which offered literally no extra protection as opposed to them being in their own homes. In fact, had the area been hit, death tolls would have been higher as the ceilings simply would have collapsed, killing everyone inside. But the Nazis propagated the lie that the people would be safe there, and so there the people went.
At the end of the war, Germans raided the bunker for its furniture, wood, doors, toilets, and anything else that could be used to rebuild Berlin. The doors were then closed and locked and the bunker was forgotten for more than 40 years. Sometime in the late 90s, some curious souls wondered about the doors in the subway station and convinced the city of Berlin to let them explore. Inside they found almost knee-high rubble, old propaganda, and the glow-in-the-dark signage paint the Nazis used to keep order during the frequent power outages experienced during Allied bombings.
The glowing paint directed people where to go and kept the peace during the long dark hours spent in the bunker. Our tour guide even used Cassy and me as an example of the paint’s abilities when he flashed us with light, leaving our shadows visible on the wall for quite some time. Our short hour spent in the bunker was filled with fascinating information, and Cassy and I would highly recommend considering a Berlin Underwelten tour if you are ever in the area!
Amanda and Cassy had no problem making their way to the subway station nearest the kids and me, though we did struggle to coordinate a precise meeting point. Ultimately, we met inside a mall near the shop, did some brief shopping then returned to the subway station for one more stop, en route to Berlin’s landmark department store, Kaufhaus des Westens, for lunch.
There was a small floral shop in the U-bahn station, so Emmie gave the worker one euro for a large sunflower.
Often abbreviated KaDeWe, the Kaufhaus des Westens department store is the second-largest in Europe, behind only Harrods of London, which we visited in 2014. The top two floors were dedicated to food, which brought it on our radar as a lunch stop. The sixth floor felt like a maze, with stations set up for anything from high-end ham to Thai cuisine. Before we settled on a final lunch choice, we bought a half-dozen mini cupcakes from the Just a Bite shop within the department store.
The clerk at the store seemed to love the kids; our six purchased cupcakes nearly doubled when she brought individually boxed double-chocolate cupcakes for Noah, Emmie, Eilidh, and Cassy. She also sold us off-the-menu “cold milk” for a single Euro per cup, possibly the best bargain in the entire department store.
Eilidh admires her boxed cupcake; she even got in on the eating action, taking bites of pieces from the double-chocolate cupcake.
I was perhaps most fascinated by the American food section, which had everything from Nerds to OREOs to Pop Tarts (pictured) at extremely high prices. For example, this box of Red Velvet Pop Tarts was priced at nearly 9 Euros.
Amanda took Eilidh to the seventh floor of the department store and quickly found a padded bench for the baby to settle into for a nap. Cassy, Noah, Emmie, and I were continuing to explore the sixth floor trying to identify the best dinner option but ultimately opted to take the escalator one floor higher and partake in the LeBuffet restaurant and sit altogether while Eilidh rested.
I generally despise buffets, but this one seemed a step up in quality and also had several made-to-order stations where food was cooked fresh instead of sitting under warmers for hours on end. It also was priced by items and/or weight as opposed to an all-you-can-eat setup. The available options were overwhelming and labeled in German, so we went with a safe bet: hamburgers.
Cassy shows off her giant hamburger at KaDeWe.
The half-pound hamburgers were topped with ketchup, mayonnaise, lettuce, onion, and tomato, and served with a mini basket of fries on the side. Even with Amanda and I splitting a hamburger, no one was able to finish their portions. Cassy and I watched the hamburgers being cooked, but they ultimately looked to be a little better than they were: basically, not that special.
Eilidh was in and out of sleep during the meal; toward the end of the meal, we decided it might be nice to have a stroller on our trip, so Cassy, Noah, and I took two escalators down to see if they were sold in the store. No go on the strollers, but the kind associate who spoke a bit of English did note they had a nice scooter selection.
Emmie poses in front of one of several entrances to the KaDeWe department store which occupies an entire city block.
Amanda, Cassy, and Eilidh decided to make the trek home, as the U2 subway went directly from the department store to the stop closest to our hostel. Noah, Emmie, and I departed, first planning to stop at the LEGO store, grab a quick bite to eat, and then track down a stroller and backpack, the latter to replace Noah’s previous backpack, which was a casualty of the Icelandair flight to New York.
The kids were bummed the LEGO store was closed for renovations…
…but happy to have pretzels from the bakery across the street.
We couldn’t find a convenient baby store but did find a retailer of Fjallraven backpacks, which had been on Amanda’s radar since we saw them at a gift shop in Iceland. The Berlin store had nearly the same selection of the backpacks, which have a reputation for being well-made and durable, at roughly 30% less cost. Noah got his pick of colors since the bag would serve as his school backpack after this trip; I tried to encourage a darker color which would better hide dirt, but he was set on the light blue option.
Eilidh holds the glass bottle Coke we shared during our walk from the bus station to the clothing store which sold the Fjallraven backpacks.
Noah poses with his new backpack outside the Ete Clothing store. As an aside, Germany has a very high deposit on bottled drinks; per the store clerk’s direction, we left our bottles on the front porch, knowing someone would come by to collect them to redeem for some money.
Noah didn’t finish all of his ice cream cone, so Emmie took care of both the chocolate and vanilla cones we purchased from the ice cream shop at the Marheineke Markthalle.
After a brief ice cream stop at the nearby market, we went to an adjacent splash park, suggested by the worker who sold Noah his new backpack. Both Noah and Emmie were intrigued by both the fun of a playground and coolness of water on the hot Berlin afternoon. However, to their surprise, roughly half of the kids playing were completely naked. Emmie had no problem taking off her shoes (but leaving on her clothes) and playing; Noah felt more comfortable staying with me while Emmie galavanted around.
We rejoined Amanda, Cassy, and Eilidh, and made our way to Burgermeister, which is located directly below the train line in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood, in a building which originally contained men’s and women’s toilets. The restaurant, which is located on an island between busy streets and under metro tracks, posed some logistical challenges for our group including metal poles as chairs for the handful of tables in the space, and no public toilets despite being located in a former toilet house.
Of course, after we began waiting in the long queue, Emmie had to use the restroom, so Amanda and company saved our space while I ventured across the street in search of a toilet. The first place we went was a funky cafe bar with modern music, retro furniture, and a bit of a smoky smell, but the bartender immediately directed Emmie and me to their downstairs restroom.
Afterward, I thought we could support the business by buying a cold Coke; no go on the Coke, but he suggested a glass bottle of Fritz-Cola, a German soft drink made in Hamburg; we also tried a bottle of their carbonated cherry lemonade. We all liked the drinks so much, I went back to buy a couple more (and take Noah to the restroom.)
I rejoined the queue while Amanda and Cassy took the kids across the street to some green space to find a spot to eat our hamburgers. I placed the order, which consisted of fries along with a plain hamburger for Noah; plain cheeseburgers for Amanda and Emmie; and fully-loaded cheeseburgers for Cassy and me. Despite eating on a sidewalk curb and waiting more than a half hour to get our food, the burgers were extremely tasty, easily our favorite meal during our two-day stint in Berlin.
Amanda spread out the Tula blanket so Emmie could take a nap in some green space near the Burgermeister restaurant.
While Eilidh was still sleeping, Emmie and I returned to the bar/cafe for a slice of cherry cheesecake for dessert.
The East Side Gallery in features the longest continuous segment of the Berlin Wall which is still standing, with a length of over 1 km. The gallery was commissioned in 1990, with numerous international artists painting segments of the wall following the reunification of Germany. Over time, weather and graffiti ruined the vast majority of the paintings; some restoration work was done in 2009, and those sections are now behind a chain-link fence to discourage vandalism. The opposite side of the wall has a white background which is nearly completely covered in graffiti.
The kids looking out at Berlin’s Spree River, near the East Side Gallery.
The opposite side of the wall has a white background which is nearly completely covered in graffiti. A few of the more colorful works of graffiti made for a solid backdrop, so we grabbed a handful of photos as we walked by both the wall and the nearby Spree River on what turned out to be a pleasant Berlin evening.
