Interrail 2023 – 8. – Berlin

Hallo!

Here I was, seeing the end of my solo trip… but my Interrail wasn’t fully over yet, I still had one city left: the famous Berlin, the capital of reunified Germany after having been divided for decades as a perfect representation of the world’s then ongoing bilateralism. It is now a modern and diverse city, with the past’s weight being highly visible from all sides, history and remembrance flooding from everywhere, with the underlying idea that if history is told and remembered, it should not be repeated.

These three days with my cousin Margaux in Berlin have sincerely been the most exhausting of my three-week trip. If I haven’t liked Berlin as much as other cities on my Interrail (which may have partly been caused by my tiredness – exhaustion would also work – at that point), there have been some places which I thought to be extremely interesting.

We started by visiting the Budenstag’s dome. It is a really good introduction to Berlin, from the modernly rebuilt roof of one of the most important buildings in German history, a building which in my opinion represents Berlin and Germany quite well. We then continued with many memorials and interpretation centres about both the holocaust and the Cold War, which was quite heavy indeed. We did take a break from all these emotions with the spy museum, basically a giant playground.

We spent our last day in Berlin mainly at « Museum Island », a really huge place filled with numerous museums displaying all types of art (do not forget to reserve time slots if you ever go there though!!!), and ended our stay with the free light show/film of the German parliament, which seemed to me a mix between an Arte documentary, a light show and a promotional clip explaining how much Germany is currently giving to Ukraine…

The next day was the final day of my Interrail. I had a 10-hour journey to get back home, to Reims, so to keep me occupied I watched the SOTEU, coz yk we all have to start studying again at some point. Everything went really smoothly: I got to Champagne-Ardennes with a 5-minute delay, i.e. nothing!

This article was pretty short-read, sorry. It is always hard to write a travel diary entry while having come back home, as it is in a way already over, and writing its final dot makes it real, somehow…

Anyway, I still have one article to come, so stay tuned 😉

Yours,

Jules