Walking around Berlin

As I mentioned earlier, today I decided to do a walking tour around Berlin....well, it was the best thing I could have done. It was a 6 hour walking tour, costing 15 euros! The guide was absolutely brilliant...she is English, with her father being German. I felt she gave a very balanced commentary. The group comprised people from Australia, India, the US, Taiwan, Israel, Brazil, and probably another country or 2. We started off walking around to the old Jewish quarter...the account of what happened under Nazi occupation was horrendous....more than we ever hear...the guide gave a fantastic brief history of Germany pre and post the world wars and pre and post the Berlin wall. We got to see a few buildings which still stood following the bombings of WW2.. and the way you can tell? They still had bullet holes! Apparently after the war, in East Berlin, the repairs done to the buildings could be identified easily as they were painted brown...according to the guide, there were something like 17 shades of brown! The city has been basically re-built in the past 10-15 years...which has made the city broke.
We visited a few sites of the Berlin wall and the guide gave a history of this as well. We also visited "Checkpoint Charlie" which is apparently not at all real and basically a tourist trap/scam...getting the tourists in. We did however have afternoon tea near to this area and had a great coffee and apple strudel! We then went to the site of Hitlers bunker and where he and Eva Braun died (killed themselves). Apparently Hitler spent the last few years of the war addicted to a variety of drugs and was extremely paranoid. Another of Hitler's main men, along with his wife, also died here...and this was after his wife murdered her own 6 children. This area is now a very non-descript car park...as no-one in government has been able to agree as to what should be done...they don't wish to make a place where some people treat it as a shrine to Hitler, so the bunker is still intact, but it's entrances have been closed off...
There were numerous other sites we visited, including the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag & Government Quarter, SS & Gestapo Headquarters, Museum Island, the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, the Cabaret District of the 1920's, and too many others to recall...I am so glad I decided to go on this tour...
Met some lovely Aussies on this tour which was good to have company and people to chat to as we walked around.
Tomorrow I am off to Frankfurt to spend the next week with my cousins so I am looking forward to this time...then before I know it, I will be home!