Berlin: the Wall, the Fernsehturm and the Reichstag dome (100 Days in Europe, Part 17)
Part 17 of the 100 Days in Europe travel journal. Days 17 to 19: arrival from Hamburg, two full days in Berlin, and the diary’s first encounter with the Wall. As in every part of this series, the diary is quoted exactly as it was written on the road in December 2019, spelling and all, and then checked against what official sources say today.
What the diary says
From Day 18:
“The leftover of a church called KEISER WILHELM GEDACHNIS from the 2nd world war was our first stop. Fresh marks of war is still there. Around the church they have built a new church on 1963.”
“Made us realized that this was the Christmas market victim of the 2016 Berlin terrorist attack.”
“Then we had a nice walk through a big and peaceful forest called Tiergarten.”
And from Day 19:
“Evidently, this is an open air gallery with a series of murals directly painted on THE BERLIN WALL, that is 1,316km. It’s situated on the bank of Spree River.”
“Destination: FERNSERRURN tower. Potentially, the icon of Berlin. Or Germany in general. Built by the government of THEN EAST GERMANY in 1965. It is the tallest structure in Germany.”
“Walked along side the Spree River Via Nikolai Viertel which is a 12th century church and BERLINER SCHLOSS. It’s the city palace. It was evidently demolished by the east German Government. Now it’s being rebuild.”
“The BRANDENBURGER TOR or BRANDEBOURG Gate. A 17th century PRUSSIAN architecture.”
“Lucky for everyone, entry is free. But booking online obligatory.” — on the Reichstag dome
Arrival: a room named Checkpoint Charlie
Day 17 is mostly logistics — a huge train station “felt like an airport,” a subway ride instead of an hour’s walk, and a Berlin public transport system that was still “quite a mistry.” But it ends with the perfect welcome: the apartment’s rooms are named after Berlin landmarks, and theirs was Checkpoint Charlie. “Huh. Welcome to Berlin guys!” No fact-checks needed; some diary moments are beyond improvement.
The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the 2016 attack
The diary’s first Berlin stop is the ruined tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, kept as it stood after the Second World War, with the modern church built beside it in the early 1960s to the designs of architect Egon Eiermann. The diary’s dates are close enough — the war damage is real, and the modern replacement really does stand next to the preserved ruin.
The heavier observation is also correct. On 19 December 2016, a hijacked truck was deliberately driven through the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz, right next to the church, killing twelve people (Wikipedia). The flowers and candles the diary noticed on the steps three years later were for them. “Our hearts became heavy just by being there” — the diary’s own words are the right ones here.
Through the Tiergarten
The diary calls the Tiergarten “a big and peaceful forest,” walked via the Korean embassy and the Berlin Zoo. That is exactly what it is — the old hunting ground of the Prussian electors, now the green heart of the city. The diary’s sentence about what was visible from the end of the forest trails off into dots; the park’s great landmark at its centre is the Victory Column, which may well be the “Bastille in Paris” the diary was reminded of. The diary never says, so we won’t either.
The East Side Gallery: 1,316 metres, not kilometres
Here is the diary’s best catchable error. The East Side Gallery really is an open-air gallery of murals painted directly on the Berlin Wall, on the bank of the Spree — but it is 1,316 metres long, not 1,316 kilometres (Wikipedia). The unit slipped, not the number. The gallery’s 105 paintings, created by artists from all over the world in 1990 on the Wall’s east side, make it the longest open-air gallery in the world — and walking it, as the diary says, really does make you “feel like the part of a big history.”
The Fernsehturm: tallest in Germany, opened 1969
The diary’s “FERNSERRURN” is the Fernsehturm, the TV tower at Alexanderplatz, and its instincts are right: built by the government of East Germany as a broadcasting facility and a symbol of socialist power, it is the tallest structure in Germany at 368 metres (Wikipedia). One date needs adjusting: construction began in 1965, but the tower opened in 1969. The fog the diary complains about is a Berlin winter classic — the tower was there, the view wasn’t.
Nikolaiviertel and the city palace
Two corrections on this stretch of the walk. St. Nicholas’s Church in the Nikolaiviertel is indeed the historic heart of old Berlin — but it is Berlin’s oldest church, built between 1220 and 1230 (Wikipedia; SpottingHistory), which makes it 13th-century, not the diary’s “12th century.”
The Berliner Schloss, the city palace, is a different story: the diary is right that the East German government demolished it — the remains were blown up in 1950 — and right that it was “being rebuild” in December 2019. Today that rebuild is finished: the reconstructed palace opened in 2020 as the Humboldt Forum, housing museums and cultural spaces (berlin.de). A diary written one year later would have needed no correction at all.
Checkpoint Charlie and the Gendarmenmarkt
The diary’s history of Checkpoint Charlie — the crossing point between East and West, a symbol of the Cold War, now “swarming with keen tourists” — is accurate, and its wonder about summer crowds needs no checking. The Gendarmenmarkt is also described correctly: the Konzerthaus in the middle, flanked by the German Cathedral on one side and the French Cathedral on the other, with its Christmas market drawing the queues the diary skipped.
The Holocaust Memorial
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe stands near the US and UK embassies, as the diary noticed, and its underground information centre does educate visitors, step by step, about “how things got worse and worse” — the diary’s own phrase — until one of the biggest genocides of mankind. The diary’s link still works: stiftung-denkmal.de. The audio-guide price it quotes was a 2019 figure; the weight of the place is not the part that changes.
The Brandenburg Gate: 18th century, not 17th
The diary calls the Brandenburg Gate “a 17th century PRUSSIAN architecture.” The century is wrong: the gate was built between 1788 and 1791 to designs by Carl Gotthard Langhans the Elder (Wikipedia) — late 18th-century Prussian classicism, commissioned by Frederick William II. Everything else the diary felt about it, the Delhi Gate and Champs-Élysées comparisons included, is its own to keep.
The Reichstag dome: free, but book ahead
The diary’s last stop of the day is its best travel tip, and it survives the fact-check completely: the Reichstag Building houses the German parliament, the Bundestag, and its glass dome — designed by Norman Foster — is open to the public with free admission, but advance online registration is required (bundestag.de; Wikipedia). “It’s gigantic and extraordinary. Especially the glass dome. Left us quite speechless” — and after a twelve-hour day, the diary still had the energy to say so.
Getting around: the diary’s 2019 transport notes
The diary’s fare notes — short trips for €1.70, the A/B/C zone system, €2.80 between zones, 48-hour tourist cards in the €15–20 range, plain-clothes ticket inspectors — are all recorded as of December 2019 and are worth checking against current fares before any trip. The warning about inspectors is timeless.
The verdict
Three days in Berlin produced the diary’s most quotable arrival (“our room name is CHECKPOINT CHARLIE”), its most sobering moment (the flowers at Breitscheidplatz), and two unit-and-century slips: the East Side Gallery is 1,316 metres, not kilometres, and the Brandenburg Gate is 18th-century, not 17th. The St. Nicholas Church is a century younger than remembered, the Fernsehturm opened four years after construction began, and the palace the diary saw “being rebuild” is now open. The Reichstag tip — free, but book online — is as true today as it was then.
Next: Part 18 backtracks to the Amsterdam interlude — Days 13 to 15, canals, bicycles and the hotel room “perfect for the characters of the Hobbits.”