European Road Trip: Hannover and Berlin Day 1-4

We are back from our road trip! We covered a lot of territory: drove through 5 countries, covered 1749 miles and saw 3 European capitals!

We left Saturday morning and drove about 4 hours to Hannover, Germany. We only planned to spend the afternoon and night there since it was a midway point between Antwerp and Berlin. It was really cold, but we liked Hannover and were surprised by its charming city center.

We drove to Berlin the next morning. It was cold again and I was glad I had packed our winter jackets along with the hats, gloves and scarves. We wasted no time and made our way down to see the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. The perimeter of the wall is marked throughtout the city by a double cobblestone line. It is hard to believe that the beautiful Brandenburg Gate was in the no mans land and was not able to be enjoyed for so long. The last time Craig was in Berlin was in the summer of 1989, just months before the wall came down.

We made our way down Unter den Linden and to Checkpoint Charlie but turned back because Chloe went into full tantrum mode. She really lived up to her nickname - the Monster - that Colin has given her.

The next day we made a successful attempt at seeing Checkpoint Charlie and the Museum there. Later in the afternoon we went to see the Wilhelm Kaiser Memorial Church and walked to the main shopping street, Kurfurstendamm.

Tuesday we took the subway to the Wall Documentation Center and saw one of the few remaining sections of the wall still to stand. The subway station we got off on was previously a "ghost station" on the East side. Most of the sections left of the wall are chipped down to the rebar.

We were really lucky to have been in Berlin just a few days before the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. It was neat to see the live news coverage going on while we were there. Being there made us realize how much the fall of communism has impacted Europe and how we have benefited from it today.