Day 5: Arrival in Berlin

Todays mileage 162. Total mileage 719.

We arrived in Berlin at about 3pm. Once again Dermott was invaluable, his route was perfect and he really takes the stress out of driving in a foreign city, something I was slightly nervous of. At the risk of becoming some sort of tedious ambassador of Tom Tom, the difference a competent sat nav makes is pretty remarkable. Instead of Jojo map reading and me inevitably shouting at her as I take the wrong lane, or we simply go the wrong way, Dermott keeps the team intact. It's us against him. If he sends us the wrong way we can get cross with him, not each other. He is single-handedly helping our fledgling marriage flourish by removing all potential navigational arguments. Thanks Dermott!

We also managed to get ourselves a Low Emissions Zone sticker. A prerequisite if driving in many German cities. This was achieved by visiting a German AA (ADAC) centre. Where we met a very nice man who helped us out and spoke perfect English. I continue to be shocked by how good everyone's English is throughout Germany. I feel slightly embarrassed to be so inept at speaking anything other than English.

So to Berlin! We decided to treat ourselves and stay in a hotel in Berlin, rather than commute in from a campsite outside the city. We stayed at the Park Inn Hotel, Berlin's tallest hotel, which is in Alexanderplatz, opposite the famous TV Tower (photos to come!). Das Van was too big to park in the underground car park, so we were given a "Limo" space right out the front of the hotel where the van has been resting throughout our stay in Berlin. It felt a bit mean abandoning our trusty van, yet also fantastic to have so much space in a hotel room.

Our plan for Berlin was to explore a mixture of the famous sights and take in a few of the famous (amongst vegans anyway) eateries too. Our first trip was to Kreuzberg an area in the south east of Berlin's centre which is apparently Berlin's answer to Brighton's North Laine, or London's Camden. Certainly the areas we explored seemed to have the requisite number of dreadlocked, tattooed and pierced individuals to suggest this is an accurate label. The whole area had a very laid back and scruffy feel to it, and also allowed me to experience my first ever vegan doner kebab. Yes, a voner kebab. Like so much fast food, it was amazing at the time, but not something you'd be able to eat too often!

Later in the evening we headed out to walk alongside the East Side Gallery on our way to dinner. This is a section of the Berlin Wall that remains standing and is now something of a tourist trap. Despite it having been repainted with peace murals, and therefore considerably more colourful & less unfriendly than it was when heavily guarded, it was still a pretty stark experience. It would be too much to say it offered an insight into what living in a divided city would be like, but certainly with the River Spree running just behind it & the views across to the other side it was possible to see just how artificial, strange and repressive it would have been. It's interesting to note that almost all of Jojo's and my time in Berlin was spent to the east of where the wall once stood.

We ate dinner at a place called Yellow Sunshine. Vegan fast food of a different nature - burgers, not kebabs this time. In my naivety of having never visited Germany before, I was surprised by how (in Berlin at least) it shares "cafe culture" with other places I've been in Europe, mainly the Mediterranean or Paris. Every street had a number of cafes with people occupying the tables and chairs outside sitting, chatting in groups, and in a huge range of different languages. Some were drinking alcohol, some coffee, some water but it was all very civilised and relaxed. It made me wonder what a Berliner visiting London or Brighton would make of some of our nightlife with it's rowdiness and vomiting! And where in the UK could you get ice cream after midnight?! Yummy.

We got back to the hotel late, and shattered. I barely had time to enjoy swinging a cat in all our new found van-free space before going to sleep.