A girls trip to Berlin

So a few weeks ago I had, for once, a non work related trip somewhere! My friend Laura and I went  away for a few days, for our little annual girls trip. This year we decided to head to Berlin, as we just wanted a cheap getaway that wasn't far & we'd both heard good things about this city. It still feels weird to get on a plane & only be on it for an hour or so, but it's great & I love that we have Europe right on our doorstep!

Walking through the Jewish Memorial Installation

We were up at a hideous time so arrived into Berlin fairly early in the morning. We just hopped on the TXL bus that took us into Berlin's centre of Alexanderplatz, which was really easy and only took about 25

Part of the Berlin wall

minutes from Tegel airport. We stayed in a hostel that an Australian guy, who me and another friend had met in Portugal in August, had recommended to us (random right!). The hostel was called One80 and location wise was perfect as just a stones throw from the centre with lots of tram stops & a main station there too. The hostel itself was really clean & modern with a pretty big bar area that seemed to always get busy downstairs. One word of warning, make sure you book a room with an ensuite bathroom, unless you're ok with the idea of an open plan style communal shower block. No joke, I walked in, saw that all the showers were open to each other, i.e. you & your new friends get to see each other naked & walked straight back out... It was a no from me! The girls on the desk downstairs were really good though and moved us straight away.  Unintentionally, we managed to time our arrival with the free walking tour they were running, so whilst we had to wait to check in we thought we'd join on. This ended up being a perfect start to our trip as gave us an overall look at everything & bearings on all the main sights.

Part of Museum Island 

There's so much history in this city; we saw the Berlin Wall, Museum island, the Reichstag, the Jewish memorial & Brandenburg Gate to name a few things. The weather was on & off chucking it down, which I think made the tour longer, so ended up being 5 hours of walking! To say it was extensive is an understatement, but I would still definitely say to get involved.

After freshening up at the hostel & getting some dinner tips from the staff, we went round the corner to Hofbraeu for a proper old school German style dining experience. Think huge tables that you share with randoms, giant steins of beer & the biggest sausages you've ever seen! I haven't been to Oktoberfest, but seen photo's & it was just like that! We got 2 different meals & shared, a currywurst with the tastiest sauce & a huge pork knuckle with the most tender meat and crispy crackling I've ever had! There's a band there playing all sorts that creates a great atmosphere,with plenty of people getting up to dance off all that meat & beer. To feel like a proper German experience you've got to make sure you have a meal here! Even though the Israeli guys, who we shared a table with, were trying to convince us to go out, having walked the length of Berlin & such an early start, we decided to call it a night & full of beer and meat waddled home.

House of Small Wonder brunch

Happiness with food!

Breakfast at Common Ground

Dinner at Hofbrau

Our second day we had a good lie in & a lazy start. We caught the train from Alexanderplatz to the other side of the river to have brunch in a cute & quirky little cafe called House of Small Wonder.

When you enter all you see is a white winding staircase surrounded by plants & nik naks. Then once you've wound you way up you're greeted with a little seating area, with a very vintage feel inside. The menu is presented in an old book and your drinks come in adorable mis-matched china cups. The food was delicious and very generous on portions too. Even if you just went there to get your instagram photo, you'd leave happy & full with anything from the menu!

House of small wonder

View from the Samsung building

After filling up here, we walked back along the river & had planned to go into the Reichstag. This is where parliament is held & inside is a huge glass dome that comes out from the roof that you can walk around & get great views from. You have to book yourselves in at a time slot & we didn't really plan ahead enough & it was fully booked. The next days times were too late as we would be leaving so sadly we weren't able to go in. So we carried on wandering & ended up at Museum island, which isn't an island at all, just an area in the city where most of the museums are collected together & well worth a visit. Just opposite is a strange, hopefully temporary building (as its ugly and ruins the area) by Samsung, that you can go up to the cafe at the top & have some great views of the beautiful buildings below. Afterwards, we hired bikes from here and cycled around taking everything in. We spent a lot of our day at the berlin wall reading all about what happened there and its history. In the evening we were so up for going on a big night out, but after traipsing around for ages, we gave up as it was a Tuesday night & clearly not a lot going on so that was a shame.

After not the best nights sleep, thanks to some gross weird men that had joined us in the hostel room we checked out. As we are ladies that brunch, we did it again! This time we walked round to a place called Common Ground, which again was a really cool venue, very hipster style. The food was so, so good as well. I had poached eggs with chorizo & avocado on sourdough bread & my friend had similar but with avocado, feta & bacon. The rest of the last day, we went on some more advice & went down to the East Side Gallery area of the Berlin wall. This is where you find all the street art that adorns a large section of the wall that still remains. It goes on for quite a while and some of it is so impressive. We cycled around some last few spots to get our last fill on cakes & coffee as well as our souvenirs! We had planned to grab some food and one last beer in the temporary Oktoberfest village that had been set up in Alexanderplatz, but ended up getting carried away in the shops and had no time left! So new clothes in tow, we had to all too quickly head back to the airport. Berlin had been a brilliant couple of days, full of history, beer and amazing food. I can't recommend it enough for a quick europe getaway!

Next stop... Cuba!

Some of Berlin's wall art