My hotel room at
Pension Peters – Das andere Hotel a renovated 19th century apartment house on the west side of Berlin. Nice sized room with a balcony but my private bathroom was down the hall. Loved the room and the location but it was a challenge come the middle of the night when I needed to make that quick bathroom run. (April 25, 2016)

The remnants of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Originally built in the 1890s, it was damaged during the 1943 bombings. April 25, 2016

A close up of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church clock. April 25, 2016

I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated by these street lights, but I am. They have a history all their own in Berlin…Ampelmännchen…as being one of the few features of communism to survive unscathed. This sign obviously means stop. April 25, 2016

And, this Ampelmännchen means go. April 25, 2016

Since I didn’t get any sleep on the airplane and I needed to keep moving, hydrated and fed, I thought stopping in at this quaint little Italian restaurant down the street from the hotel would be a wise choice to end my day. How could I go wrong with a name like Mamma Monti? Sometimes the language barrier is just that, a barrier to the Italian I’m familiar with and the Italian on a German menu. Since I couldn’t read the menu, I didn’t find out until I was seated in a nice cozy corner that this is vegan Italian. Goodbye meatballs! Hello salad! April 25, 2016

At the end of the Museo Della Sbarco in Catania, Sicily, was a memorial to all the fallen shoulders, some 14,864. The photo shows the British cemetery in Catania. April 25, 2017

The Berlin Cathedral called the Berliner Dom may look very old but it was actually completed in 1905 to look old and as the Protestant counterpart to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. April 26, 2016

Originally built around 1818 as a guard house, this Greek looking temple is now a memorial to war victims and is called the Neue Wache, the New Guardhouse. April 26, 2016

Inside the middle of the New Guardhouse is this incredible statue called the “Mother with her Dead Son.” The original small statue was designed in 1938 by Käthe Kollwitz – who lost her youngest son in the First World War – as a sort of pietà. The statue in the Neue Wache is a copy created in 1993 by Harald Haacke who made his version much larger. April 26, 2016

This glass plate at Bebelplatz is a memorial by Micha Ullman that’s been placed into the cobble stone street and gives a view of empty bookcases…which epitomizes the lost knowledge and literature while being big enough to hold the 20,000 books burned. April 26, 2016

The adorable street light and beloved symbol of Eastern Germany, called the Ampelmännchen, has a souvenir store of his very own. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen acquired cult status and has become a popular souvenir item for tourists…like me. April 26, 2016

Humbolt University is part of a large square called Bebelplatz, the scene of the infamous Nazi book burning campaign in 1933. April 26, 2016

The very famous Brandenburg Tor or Gate was originally the main entrance and part of a wall surrounding Berlin. It opened in 1871 and was built as a sign of peace. April 26, 2016

A close up of what is called the Quadriga, a chariot with four horses and what used to be the goddess of peace, Eirene. However, in 1806 when Berlin was occupied by French troops, Napoleon ordered the Quadriga to be taken to Paris. After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the Quadriga was triumphantly brought back to Berlin, and was turned into a symbol of victory instead of peace. An iron cross and eagle were added to the laurel wreath. April 26, 2016

This is all that is left of what use to be Hitler’s underground bunker. It is now a parking lot. Also, above ground were the Reich Chancellery buildings which were leveled by the Soviets in 1945 after Hitler’s suicide. April 26, 2016

Bundled up from the wind, I’m at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. It is a tribute to the Jews that died before and during World War II as part of Hitler’s extermination plan. This memorial is made up of 2,711 concrete slabs of different heights that bear no markings. I’m not sure any memorial can possibly grasp the magnitude of the suffering Hitler inflicted on so many people in his efforts towards annihilation, but I can say the coldness of these slabs made me feel even colder. I have no idea what the memorial’s creator intended, but the coldness in which so many lives were cut short so needlessly is what I saw and felt at this memorial. April 26, 2016

The colorful mural to the back is the 1950 German Democratic Republic mural created by German painter and commercial artist Max Lingner with 14 other artists. It depicts the Socialist ideal of contented East Germans facing a bright future as one big happy family. While the green photo in the foreground is of young people striking at what was called the “Uprising of 1953 in Easter Germany.” The estimate of people killed in the uprising is in the hundreds and many more were arrested. April 26, 2016