2014 Poland, Austria, Germany Tour: DAY 22 - FRI 10/10 - POTSDAMER PLATZ, TIERGARTEN, HARLINGS REDUX

Today our sightseeing will be shorter because Heidi and Frank Harling, our friends with whom we stayed in Aachen on our first stop, will be arriving around 4pm for the weekend to hang out with us in Berlin...we are so excited!

So Marty suggested we do some light sightseeing today, before they arrive this afternoon, and go to Potsdamer Platz, where the new Sony Center is located, with lots of history, shops, cafes, etc., and now a happening, go-to place.

Potsdamer Platz is one of the largest crossroads in Berlin. Its name comes from the fact that that's where the road from Potsdam entered Berlin. As was the case with most of central Berlin, almost all the buildings around Potsdamer Platz were turned to rubble by Allied air raids and heavy artillery bombardment during the last years of WWII. When the city was divided into sectors by the occupying Allied and Russian forces at the end of the war, the square found itself on the boundary between the American, British, and Soviet sectors. Despite all the devastation, commercial life reappeared in the ruins around Potsdamer Platz within just a few weeks of the war's end.

With the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, Potsdamer Platz now found itself physically divided in two. What had once been a busy intersection now became desolate. During the 28 years in limbo this Platz had a strange fascination for people on the western side, both tourists as well as politicians. Many visited here including JFK, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush.

After 1990 the square became the focus of attention again as a large attractive area ripe for development, one of the hottest and most exciting building sites in Europe, giving Berlin the opportunity to establish itself on the world stage. And so multi-faceted building development began. Now more than 100,000 people per day visit this square to experience the unique blend of art, entertainment, shopping, and cosmopolitan flair - and ultimately feel a touch of history. Potsdamer Platz is now a major business and commercial center including the amazing Sony Center building.

Here are some scenes in and around this huge new complex...it just goes on forever...with one new modern building after another. Inside there are offices, as well as apartment complexes. We could have rented one of those...it looked pretty interesting...but when I saw photos of the local atmosphere, I sensed it wasn't warm, charming, and inviting, our style of accommodations, so we decided against it...I know we made the right decision, for us.

In and around the outside there are a multitude of areas in which to hang out, chill, and get sustenance of any kind and quality.

Because of the history of Potsdamer Platz, there are still lots of remnants of the Wall, and lots of commentary around the area to read. Like I may have mentioned before, the Wall is so mystifying that you can never get enough of it. Here are some scenes of that.

Tourists crowd around these remains of the Wall, and these Russians take advantage of that fact by setting up the age-old three-card-Monte scam with boxes. Their shills were all around, including some 'innocent-looking' women, but all always on the lookout for the cops. And all of a sudden they all dispersed, and sure enough a police van showed up, but they had already left the scene.

In addition there is an additional huge high-end shopping mall inside one of the immense buildings, which we browsed in as well. Throughout the ground floor there is more information on the Wall history that took place in this area.

At the entrance to the mall is a replica of what the wall looked like on the Western side.

Then as you walk through that opening and turn around, you see what it looked like on the Eastern side.

Inside the mall one of the exhibitions showed the crude way the Wall was thrown together.

We finally left the Sony Center area and wandered over to Tiergarten nearby, Berlin's largest city park. It is quite lovely, but very simply designed as a green space for the locals. We walked a short distance into the beginning of the park, so we didn't see any important monuments, elegant palaces and lakes, like other major city parks have...we just didn't have time to walk the whole park, which we're sure is magnificent.

Then we came upon some rock formations and we couldn't figure out what it was.

As we got closer, there was an explanation. These rocks are part of the Global Stone Project. It goes on to explain that there are a total of ten stones, five of which are placed in the five continents of their origin. The other five stones are placed in a circle right here in the middle of Berlin. Once a year on June 21st, the light of the sun connects all ten stones by reflecting the light beams. It represents a global awareness of peace and of a united mankind.

OK, you just have to have faith and believe in this story. In any case, children love to play on the rocks any time of the year.

It's a very peaceful environment throughout the park, and Berliners and visitors love to stroll here.

Then it was time to go home and get ready to welcome the Harlings to our Berlin flat. It was so good to see them again, and we were chatting about some ideas of what we would do together while they were here for the long weekend. Whenever we're together we always find fun things to do. And we were also hoping that, living in Germany, they would help us navigate the city better, as well as have some interesting off the beaten tracks activities to do, and they did. It's always good to have someone 'on the ground,' as they say.

We schmoozed for a while before going down to a cafe outside for a little aperitif before dinner.

They loved our flat.

We were going to Lutter and Wegner tonight, an old and old-world restaurant, founded in 1827, serving classic Austrian and German dishes. It is also one of the most famous makers of German sparkling wine.