Berlin, part I - Charlottenburg Palace and the Gedächtniskirche

As mentioned earlier, I caught a terrific cold in Wroclaw which manifested itself with a vengeance the moment I set foot in Berlin. It might have been the vodka. It might have been the fact that I slept for less than 2 hours the previous night. Or my monthly cycle. Probably a combination of all of them. The fact is, those two days in Berlin were hell - I hadn't caught cold, not even once, during my entire year in England, but more than made up for that during the latter half of my journey. Getting incredibly sick is the very worst thing that can happen when you're travelling. Even looking at these pictures reminds me of how well and truly miserable I was. Alternating between blowing my nose so much it almost fell off, my swollen tonsils, terrifically sore throat, blocked nose, and the fact that I was hardly able to sleep properly for at least a week because of above symptoms, especially the two nights in Berlin - ARGH. Abject and utter misery.

Managed to cover all the things I wanted to see, nonetheless. I arrived in Berlin around midday, took the metro to Alexanderplatz where my hostel was, left my backpack there and went off to the Charlottenburg Palace. This hostel does NOT provide free WiFi - you have to pay 1 euro for a 24 hour access. First and last hostel I've encountered that does this.

Anyway, a huge model of Ritter chocolates in the Berlin Hbf.

It's everywhere.

Alexanderplatz station. I wish I'd been healthy enough at the time to appreciate this, since I usually like big and flashy train stations.

Anyhoo, the metro station for Charlottenburg Palace, which was called...wait for it...Charlottenburg.

Since I had a 48 hour pass, I opted to take the bus from the metro station, which was 2 stops. The weather was frightfully hot and I had a huge headache from my cold, so I'm not apologising for being lazy.

Some fancy building opposite the Charlottenburg Palace.

Approaching the Charlottenburg Palace - which was a carbon clone of Vienna's Schonnbrunn. I wish I'd just picked one of them to go with, since from the outside at least (I didn't go in either one of them) they're almost identical.

I did like the sculptures of the men with discs, though, the "guardians of the palace." I tried googling to see who they were - they reminded me of Perseus, or even Apollo - but all I could find was "warrior statues at the Charlottenburg Palace." Very helpful!

Friedrich Wilhelm I, the Elector of Brandenburg.

The Elector from a wee distance.

Ground plans for the Schloss.

Part of the Schloss' extensive grounds.

Since I had a bit of time left (loads, actually) I went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, or the Gedächtniskirche. It was a VERY prominent landmark - I could see it from the overground metro.

It's kind of situated at a traffic junction though, so it was really quite hard to get a halfway decent picture.