Tuesday, July 22 - 11:59 a.m.
As with every port during this cruise, we made arrangements on our own to see the city. In this case, we booked a tour with A Friend in Berlin, operated by a woman named Jo who used to live in the U.S., but moved back to Germany several years ago.
Unlike those taking tours through the ship, who had to endure a 3-hour train ride each way from Warnemunde to Berlin on a train that wasn't air conditioned, we had a lovely mini-bus that seats 20 to carry the 14 of us (we invited people from Cruise Critic to join the tour). The bus picked us up at the ship and then drove us into Berlin, stopping at the Charlottenburg Castle where Jo joined us (no sense in her driving all the way out to the port just to ride back into the city with us).
From the Castle, we drove on to the Berlin Olympic Stadium - a beautiful, massive complex. 
We continued on to the Memorial Church, which had been largely destroyed during World War II, but was simply too beautiful to demolish its remains. 
This used to adorn the ceiling of the church, but was carefully restored and placed on one of the walls. 
We continued on to a tower building where we rode to the 20th floor and got a great aerial view of the entire city. 
If you could see the large version of this photo, you'd be able to notice that the people at the rooftop pool were naked. Just about everywhere you go in Berlin, you'll find naked people sunbathing. Europeans are far less modest, and nudity is natural to them. They actually get rather amused at how uptight we Americans are about our skin. 
The parliament building in Berlin 
We took our group photo in front of that same building. 
Walking through the Brandenburg Gate, we found that despite thinking we'd left Molly at home with friends, she'd really followed us to Germany. 
Our next stop was the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, a large city block filled with concrete blocks aimed to memorialize those killed, as well as to give visitors a sense of unease. 
Moving on to the former Berlin Wall... The wall is marked throughout Berlin by a line where it used to exist. A small section of the wall remains just outside the former SS Headquarters known as the Topography of Terror. 
As our tour had come to an end, we rode back on the bus to the port. Just outside the ship was a small shop, and outside that shop lived a unique pink cow. We couldn't help but take pictures with the cow. 
And finally, waiting for us in our room was tonight's Towel Princess. 
When it was time to leave port, the ship set sail as the entire town of Warnemunde turned out to bid us farewell. Fireworks (you can only see a bottle rocket in the picture, but giant fireworks were also used) were launched from the adjoining docks, tug boats danced in the water around us, and residents cheered and played music to send this magnificent ship on her way. In all of my cruises, I'd never seen anything so warm as the send-off we received from this town. 
1 comment:
you guys didn't drink any of the BEER!? what kind of tourists are you!?
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