Berlin

On Sunday, we took the train from Munich to Berlin.  It was a long trip, but not a bad one.  It was 6 hours, and the train was crowded, so I was glad we had made reservations. 

On Monday we had intended to go to Dresden, but that train was late, so we jumped on one going to Wittenberg.  We walked around the town and saw the church where Martin Luther nailed up his theses and some other related sights.  That afternoon we went to Leipzig and walked around there.  It was a lot more bleak-looking than the cities in the rest of Germany.  Maybe it's because the weather wasn't great, but it had a lot more of the industrial, grey, East Germany feel to it. 

On Tuesday we went to Dresden.  I thought it was a really beautiful city, with a large palace complex and several ornate churches.  The work was very impressive, especially considering it was all rebuilt after World War Two.  We went to the Christmas Market there and bought a loaf of Stollen, which is a kind of sweet bread with raisens and marzipan that is a Dresden specialty. 

Today we stayed in Berlin and toured the city.  We did one of those Hop on, Hop off bus tours, so we got a tour of the sights without having to walk too much in the cold and snow.  We went to the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, part of the Berlin Wall, and to a lot of the churches and museums in the area.  Tonight I think we are going to go out to a Christmas Market for dinner, but then we are getting in early.  Our train tomorrow leaves before 7:30.  All of the other trains before 10:30 am were completely booked! Our trip to Frankfurt tomorrow should take about 4 hours, if all goes well.  That will give us some time in the afternoon to get ready before our flight Friday morning!  It's hard to believe that I will be home in just a few days!