Day 4 - old cars, sheltering in bars

We woke to the sound of rain. The forecast for today was not the best. Six degrees and rain all day. We had a Trabi Safari booked for 11:30 - more on that later.

We headed off in the direction of Checkpoint Charlie but carried on the walk further out of town, to a more residential area. We found a lovely little coffee shop that made delicious sounding breakfasts. It was full of young people and young families and we squeezed into two seats at a bar style area. We both had gorgeous scrambled eggs on toast and a vat of coffee and watched the shoppers of Lidl go about their business across an alleyway to the side.

The rain was really coming down now and we walked 20 minutes towards Trabi World. The Trabant Car was manufactured by the East Germans from 1949. In German, Trabant means “companion”. They are a small car, very basic - almost like an Hillman Imp. In true communist style, they were the only car made and available to East Germans.

After signing up to a waiting list, East Germans sometimes had to wait up to ten years until they received their car. Some citizens would even sign up their new-born on the waiting list, to get the car when the child was old enough to drive.

The small Trabant played a major role in the lives of East Germans, especially after the wall was put up. Many tried to escape to the West in their Trabant.

The Trabi museum is a little like a car lot. A muddy area with rows of the cute little cars. We had a quick safety briefing and a lesson in how to drive the stick shift car and we were given our car to drive around Berlin in a guided convoy of seven. The car radio picked up the instructions from the guide and he pointed out sights along the two hour route.

After a short amount of time given what we were about to undertake, we all pulled away on to the roads of Berlin. The rain was really heavy and the tiny little windscreen wipers were trying their best.

Given that this was a car from the 1970s, windscreen wipers were about as hi-tec as it gets, so we kept steaming up. That meant me lowering my window a lot, which also meant getting wet and breathing in the fumes from our car and the others. I had quite the headache at the end. Poor Andrew, always the driver! Trying to stay in a convoy, in an old car, in traffic was not easy, but the guide was excellent at keeping us all together. He pointed out lots of areas we would never have seen.

Two and a bit hours later and we rolled with relief back into the car lot (sorry, museum). We even got a little driving licence each!

Now very very cold and very wet, and the weather being particularly bad, we decided to dip into somewhere to warm up. We found a place called Maximilian. A huge bar/restaurant where the waiters all wore lederhosen! We ordered two beers, Andrew ordered meatloaf and dumplings and I had a bowl of mashed potatoes and gherkins. We stayed for another beer (all for the sake of warming up) and I had a very green beer that had woodruff in it. Tasted like body lotion a little but nice all the same!

We were now nice and warm and it was tough going back into the rain. We walked to the Reichstag (the German parliament) in the hope of getting a ticket up to the glass dome, but we were too late, so set off back to the hotel.

We walked past the holocaust memorial again and seeing only a small queue for the museum we decided to go in. It is under the memorial we saw on our first day. It has free entry, as do all of the museums or exhibitions dedicated to the education around the holocaust. I think that’s good of Germany, to ensure that the information to educate people is accessible. They are very keen to keep reminders of the country’s horrific past to reduce the likelihood of anything like that happening again.

As expected it was a sad and hard hitting exhibition. It’s just so hard to read about and see pictures of the murdered. We spent a quiet, reflective hour there and then the museum closed so we left.

A quick shower and we were off to dinner. We had passed a restaurant every day and night that is next to our hotel called Berta. It’s an Israeli restaurant and looked so inviting. We managed to book a table yesterday for tonight, and at 7pm it was already packed! We sat up at the bar and where our dedicated waiter asked us what kind of foods we enjoyed and recommended the dishes and kept topping up our sparkling water. We started with kubaneh which Is a fluffy bread and came with a range of gorgeous dips (which I now don’t know the names of). We then shared aubergine tartar which was wonderful. Gently smoked and so tasty. Then Andrew had chicken liver in wanton style parcels and I had risotto with crispy lentils. I’ve never had food so delicious! We finished with a chocolate mousse. What a treat to end the holiday.