BERLIN A BUSY DAY

Berlin not only attracts tourists with its temples, palaces, and beautiful scenery, but it can also evoke deep emotions with Germany’s recent painful history, of which this city is a witness.

The bus stop is right in front of the apartment. From there, you can reach a metro station, wait for a minute or two, and then hop on the train to get to the center of Berlin. There, it’s convenient to go anywhere. For tourists, in the city center, there is bus line number 100 that passes through all the tourist attractions in Berlin, making a loop and returning to the starting point. Just get on and off, as long as you show the ticket you bought at the start. Two other routes, numbers 200 and 300, are the same.

Of course, you have to research beforehand. Otherwise, there are the real “Hop-on Hop-off” buses, convenient, no need to explore or think about anything; they only run through those tourist spots. But the tickets are much more expensive – from 19 euros to 30 euros for a round trip, valid for 24 hours.

Earlier, we traveled from Liège to Berlin, a distance of nearly 580 km. Both by fast train and slow train, it took the whole time.
about seven hours. Then we arrived at an apartment we had previously rented through Airbnb on Wiesbadener Street, located in a suburb of Berlin.

In this area, there are all the essentials for living that are quite similar to being at home – that’s what “home away from home” means. You can cook for yourself. My wife doesn’t eat Western food; she has to have Vietnamese rice, at least one meal a day.
Right next to the apartment, across the street, there is a large supermarket selling rice, fish, meat, vegetables, sauces, and Asian-style spices. So it’s really easy to live here, and you save a lot of money.

We stayed there for four days, spending only 10 euros a day on food; of course, not counting the 50 euros per day already paid for the apartment rental, and the various transportation costs, around 8-10 euros a day. Again, we had the freedom of not having to stay up late or wake up early to keep up with the schedules of tour groups, which sometimes we had to do.

It’s also very relaxing with the bus and subway, without having to rush to catch the tour bus as if you were afraid of being late…

We boarded a double-decker bus on line 100, not stopping at any intermediate stations, but going straight to the Brandenburg Gate. Route number 100 usually uses double-decker buses; going upstairs, you can see both sides of the streets in the central and surrounding areas of Berlin. Anyone who is lazy can just sit there and watch. This bus line, established immediately after the reunification of Germany, was the first to connect East and West Berlin.

In the past,

was a gate for entering and exiting the city among many gates into Berlin, standing 26 meters tall, 65.5 meters wide, and 11 meters deep. With time, through a past of division and then reunification, it has come to be seen as a significant symbol of a united Germany today.

Not grandiose at all, the only remaining city gate of Berlin took three years (from 1788 to 1791) to build. Perched atop the gate is the statue of the Goddess of Victory, Victoria, with a chariot drawn by four horses made of bronze – which was restored along with the entire gate after the reunification of Germany. But when King Friedrich Wilhelm II ordered the construction of this triumphal arch, it was meant to showcase a symbol of peace. Victory is also to maintain peace?

When we arrived here, we saw many tourists admiring and posing for photos in front of the gate. Who visits Berlin without stopping to admire that gate, which carries such a heavy historical burden?