Today was a day to learn all about Berlin history, geography, and culture. We started the day with a visit to the Reichstag Building, home of the German Bundestag. This government building has a huge glass dome with spiraling ramps that allow visitors to get a 360º view of Berlin while listening to a very informative audio tour.

Inside the dome is a column of mirrors that shift to regulate the natural light that illuminates the plenary chamber of the Bundestag below. The views are magnificent, and probably even nicer when the sun shines. At the base of the dome is a historical timeline exhibit showing the history of the building.

From there we set out to see what is left of the Berlin Wall. We made our way to the Berlin Wall Memorial which is another place that would be better visited in summer. It’s an outdoor exhibit and recent snow and ice made walking treacherous. Even so, we were able to view parts of it and get a sense of the scope of the wall.

We then walked to the East Side Gallery, a collection of murals on the longest surviving section of the wall. This section is almost a mile long and contains 105 paintings from artists all over the world. The most famous is My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love by Dmitri Vrubel. We know it’s the most famous because there was a big crowd in front of it. I got my photo of it from across the street.

Our next stop was Alexanderplatz, where we found the iconic World Clock and, of course, another Christmas Market.

We then hopped on another train to go to Museum Island. At the Humboldt Forum, we toured the Berlin Global exhibition, a presentation that explores Berlin’s connection to the world while asking us to think about our own communities and reflect on our values. If we ever come back to Berlin, I hope we find time to explore the other museums here.

At about this time as we were headed back to our hotel for dinner, we learned that German transportation workers were planning a strike which would disrupt train service in Berlin, Sure enough, we got on one S-Bahn train that stopped before our destination, and we had to get off and find another way to go. By evening, most S-Bahn trains were not running, but that did not deter us from attending our evening event.

The reason for our trip to Berlin was primarily to hear the Berlin Philharmonic. We traveled to Chicago last year to hear them, but we really wanted to experience this fabulous orchestra in their own hall. It is a visually and acoustically beautiful performance space. The highlight of the program was Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and it was exquisite.

The trip back to our hotel turned out to be a 20 minute walk because the train we intended to take sat idle in the station due to the aforementioned strike. Tomorrow we fly home, but we’ll have to find another way to the airport because the strike will continue until tomorrow night. It‘s good to have a Plan B, I always say.