
The Berlin Wall - Warschauer Strasse
Our first stop was Warschauer Strasse. Jason has been to Berlin before so he was keen for us to visit one of his favourite places on the first day. The area was really cool, there was graffiti artwork everywhere you looked and it had a really chilled and relaxed atmosphere.
One of the main attractions in this area it the East Side Gallery. It is a section of the Berlin Wall which has been turned into a piece of artwork with different murals by numerous artists across it. I was honestly expecting it to be huge so I was really surprised by how slim and inoffensive it seemed, especially considering less than 30 years ago it represented something in such contrast to this.
We took a walk to find some food and discovered a quirky little area where there was a mixture of street food and little shack/mobile/pop up restaurants things...We ate at a vegetarian Mexican restaurant where I had a burrito which was lovely and Jason had a quesadilla, which was disappointing. Win some you lose some! We also indulged in our first German beer of the visit, which even I thought was yummy and I don't particularly like beer.
What I also liked about this area is that it felt very arty. There was again, graffiti everywhere but there were also artists dotted around sitting in the evening sunshine sketching the buildings. The architecture was pretty amazing so I can understand why artists would be attracted to the area, lots of dilapidated buildings and beautiful houses hidden away. Just as long as you avoid the drug dealers, this area is pretty nice! ;)


Schwarzlicht Minigolf
We decided to check out an underground crazy golf venue that we had heard about through friends. The golf is under a cafe/bar in a huge, lively(!) park. It was relatively easy to find if you go into the park, however we got confused and walked around the outskirts for about 15 minutes until we realised this! Damn not having wifi, can't live without google maps! That won't be a walk we will forget in a hurry...
The golf itself was a generally a really fun experience and unlike anything we had done before. The course was split into different rooms which were decorated with different themes and layouts. It was pretty awesome. It cost about 13 euros for us both to play so pretty cheap and it was a fun way to spend our evening.
HOWEVER, now this is a big however! This area was the only place in Berlin that we didn't feel particularly safe in. There were gangs everywhere and the park seemed really dodgy so walking through it wasn't the nicest experience! Also, from the moment we got off the train we were offered drugs a number of times! Now this might be because we look young and potentially like druggies?!? WHO KNOWS. But yeah, if I'm honest, I don't think this is an essential outing when you visit Berlin. If we had done more research on the place, I think we probably would have given it a miss. Be that as it may, It must be very popular as it got quite busy whilst we were there. So if you have some spare time and your not really bothered by the area, it's a good laugh but I would 100% recommend you go in the daytime.



So that's day 1! After this we went back to our apartment and did some serious planning for the next day. Luckily, our apartment had wifi which meant that we could do some serious google mapping of the places we intended to visit so that we wouldn't end up getting lost again.
Pop back for day 2!
Much love,
Katie x