We got up in Leipzig after sleeping in somewhat. I heard it rain all night, sometimes quite hard. When we got up about 8:00 and headed downstairs to breakfast it was done raining. The breakfast buffet at the Best Western Leipzig was really nice. There were lots of options to choose from and the staff was very friendly.
We decided not to go into town and headed to the station to catch the train to Berlin. That was easy. We had to wait just minutes before it arrived and we could board. The train travelled at speeds of up to 220 kph. Arriving in Berlin a little after noon, we navigated the central train station and found a S-line train to near our hotel.
We are staying two nights at the Hotel am Steinplatz – a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel. It is very nice. We have a view of the center garden. The only problem I have had with all the hotels rooms on this trip is that the beds offer a heavy comforter and a pillow, no sheet or blanket. We have both been very warm at night.
We dropped our stuff off in the room and headed out with the intention of taking the Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour of the city. That didn’t work. We walked to the place where we were to meet the bus and purchase the tickets, but the man there said he was told not to sell tickets after 3:00 pm. There was “30,000 things going on” and the tour couldn’t go the regular route. He told us to come back tomorrow.
We decided to walk past the Wilhem Kaiser Church and on to the Tiergarten. We walked along the garden and ended up the Kultural Forum. There are several museums on this campus. We wanted to see the old masters’ painting and went into the Gemaldegalerie. There was a long line to purchase tickets. This was due to the special Botticelli exhibit. We chose not to see that exhibit as it cost extra and were not that interested in it. Because of the special exhibit, they had the center of the space reserved. This required the viewer to go through the whole permanent exhibit then back track and see it all again to get out. Not a very good layout. The lighting in there also wasn’t very good for the very large paintings. Quite a lot of light was reflecting off the paintings making it hard to see some of the details. Overall a good collection of works and worth the time. We chose to purchase the Museum Pass that would let us see the Musical Instrument Museum as well. That museum, however, closed at 5:00 – unlike the others that close at 6:00pm. This was disappointing. We decided to see that tomorrow.
We continued to walk down the side of Tiergarten and then crossed a path into the park. This part is very large. The Brandenburg Gate is at the east end of the park. As we walked we began to hear cheering and a voice over a loudspeaker. There was a rally going on near the gate. We couldn’t tell what it was about, but overall it seemed peaceful. We wandered around there for a bit and decided to take the S train back to the hotel area. There was a restaurant that we had passed earlier and we went there for dinner. It featured traditional German food. It was very good. We each got something different and then shared them. After dinner we walked back to the hotel to rest up.
Tonight we had planned to go to a jazz club. There were four to chose from and we ended up walking to the A-Trane Jazz Club. What we didn’t know was that the Berlin Jazz Festival was going on. We got there only to learn that the first was sold out. We waited around a bit just in case there were some no-shows for the tickets. While waiting we met two young women and a young man. They were each there on their own and didn’t have tickets either. Once the 9:30 pm show started without any of us getting in, we all walked across the street to a cafe/bar owned by the same people that owned the A-Trane. Ollec, Grodal, and Andrea were great fun. Ollec is from Russia, Grodal from Tunisia and Andrea from Germany. That we all met at a jazz club in Berlin was very cool. We had a beer and talked while waiting to see if we could get into the next show that night. By the time we went to check back it was getting closer to 10:30 pm. Tim and I decided to pass and said goodbye to our new friends. I hope they got into the show.