Happy Pfingstmontag!

Apparently Pfingstmontag is a minor Christian holiday in Germany, known also as Whitsunday.  We discovered that this meant no school, no banks open, and no shopping!  We spent our last full day in Berlin retracing our steps to see more.  Our first stop was to return to Potsdamer Platz, a formerly desolated area of East Berlin that has been turned into a major public and corporate center.

The Sony Center, with a top that mimics Mt. Fuji

There is a nice display of slabs of the Berlin Wall here

The small building is one of the few still standing from WWII

A replica of the first stoplight in Continental Europe.

We then made our way back to the Berlin Wall Memorial and the Topography of Terror Museum, a free indoor/outdoor display of the history of the Nazi Regime from 1933-1945...well done but chilling.

From here we hustled back to the Reichstag for our appointed Dome Tour time.  The Reichstag building houses the German Parliament, or Bundestag.  The Dome on top of the building is open without charge for visitors and provides wonderful views of the city along with an audio history lesson.

After all this heavy learning, it was time for a lunch break along the Spree River.  Judy wisely stuck to tomato soup while Helen went for sausage and sauerkraut--authentic, you know.

BTW, the pink pipes are above-ground sewer lines, supposed to be temporary, painted pink to be calming!

We made our way across town in hopes of checking out the KaDeWe, the largest department store in Continental Europe, with 380,000 articles, including 1800 types of cheese!  Unfortunately, today was a religious holiday in Germany and banks and stores are closed (imagine that!).  That, along with not finding peach kuchen like Judy's grandmother used to make, was our greatest disappointment.   We rallied, though, and returned "home" for one more meal at our local restaurant.

Our neighborhood and apartment in Berlin:

We have really enjoyed being here.  Tomorrow, we take the train back to Prague, and will leave from there for home Wednesday morning.  Happy Memorial Day, everyone!