On our final morning in Berlin, I decided it was high time we visited a place we’d missed out on, on our previous trip – Charlottenburg Palace; and also to finally explore inside the Berlin Cathedral.
A quick taxi ride later – we arrived at the Palace – only to find that as it was a Monday, the palace was closed! I can’t believe I didn’t even think to check if it would be open or not – I just assumed it would be, it’s a Monday after all. (Oh, and there was scaffolding all over the usually beautiful Palace facade).
Thankfully, the grounds around Charlottenburg Palace were still open and, refusing to be disappointed, we decided to make the most of it by exploring the Palace grounds.
To be fair, the Palace grounds are part of the reason to visit Charlottenburg Palace, especially in summer when everything is lush and green.
After a brief while strolling around the Palace grounds, we decided to call it quits and head off into town to meet with friends at the Gendarmenmarkt Christmas Market, swinging by the Brandenburg Gate as we zoomed through the city.
With the temperature plummeting, steaming cups of gluhwein were the order of the day… with a dash of Amaretto to make things interesting. 🙂 (First time I’ve ever tried Amaretto with gluhwein and I’m now convinced there’s no better way to have it! 😀 ).
After a proper catch up (hadn’t seen these friends in years!), we decided to make our way over to the Berlin Cathedral – this time I checked in advance to see if it was open! Thankfully, it was.
Berlin Cathedral is so much more impressive and intricate than I thought it would be! Like it looks grand from the outside but if I’m being honest, I never really associated Germany as a whole with having particularly grand churches (Italy – yes, France – yes, even back home in the UK – yet but never really Germany).
German churches usually strike me as more of magnificent architectural triumphs (gigantic stone buildings, the likes of which no one really builds anymore) but once you stepped in, they tended to look pretty much like they did from the outside.
Turns out, I just hadn’t been to a church as opulent as Berlin Cathedral. It was one stunning detail after another.
It was at this point inside the cathedral I pretty much proceed to do a 360 and take far more photos than I probably needed to. I kept thinking “Oh my gosh, I HAVE to show you what this cathedral is like from every angle possible!”… and so I did. 🙂
While still in the Berlin Cathedral, my alarm went off, reminding us that it was time to head back to the hotel to grab our stuff and head home
I decided to try to squeeze in a quick visit to the vaults beneath, not realising how labyrinth-like they would be when you’re short of time. 🙂
By the time, we left, we had minutes to spare and with that, hopped into a taxi, whizzing past the Chancellor’s home, the intricate New Synagogue and the Bode Museum (totally worth visiting those latter two when you’re in Berlin – I’d say all 3 but pretty sure you can’t get into the Chancellor’s home) and back to our hotel where we hurriedly grabbed our stuff and said farewell to Berlin!
Auf Wiedersehen for now Berlin… 😀
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