The final post from our Europe travels last year! After we visited Prague, we took the train over to Dresden, Germany, which was about 2.5 hour train ride. Luckily we found a little family cabin on the train so we could shut the door and contain Audyn. Jess chose Dresden as a stop because of its history in WWII. The city was bombed pretty badly and you can still see the fire/smoke damage that remained on a lot of the historic buildings.
We stayed at the Hyperion Hotel right on the main street in Dresden. The location was amazing!
There was a festival going on in the town square called Dixieland, which we thought was funny because that was the only word we understood on the poster about it. :) We ventured through there many times to look at the booths. Jess bought many a bratwurst!
This band was marching down the street playing and a crowd was following right along with them!
We took Audyn on a few of the festival rides and then she was ANGRY when we took her off. Jess said “Well that was dumb. We just paid 10 bucks for a mad baby!”
This poor girl. Dresden was where we started to feel like a wreck of a traveling family! She started puking and pooping and we weren’t sure if it was because the milk there didn’t sit right with her or if she had an actual sickness. She puked once a day for three days, and because it was Pentecost weekend, Monday was also a national holiday in Germany, which meant the grocery stores and laundromats were closed. Not only were we rushing around trying to find milk for her after we’d ran out, we had to do our best to wash her clothes in the hotel room sink. Her shoes and stroller got pretty stinky too. She had no other symptoms, so just when we thought she was feeling better, we’d take her out to do something and then she’d puke again when we got back to the room. The poor hotel staff that had to come clean the carpet! She was still in a good mood the whole time, as you can see!
You can see the bombing damage in the next few photos.
Since Audyn was puking, Jess and I took a lot of turns doing things. I went out close to sunset one evening and took some beautiful photos along the riverfront!
This is the Frauenkirche, a church that was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt from 1994-2005.
I also went on a riverboat ride by myself since Audyn wasn’t so fun on the previous one in Prague. I got a chance to see these castles that had been built by previous notable people of Dresden whose names I do not remember.
One thing we noticed in the countries we visited was that the restaurant waiters WOULD NOT bring the bill unless you flagged them down and asked for it!
Right across the street from our hotel was an old castle, which I probably wouldn’t have known was a castle if they didn’t say so. Jess toured it on one of his outings and said there were millions and millions of riches in there! Pictures were not allowed in most rooms.
When we woke up on our last day in Dresden, I realized that my stomach felt pretty funny too, so I held off on food and coffee as long as I could! We left around lunchtime and took the train to Berlin. From the train station we took a taxi to our hotel, and Audyn again puked in the car. Our taxi driver was not the smoothest with his driving and it was nearly 80 degrees there, so we thought she might’ve gotten car sick, but who knows. We stayed at the Westin Grand, which we chose so we could be centrally located to some sites we wanted to see and lots of restaurant and shops. We LOVED staying there! The levels were in tiers and we let Audyn run there to get her energy out, as the city isn’t so toddler friendly!
Since I wasn’t feeling food when we arrived, Jess went out to explore on his own for awhile. Eventually I did get up for some food and coffee, and I started to feel better later that evening. I was kinda bummed in the end though because Berlin ended up being my favorite stop, and I would’ve loved having that evening to explore!
Our first full day was spent at the Berlin Zoo! Jess loves zoos. We managed to figure out the U-Bahn and rode it over to the zoo and it was so convenient!
Einstein Kaffee quickly became my favorite coffee stop in Berlin!
It was so warm in Berlin that we had to go shopping that evening for some summer clothes for Audyn!
The next day, we decided to do a hop-on hop-off bus tour since the sites in Berlin were further apart and we didn’t have a car.
The Topography of Terrors is a museum that goes through the history of the period leading up to the Nazi’s winning power and then through the war and the aftermath. The property it’s built on is actually where the Gestapo headquarters used to be. A small way of turning something with such ugly history into something good.
We hopped off at Checkpoint Charlie to take a look! We didn’t get in line for a photo so I snapped a photo of some strangers instead.
Next we rode over the TV tower and went up to see the city view! Audyn screamed and wanted to run around the whole time, so we didn’t last very long.
All Audyn really wanted was to play in and/or drink from these fountains outside the TV tower. At this point, Jess decided to take her back to the hotel and I kept going on the bus tour.
I didn’t know what some of the stuff on the list of stops were until we got to them, so when we pulled up to the East Side Gallery stop and it was the painted section of the Berlin Wall, I grabbed my stuff and scurried off the bus. I grabbed a coffee from Einstein’s and wandered along the wall to see the murals. I was pretty fascinated by some of the plaques with historical facts about the east side of the city and how the people’s lives were affected when the wall came down.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has over 2,700 concrete slabs in memorial to the Jews who were killed in WWII. If I remember right, the original plan was to have more than 4,000 slabs poured, but not that many would fit.
My last stop was the Brandenburg Gate!
Jess was having dinner at a restaurant around the corner from our hotel, so I met him there for dinner and then he went and saw some of the sites that I just had. He got pork knuckle for dinner and was enjoying it until he turned it around and saw hairs on it. Then he decided maybe we wouldn’t eat anymore.
The next morning, we had time for breakfast and to pack up our things, and then we had to head to the train station! That brought us to the airport, and from there we flew back to Helsinki! If I could’ve had an extra day in any city, I would’ve chosen Berlin! I feel like there was so much more we could’ve done if we’d had the time.
Now it’s been over a year since we got back from this trip and it seems wild that the memories still feel so fresh! We had such an amazing trip and we certainly hope to visit Finland and perhaps a new country or two again someday if we have the chance!