The Gate, Dome and Tower

Today was always going to be my (Chris) favourite day of this trip to Berlin. I'd been watching the weather over the past couple of days really hoping we'd get a fine day today. After thunderstorms lasting well into the night, the weather prediction from the BBC was for more of the same for Berlin throughout the afternoon but my favoured weather app said it would be fine which thankfully proved to be the case.

We were up early to see a fairly dense fog but with the sun breaking through it soon began to burn off. After a train ride to the centre, we walked up to see the Brandenburg Gate. Still amazing to see especially in contrast to how it looked when the wall was in place. A cold drink and then onto the mighty Reichstag, home of the Bundestag (parliament) but more importantly for us, a chance to visit the superb Norman Foster designed Dome that sits on top of this historic building. It was lovely to be up there today with great views of the city on the sunshine (and a great opportunity to photograph of course).

After a lunch nearby, we walked down towards Alexanderplatz where we picked up an open top bus tour so we could sit whilst taking in bits of the city we hadn't yet seen.

Finally it was our allotted time to go up the Fernsehturm, the famous Berlin TV tower. We rode the lift to the observation platform before walking up an extra flight of stairs for a fabulous meal in the rotating restaurant. The views are fabulous and we made at least two full rotations during the course of the meal. This and the dome are certainly my favourite bits of Berlin so a blip choice was hard.

Finally it was a late but very happy ride home on the train. Tomorrow the girls and I fly home whilst Annie still has a bit more adventuring to go. A week goes so fast.