My Trip to Berlin - Part 1 (7 pics)

Having maxed out the amount of vacation I could accrue (again), I decided to take Good Friday and the Tuesday after Easter Monday off as vacation days and take a trip to Berlin for the first time.  And after a bit of research, I also decided to take my first train trip ever (at least that I could remember) and skip dealing with hassles of the airport.  There is a regularly scheduled train that runs from Warsaw to Berlin, through Poznań, that would deposit me at the Berlin Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) slightly more than 2.5 hours after I left.  Poznań Głowny (the main train station here) is about a 35 minute walk from my apartment, or if I catch the tram, less than a 10 minute ride.

Knowing that much of the city would be closed down 3 of the 4.5 days I was there (Good Friday, Easter, and Easter Monday are all holidays in Berlin), and that the weather forecast was for rain and cold, I decided to at least get a nice hotel in case the weather was so horrible that walking around didn't make much.  Thanks to Google Maps and some research, I settled on the Sofitel Berlin.  If you are going to Berlin, I have to recommend it.  It's in walking distance to many of the major attractions, has comfortable beds by American standards (not the hard and thin mattresses you get in most European hotels), and it's on a relatively quiet street (Charlottenstrasse) so it's not too noisy.

I ended up with over 350 pictures taken during this trip with my smaller travel camera (due to the weather predictions I left the Nikon behind) and will post a few of the decent ones here in case you are interested.  First up, pictures mostly taken from the train (so excuse the reflections and dirt from the window) on both the way there and back.

First up is this picture of the Hauptbahnhoff taken the day I left (which was nice).

Click the link below to see more pictures.  And don't forget to click on the pictures to the see the larger sized versions.

Enjoy!

Inside the Hauptbahnhoff, track level, looking towards the Parliament.

Inside the Hauptbahnhoff, track level, looking East at all the construction.

Inside the Hauptbahnhoff, looking down at the many levels.

This is a power-plant I think.  I just liked the way it looked.

  

There is LOTS of grafitti on the buildings, all the way from Poland to Berlin.  This is in Berlin.

And to finish up, perhaps the best store name ever.  The white lettering is for a store called "Who Killed Bambi?", which I found pretty funny.  I have no idea what they sell.