This time in two weeks, yes on a Sunday, the Germans will vote in their federal elections. Hence all the activity yesterday. I forgot to mention that before.

Our plan today was to take the third and final tour included in our bus ticket – visiting the wall and a “lifestyle tour” ( I’m still unsure what that meant). We knew there was a stop about a five-minute walk away from our accommodation and so we headed out to catch the first bus which was due at 10.01am

It was to stop at the Wall Memorial Garden.

Here we found a large section of the wall in tact. But sadly, there was no bus.

So we spent about an hour looking at this memorial, that recognised the 136 people who died at the wall between 1961 and 1989.

You can tell we were there early – as we had the park pretty much to ourselves for a long time.

Too long in fact.

Mick was not happy, but we walked along the street for about 2 km until we came to supposedly another (bus) stop. And, after a little more drama and a cup of coffee we caught the “first” bus at 11am – it was only one hour late.

We stopped at the East Side Gallery – a (1316m) section of the wall dedicated to international freedom. This photo, known as The Kiss, is one of the most famous murals in the gallery.

It shows Brezhnev (Soviet Leader) kissing Honecker (East German President), and Mick!!

This next photo sums up Berlin for me, based on what I’ve seen so far.

A city under construction- as you’d expect. Supposedly 100,000 building sites at any one time. We have noticed these blue pipes around the city – apparently Berlin is built on a swamp and most construction sites need to erect these temporary pipes to get rid of the water. This was directly across the road from ……

… more of the gallery.

Around lunch time we stopped off at the Mauerpark Flea Markets.

Basically a mix of boxes and boxes of trash or treasure, loads of food stalls and craft stalls, as well as …

… gin to taste.

Guess which was the most common accent we heard today?

Aussie. Heaps and heaps.

To finish off our day we walked back to where we started and crossed the road to the Documentation Centre for the Wall. Two hours later we headed for home. It was brilliantly displayed. This is the view from the tower showing a reconstructed section of the wall.

It was such a big day, Mick gave up the opportunity to stop in at the Brew Dog Mitte, which we passed on our way. His feet were killing him. But he has promised me he will be right in an hour or so as he has to write his post on the beers he has tasted while in Berlin.

He was happy to get home to our AirBNB, except for the fact we’re on the third floor.