Berlin; Saturday, 12 February, 2022

I had a relaxed breakfast and then headed down into the U-Bahn to catch the U5 line out into the Eastern suburbs of Berlin, changing at the Tierpark station onto the tram towards Köpenick. Until the 1920’s Köpenick was an independent town outside of the capital, but the slowly expanding boundaries of Berlin eventually swallowed the town up.

Located on the confluence of the Dahme and Spree rivers the town has a pretty old town centre with an ornate town hall and an impressive church as well as the Schloß all sitting on a small peninsular of land sticking out into the confluence. I had a bit of a wander around the town before heading down onto the Schloßinsle, a small island of land made by creating a canal between the palace and the rest of the town.

Köpenick Palace was originally built as a home for the Elector of Brandenburg but following the war was converted into a museum. With the fall of the Berlin wall the museum was brought under control of the merged city and today houses displays on interiors and room decorations with a focus mainly on the Baroque and Rocco periods.

Having explored the palace and museum I headed back down into town and caught the tram back to the Tiergarten where I had a booked ticket for an afternoon in the zoo.

The Berlin Zoo is world famous, but when the city was divided following the end of WWII the zoo ended up very firmly in the Western side of the city so the DDR, naturally, built a competing zoo in their part of the city. The zoo is still open today with surprisingly large enclosures displaying their collection of animals. I spent a good couple of hours wandering around the site taking in the various displays.

From the Tiergarten I headed back down onto the U-Bahn and back to Alexanderplatz to quickly freshen up, before heading over to the TV Tower for a booked trip up to the viewing platform, timing it so I was up at the top of the tower in time to watch the sun set over West Berlin.

After taking in the views from the top of the tower I then headed back down to ground level and went in hunt of dinner, before having a general wander around the former centre of East Berlin until I headed back to my room for an early night.