Germany - Berlin (again)

Its non-stop to Berlin, getting there at about 8.00. The hotel is at the opposite side of town to the Estrel - presumably so we don't pass any useful information to the outgoing clients. The guide gives us tomorrows pick up times to take us to the airport - 1.30 for a 6.15 flight - NO WAY matey. They think we are on the 3.30 flight, which explains the error, but the are still insistent on the early departure. However we are more insistent about not departing early and they arrange a taxi to pick us up at 4.00pm. We later find that there is not an earlier flight anyway, so we're not sure where they get their information from - last year's times probably.

Out for a walk in the evening, we guess that the area has a large Turkish population as there is a lot of celebration going on over Turkey's victory in the quarter finals of the football World Cup. There was also an element of remote Turkish village about the place as a bucket load of slops thrown out of an upstairs flat narrowly misses Val.

Last day sightseeing

We deposit our luggage with reception after saying our farewells to members of the group we are unlikely to meet again, then head off to Berlin centre to finish our own close up city tour.

Started out at the old Checkpoint Charlie museum. Lots of photos of the activities that took place around the old Berlin Wall, including some original escape route equipment such as cars and fuel tanks!

It was a bit of a toss up whether to use the underground to get to museum island or walk. We decide to follow the route of the old wall, in this area it is marked on the ground.

The place we are heading for is the TV Tower - a bit further than we thought 'cos the scale of the map we have is a bit unclear, but we get there and decide to go up to the observation deck to get an aerial view of Berlin. Not a lot of popular sights to see but the views, understandably, were pretty good, as you can see from the pictures.

Time to grab some lunch - at the place that is the subject of a joke.

The time is about 2.30 and we need to be back at the hotel by 4.00 so we begin walking to an appropriate underground station, making sure we pass the Berliner Dom for a quick visit, but the admission charge didn't make it worth while, and there were no tourist groups to slip in amongst - not a ploy that we use, but one of the tour group adopted that method to get into sights and keep the personal expenditure down.

A final brisk walk to Friedr. Str. station and then we're back at the hotel in ample time for the taxi to the airport, which is only about 5 minutes away.

The Fly-Bear at the airport

Flight on time. Arrive at Birmingham on-time. Delayed getting up the M6, and finally get home at around 10.00pm.

Unpack, get some washing on, have a decent bath, download photos from digital camera, look at them, compile a few panoramas then bed about 2.00am. (Work tomorrow - for a welcome rest)

So, as for the holiday - we think it's all over ---- it is now.