berlin

After our comprehensive walking tour the day before we decided to head out to the western side of Berlin to checkout Daniel Libeskind's world famous Jewish Museum. The Jewish Museum is renowned for its bold and evocative architectural design that successfully blends the narrative of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and a functioning museum for general displays. Recently the architect has also won the competition for the World Trade Centre redevelopment thanks in large part to his work on the Jewish Museum.

Berlin was obviously going to the a highlight of any visit to Germany given its significant position in history during the last 100 years and the massive rebuilding since reunification in 1990. We stayed in the centrally located Circus Hostel which is apparently one of the best hostels in Europe. We were quite impressed by the hostel, it had a nice feel about it thanks in large part to its very bold interior design. However compared to Dresden the rooms were not as quiet or comfortable and breakfast was not part of the nightly charge. The hostel is located  on the eastern side of the Wall but to visit there today it is very hard to distinguish east from west. This was quite surprising as I think before we arrived we had an image of gleaming towers versus brown ghettos in our heads when thinking of West and East Berlin.