MONDAY saw me out of bed early to buy bread as we’d found a toaster in the kitchen of our hotel suite.
Took the long way to the shop to see what was around the next corner and found myself at Check Point Charlie.
Check Point Charlie (CPC) was the name given to the border crossing in the American Sector of the former West Berlin.
In 2008 we visited CPC, but only from the former Western side, and this time, approaching from the East, I was intrigued to see the change that had since occurred in development on the site of the infamous Wall.
A multi-storey building was being erected on the former site of The Wall that had previously been land cleared on the Eastern side of The Wall to accommodate a minefield and other barriers to prevent East Berliners escaping to the West.
There is extensive building and infrastructure works underway in the former East to move it on from the stultified, and concerning its citizens trying to flee to a better life in the West, murderous approach of the former socialist dictatorship.
These photographs show CPC approached from the West, with a large photo of an East German border guard heralding entry to the East and, beyond the crossroad behind him was The Wall while, in the other direction, a photo of a US serviceman with the West behind him.
Even today, so long after The Wall was torn down in 1989, the starkness of the East is obvious when compared to the West.
The photographs (above) show Sandra standing at the site of The Wall where it crossed Friedrichstrasse south of CPC and the hoardings with commemorative posters erected at "no man’s land".
In these photographs (above) the West and CPC are to the left of the first image, and a remnant of The Wall opposite the still-standing Nazi-era German Air Ministry in Wilhelmstrasse with a fence that has failed to deter souvenir-hunters.
The photos above are of dull, uninspired blocks of flats erected in the East before the fall of The Wall and subsequent reunification of Berlin.
Few balconies and the only garden a window box and our apartment hotel, the Adina, is the darker building on the left of this photo looking west along Krausenstrasse.
An oasis in this socialist-inspired unimaginative housing ghetto is the renovated Adina Hotel, the final photo, and The Adina has a strong connection with Australia, being part of the Medina Group.
Apparently use of the name Medina in Germany is not appropriate. Surprised to see Aboriginal art in the passageways and large photos of recognisable Australian landscapes on the walls of the reception and waiting lounge.
And, a large map of Australia pinpointing numerous of our vignerons, including "Craiglee" by Pat Carmody at Sunbury, in the restaurant/bar.