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Old Aug 14, 2015, 8:08 pm
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FliesWay2Much
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Originally Posted by enviroian
I'm thinking of heading to Berlin over thanksgiving. I've never been but love history, beer, and sausage. I was thinking of flying in my mom for a few days. Do you think there is enough there that would interest her or are all the museums war related?

Are there any fights from Gatwick to Germany?
I was just there for four days in June. There are tons of things to do that focus on 20th century history. If she's of my generation (60+ Boomer) she has lived through the divided Germany era and might be really into that part of Germany's history. There are some excellent theme-based walking tours that leave from the Starbuck's near Brandenberg Gate. There is a fairly new DDR Museum that interactively displays life in Communist East Germany. There is the Stasi Museum at the former HQ complex. And then, of course, there is the wall. There is a private Checkpoint Charlie Museum that documents, among other things, daring stories of successful and failed escape attempts. There is an entire floor dedicated to Kennedy and an entire floor dedicated to Reagan. On each floor is a television continuously playing their speeches. We only hear the famous sound bytes today, but the speeches in their entirety were nothing short of brilliant. For me, having lived through and participated in the Cold War in the USAF, being there was nothing short of incredible and humbling.

There are art museums and concerts as well, but those weren't my main interest this time around. Frankly, it's very hard to escape either the Nazi or the Communist history in Berlin, because both of them combined with WWI lasted about 100 years in total.

I forgot to mention that TXL is a terribly old and overcrowded airport for a national capital city.
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