Back from our travels

We got back from Berlin yesterday - I've done so much walking I feel as though my feet don't belong to me anymore. My DH is very interested in the history of the city and provided our very own tour commentary! It's hard to imagine it as a divided city now, very little of the wall remains, although the line of where it ran is marked in paving stones. The first picture shows the Berlinerdom or cathedral and to the right of it is a more recent landmark, the Television Tower - it has a revolving restaurant on the top - we went to the bottom but the queues were too long to wait to go up (apparently the lifts are very small). Instead, we went up to the glass dome of the Reichstag at ten o'clock at night and had a lovely view of the lights of the city.

There is still a lot of building work going on in the city as they build on former open spaces or replace buildings erected by the former East German regime. What is fascinating is that where there are gaps in buildings they erect scaffolding covered with painted tarpaulin to show what the building will look like when it is completed and to provide a more aesthetic view for people. So the 'building' you see in this picture is actually a printed cloth covering scaffolding, a bit like a film set, I suppose.

And lastly, I couldn't resist a picture of this bear, the symbol of Berlin - don't you think he looks quilty? We also went to the Zoo, which DS enjoyed greatly - no bears there though (or at least I didn't see any).

Tomorrow I am going to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, it is meant to be the biggest Quilt Show in Europe so I have high hopes that it will be inspiring and that I will be able to take some pictures to share with you.