To start off our trip Back to The Balkans we had a layover of 20+ hours in Berlin. Besides spending the night at a hotel close to the airport, we also had around a half-day to wander around the city.

We had a really nice time during our visit to Berlin last September (including seeing some Amazing Art at the Berlin Wall) so we didn’t mind the time in the city.

We didn’t really arrive with much of a plan besides heading over to one museum that we missed back in September. We decided to head over to the area around Checkpoint Charlie and figure it out from there.

Here is how we spent our time:

• Trabant Museum/ Exhibit
• Deutsches Currywurst Museum
• Topography of Terror

We started off wandering around a bit before noticing a building housing a Trabant Museum which was more of an exhibit/ collection of some of the cars.

The Trabant or Trabby is a car which was produced in East Germany. They are mostly small, two-door cars with very basic features inside. Trabants seem to be of interest to many people. You can even rent a Trabby or go on a “Trabby Safari” in Berlin!

We enjoyed seeing a variety of Trabant models but didn’t learn much about the cars since all of the signage was in German. Lucas had a blast going inside one of the cars, making believe he was driving! Some of the cars were quite unique with different modifications. The most interesting one was made to be a Ferrabi- a Trebant which looked like a Ferrari.

The museum is worth a 20 minute visit if you’re in the area and an especially good stop for kids. The cost for admission is €4 per adult but the man running the exhibit was nice enough to offer the admission for 2 at that price. Lucas was free being that he is only 2.5. 

I almost forgot about the Deutsches Currywurst Museum but happened to be skimming through an old (free) download of the Lonely Planet Berlin guide when I came across it. The best part was that we were right around the corner.

The museum tells the story of one of Berlin’s most popular street foods, the currywurst.

(I plan to write a full post about our experience so this will just be a short write-up of what we thought about the visit.)

I didn’t know much about it and was excited to find out (plus try a sample at the museum currywurst stand).

The currywurst is a sausage usually cut into small pieces then topped with a sauce along with curry powder.

The museum has a lot of information about the dish and how it came about. Besides learning about the history, there is also lots of interactive areas like a replica stand (which Lucas loved playing at), a smell area and even a currywurst couch!

After learning all about the currywurst, we headed to the museum stand for a sampling. The dish looked tasty and smelled great too. I got to sample 3 versions and liked but can’t say that I loved it.

During our visit to Berlin last September, we walked by the Topography of Terror museum. We got to look over the interesting outdoor area which is the longest section of the Berlin Wall still standing, but didn’t have time to go inside.

The museum is free to enter and is located at the site where the Third Reich’s headquarters for the Secret Police, SS and Reich Security Main Office were.

It was very busy inside plus I was really tired from our overnight flight so I skimmed over the information, learning more about the horrors that the Nazi’s caused during Hitler’s rule.

The Topography of Terror is well worth visiting if you are interested in history, specifically  Nazi Germany and WWII.

I plan to start writing about our visit to Romania and Bulgaria when I get home from our trip. Keep checking back for the posts!