Tim and Gem's Honeymoon Adventure: Still our favourite city in the world, Berlin Germany November 8 -12

Berlin has something for everyone. It is rich in history, it has art and culture, (especially street art and culture). It has a whole island of museums, stunning architecture, delicious food and beers, and a nightlife to rival anywhere in the world, whether it be little hole in the wall bars, or world-class super clubs, Berlin caters for all party-goers.

We visited Berlin a few years ago, and we did the touristy things and saw all the artists squats and streets art areas, the museums and parliament buildings and rode bikes around the city, which was amazing, but this time we wanted to do a few different things.

I couldn’t wait to get my camera out and start snapping as I had been neglecting my camera since Kiev. Berlin is a photographers dream, as well as street art there are countless abandoned buildings and structures situated in and around the city. One that I was extremely keen on seeing was Beelitz-Heilstätten which was about an hour outside of the city center, and Matti (a Berlin local that we met in Kiev) was keen to head out there with me.

Beelitz-Heilstätten, built in 1898, is a disused hospital complex of approximately 60 buildings located in the district of Beelitz Heilstatten. Between 1898 and 1930 the complex served as a sanatorium for lung diseases, generally housing those with then-fatal conditions such as tuberculosis.

During the World War I, it served as a field hospital that treated the earliest casualties of new weapons such as machine guns and mustard gas. During this time it also treated a young soldier by the name of Adolf Hitler, who had been blinded by a British gas attack and wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme.

Ironically, these experiences and his successful treatment would set the stage for the hospital to once again be used as a field hospital, treating wounded Nazi's during WWII. Occupied by the Russians in 1945, it served as a Soviet military hospital for the next 50 years until 1995, long after the fall of the Berlin wall. The hospital treated everyone from Communist party members to the disgraced head of the East German government who was sent there after being forced out in 1990.

A few of these buildings are still in use, but 90% have been abandoned for decades, and open (kind of) for keen explorers to venture their creepy corridors.

We found our first building and it was boarded up good, any hope of entering faded after a full circle of the huge building, until I spotted a conveniently placed crate underneath one of the not-so boarded-up windows. You can fill in the gaps...

Inside was very creepy. Creaking doors, peeled paint flapping in the breeze, and a door on the top floor banging every few minutes. We had a group of five people so it wasn’t too bad, but when you lost sight of everyone, I won’t lie, it was a bit unnerving. We spent a while wandering around this building, it was vey cool, with next to no vandalism, just the natural decay of an un-kept building.

After getting our first taste of the abandoned goodness, we moved onto one of the bigger areas containing some more abandoned buildings, which also housed the main hospital complex. We spent the remainder of the day exploring all of these building, some worse then others, some heavily vandalised, and some that could be brought back to life with a lick of paint and some elbow grease.

That night after a day of urban exploration, we headed to a restaurant called Berliner Republic, which we randomly walked past the previous night, but was too crowded for us to find a table, so we got their a bit earlier and got ourselves a nice table.

We knew what we wanted and ordered in no time, some German sausages with mash, and a meaty pork knuckle, and to wash it down, of course a few frosty beers.

It wasn’t until half hour or so had passed and we realized this was a bar a friend had told us about, where the price of beer fluctuates due to demand – like the stock exchange. They have tv screens around the room with the current prices, and every five minutes the rates change. It’s a great way to teach people how the stock market works, in a fun way!

That night we met back up with Matti and Martin and headed out for the night in Friedrichshain in East Berlin. We got off the train and immediately there was booze readily available on the streets. People of all ages were drinking and socializing on benches and gutters, and open-air bars and clubs could be seen everywhere. We headed to one of the many little bars and started the night off there with some tasty beers. The night eventually ended up at a random house party that was a friend of Mattis.

This house party was insane, probably the most awesome and intense house party I have ever seen. It was in an apartment on the second floor, but this was no ordinary apartment – it was huge! You entered and immediately there was a crowd of people. After wading through the crowds, you came to the bar, where they had ample largers to chose from and for only €1. Or you could give one of their ice sliders a go, where they tipped a shot of your choice into the ice funnel, and the liquor slid its way down the three-foot ice shute and into your mouth. Completely unnecessary, but extremely cool.

Then next room was rammed wall to wall with at least a hundred people dancing to the tunes being mixed by the DJ perched up in the corner. We could feel the wooden floor bowing beneath us but no one cared, everyone just kept on partying.

The night ended in the wee hours of the morning and resulted in us spending half the day sleeping.

After finally pulling ourselves out of bed, we headed over to Mauerpark that was one of our favourite places in Berlin. This park was home to a huge flea market every Sunday, street performers, as well as bear pit karaoke (which unfortunately wasn’t on this Sunday) and a section of the Berlin Wall, which is now a legal graffiti wall.

We wanted to check out the market, hopefully pick up another vintage camera for me, and watch some of the local talent in the park.

We ventured into the market and it wasn’t long before we found countless goodies ranging from clothing, homewares, and of course, cameras. If we had a house in Berlin, or access to a shipping container we would’ve bought loads, but instead we just purchased an old Kodak Retina camera from 1945, which was another solid addition to my ever growing vintage camera collection.

We braved the crowds and the temptations of the markets for an hour or two and then decided to head out to the open area of the park for some space, and to see what eccentric characters we may come across. Unfortunately the only odd character we came across was a guy dressed in a horse suit, but we did sit and watch an awesome drumming duo that had the attention of the majority of the park. We watched them for ages and eventually wandered up to the wall to see what graffiti was being done. The wall was lacking some good pieces, but there were a couple of guys working some aerosol magic.

We decided to call it a day and head back to the hostel for a bit of a chill out before catching up with two friends I had met in China a couple of years ago.

We later met with Craig and Ramona, and they introduced us to some currywurst, a delicious dish containing sausages and some sort of sauce and curry powder, it was amazing, and the first of many currywurst meals! It was a nice, chilled out night.

Our last full day in Berlin came around to quickly, and we found ourselves wanting more time here. So we decided to get on some bikes and just spend the day riding around the city, with no real plans other than to just cruise around.

We rode to the East Gallery, a section of the Berlin Wall that has been turned into legal walls for artists. We continued riding through some of Berlin’s decrepit and artistic areas, and then right through the middle of the city and over to Teirgarten Park where we stopped at a little pop-up market and got some mulled wine, and a serious meaty feast. We then continued on eventually heading home.

It was almost dark, but I decided to check out this building I had read about on several blogs and websites, where much of the street art inside had been ruined, and the place was over run with squatters.

The outside had some charm but it also felt pretty rank. I went inside and took a few steps inside and was slapped in the face by a foul stench, a mix of piss, dirt and damp. I could see large groups of squatters scattered around the building, all harmless and minding their own business, but I didn’t feel overly comfortable being there by myself, and it was getting late. I was slightly disappointed, but at least I tried.

On our final night in Berlin and we decided to try something completely different, and went to Dining in the Dark, a restaurant where you don’t know what you are ordering (besides chicken, fish, beef or vegetarian), the waiters are all blind and you eat your dinner in complete darkness. It sounds weird and it was, but really cool at the same time. Our waitress, Angela was a lovely, completely blind German lady who spoke perfect English. We formed a human chain, my hands on her shoulders and Gem’s on mine, and then she led the way to our table. She explained where our cutlery, the napkins and bread basket was and then left us, sitting there not knowing where anything else was except each other.

It was really interesting when our meals came out trying to guess what we were eating, there were some obvious ingrediants like the chicken and veggies, but a few inclusions we couldn’t pin-point (all very tasty though). It was a really unusual experience, with no distractions of phones or the people around you (except when someone knocked over and smashed their beer), and an odd feeling that your other senses became more alert and were making up for your lack of sight. It felt a bit claustrophobic at the beginning, but once we got over the odd feeling of not being able to see, it was an enjoyable experience.

On our last morning I decided to get up early and meet up again with Matti and visit Spreepark to take some photos.

Spreepark was an amusement park in Berlin that closed in 2002 due to a €11million debt, and a drug scandal involving the owner Norbert Witte and his son Marcel, who both ended up in a Peruvian jail. The pair attempted to smuggle 180kg of cocaine from Peru to Germany in the masts of a Magic Carpet ride. They were unsuccessful and Norbert got seven years in jail, and Marcel is still in jail today after receiving a 20-year sentence.

So Spreepark never opened its festive gates again, and all the rides were left to sit unused and unloved, and has now become a haven for urban explorers and photographers. Over the years much of the park has been ruined by vandals, with graffiti defacing a lot of the rides but the park still has a lot of charm. People had been sneaking into the park for years but now the park is patrolled by guards on bikes and dogs, so it’s hard to get a decent amount of time in the park. If you are caught, you have to battle with security to keep your photos as they make you delete them, so we hoped by getting there early the guards and their dogs would be sleeping.

I arrived at the station near Spreepark as the sun was rising in the distance, and it was an absolutely stunning sunrise, rich red and pink colours covered the sky, and I decided to take this was a good sign.

Matti turned up and we started the short walk to the park, and in no time we were at the gates.

I will let the pictures below tell the story of what it was like inside.

With limited time, and at risk of being caught I wasn’t able to change my lenses like I would've liked to, so I had to stick with one and try make the most of it. Two hours disappeared and it was time to go. Stoked with how long we had been in there for, we reluctantly had to calls it quits, which was a shame, but it was also 9am and the guards would surely start their duties soon.

After getting on one wrong train, I eventually made it back to our hostel, met up with the wife and we picked up our wheels for the next 5 days, to begin our road trip from Germany to Austria via the Czech Republic.