Saturday, August 04, 2007
Berlin and Wittenberg
Last week our group had a short week of class, ending on Wednesday so that we could head to Berlin on Thursday morning. (As you might imagine, all of us students were quite broken up about this.) We meet on Thursday morning at 8:30 and headed over to the Hauptbahnhof (the main train station) to catch a 9:15 train to Hannover. In Hannover we transferred onto a train to Berlin. Unfortunately, the train we took to Berlin was incredibly crowded (due to another train that had come in late) and everyone in our group ended up without seats the whole ride! Needless to say, we were relieved to get to Berlin and settle into our hotel.
Once in Berlin we were basically given the freedom to plan our own sightseeing on Thursday afternoon and Friday. In order to find out what anyone did specifically you will have to ask them, but there are pictures below of some sightseeing highlights that many people choose to see. On Saturday we all traveled to Wittenberg as a group. Here we were able to see the location where Martin Luther burned his excommunication letter, St. Mary’s Church (where Luther preached), The Schloss Kirche (or castle church, where Luther nailed his theses), and Luther’s house. It was raining quite hard when we arrived at Wittenberg in the morning, but thankfully it cleared up a bit in the afternoon. On Sunday morning we attended church as a group at the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). The interior of the church is beautiful. The service was Lutheran, and they had earpieces available that allowed us to hear an English translation of the service. Some of us also got a chance to see the crypts in the basement of the church. In the afternoon (about 3:15) we boarded the train heading back to Bremen. This time we transferred trains in Hamburg. It was an amazing weekend!
our hotel rooms
Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Castle)
some of the boys setting off to explore
the girls in front of a giant map of the city
Checkpoint Charlie
The Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate)
the Fernsehturm (tv tower)
a view of the city from the top of the Fernsehturm
The Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)
The doors of the Schloss Kirche
The square in Wittenberg (St. Mary’s church is the tallest building)
the Schloss Kirche in the distance down the road