Berlin - better than London?

After months of rain, sleet and sub zero temperatures Spring has finally turned up to the party. Happily this coincided with our first bank holiday weekend. I was off to Berlin with a Beyonce fuelled spring in my step. I had a rendezvous with the Belgian and the essentials of a great weekend were in place - city, sunshine, fun company.

I went to Berlin a few years ago, for our Alison's first weekend away without the newborn. We maxed the budget - staying at newly opened Soho House - the 3 of us had the most incredible room - complete with retro record player, sitting area and home made cookies. That and the rooftop pool meant that despite our best efforts to leave the hotel we didn't really see all that much of the city.

Another trip was needed - and the Belgian was the perfect person to explore it with. Mutual lovers of graffiti, scruffy stuff and quirky little cinemas - it was a good city for us. So all checked into a suitably plush hotel we explore the nearby area, tuck into a curry wurst at a local food stand and catch up. The next day we walk through the beautiful and huge Tiergarten and get ourselves in front of arguably the city's most famous landmark - Brandenburger Tor - the gate. From there we have a walk through the spooky field of stelae - 2,711 concrete slabs all arranged in undulating rows. The below ground museum I'd visited before - it had ( rightly) made me cry - and we didn't feel like crying on this sunny Saturday morning so our tour carried on.

We'd read about a tour along the U2 underground line - so off east we headed - getting off at Potsdamer place to admire some fine town planning in the previous no man's land, at deserted Klosterstrasse to find the remnants of the medieval city wall - fascinating. We got lost at Alexanderplatz and admired the iconic Fernsehturm. Lunch was had in the fabulous glass top floor of KaDeWe department store. The evening admiring what they've done with the city - and we lucked upon some Sushi in town and reminisced about our Japan holiday.

The next day post swim, we had reservations at the cafe at the top of my favourite building in the world, let alone Europe - the incredible Reichstag. Sir Norman Foster has designed a structure which adds so much beauty to the city - and the existing building. Truly wonderful space to explore. Booking at the cafe also means you get to skip the queues. We smugly ate our coffee and cake while others queued for hours below. After a bourgeois west berlin morning, we headed east again this time to have a look at some of the wall art at the East Side gallery - this area is so, so different to old West Berlin - huge areas of desolate space. What happened next truly made me fall in love with the city - I'd read about a foodie area in a market hall nearby. It was open. It was a cheese and wine afternoon. Full of scruffy, interesting people with beards/ tattoos/ cool trainers. In London we'd firmly be in Bermondsey territory, or my beloved Brixton Village. We ate Riesling smoked salmon at Glut and Spane, sampled wine from little producers for the bargain 2 euros/ glass , and soaked it all up.

Berlin you are cool as fuck, let's hook up more often, I see a great future for us

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