Travel

Visiting a Friend in Lüneburg, Germany & Solo Traveling Berlin

When I left Copenhagen on Saturday I took a train to Hamburg, Germany to see Marcella, my friend from high school. I haven’t seen her since I moved to New Jersey after graduating in 2020, so I was really excited to see her. She has been living in Germany since we graduated because she is a German citizen and goes to university there. She lives in Lüneburg which is a small town about 30 minutes from Hamburg, so I had to switch trains at Hamburg Central to get to her. She recently dislocated her knee and had surgery so she was on crutches, but she was able to meet me at the train station platform.

We did some grocery shopping and planned out what we were going to eat the rest of the weekend. We made käsespätzle for dinner which is like a German mac and cheese dish, which I actually tried with Laura on our trip to Austria in March. It was really delicious and we ate it at the table on her porch and enjoyed the fresh air.

Eurovision is a huge international song contest that is held every year. It was that night so Marcella and I watched it that night with her roommates. We ended up going on Youtube and watching funny Eurovision songs from past years, so we didn’t go to bed til 3am.

In the morning, we slept in and then made Pfannkuchen, which are German crepes. They were really easy to make and delicious. We spread nutella over them and rolled them up.

Then we went on a walk through the town and stopped for ice cream at their gelato cafe. We got ice cream shaped like spaghetti which Marcella said is pretty popular in Germany.

Then we walked through the old town part of the city where there were tons of old houses. We walked through and admired them before heading to dinner.

Then we sat down for dinner at a vegan Vietnamese restaurant called Sen. We both got amazing ramen bowls packed with so many vegetables and a tempura tofu stick. They were delicious and just what we needed after a weekend of eating chocolate, pancakes, and mac and cheese! We sat outside with a beautiful view of the town as the sun was beginning to set.

When we got home we sat out on the balcony eating chocolate and kept catching up on everything we’ve missed in each other’s lives in the past three years. Then we watched more Eurovision clips while I packed my bags since I was leaving the next morning at 4am!

In the morning I woke up at 3:45 to change and pack up the last of my stuff. We had ordered a taxi the night before so he showed up at 4:10am and loaded my bags in the car. He drove me to the train station and I pulled up the app to check the train schedule. That was when I found out my train had been cancelled!

From Sunday to Tuesday the Deutsche Bahn was striking for higher wages, so most of the trains throughout Germany were cancelled. So instead of taking a train straight from Marcella’s town of Lüneburg to Berlin in just 1.5 hours, I was having to take the local train from Lüneburg to Hamburg, and then catch a Flixbus to Berlin, which would take about 4.5 hours. The train system was really a mess at this point and the cancellation of the train I was supposed to take from Hamburg meant that I needed a new plan. It was 4am so I didn’t want to sit along at the train station while I figured it out, so I had he driver bring me back to Marcella’s house so we could make a new plan. I thought about paying a taxi to bring me all the way to Hamburg station so I could get the bus there, but I ended up finding a train that was still running straight from Lüneburg to Berlin, just at a much slower rate. Since I had all my bags with me, one of them being a 70lb suitcase, I really wanted to limit how much travel I had to do with them. So I decided to take the risk of waiting to catch the train from Lüneburg to Berlin and hope it didn’t get cancelled. It was a 5:50am train so we called the taxi service and got a taxi to take me back to the station around 5:15, and I was very happy to see the train actually arrive.

It was an amazing train experience because it was nearly empty since everyone had made alternative plans because of the strike, and I was able to get a cozy seat with a table and leave my bags right in front of me. It was a longer ride than it should have been, about 3 hours, but it still got me to Berlin faster than my original plan would have. I also was able to pay a student price of $50, instead of the regular price of $90, and I managed to get a refund for my bus ticket.

Everything was going really well until I suddenly got a notification on my phone that the train was no longer going to go all the way to Berlin, and I would need to find an alternative route. I was freaking out because I was now halfway between Lüneburg and Berlin in the middle of nowhere, and with all the strikes I would have no idea how to get back on track. The conductor was speaking over the speaker but all of his announcements were in German!

One of the train workers walked by and thankfully he spoke English. I asked him what was going on and if the train was still going to Berlin and assured me it was. I ended up asking another worker 20 minutes later to make sure, and sure enough we ended up in Berlin. So I have no idea why the app told me it wasn’t going to finish the trip, and I don’t know what the conductor was saying over the speaker. I was exhausted from only getting three hours of sleep but SO happy when my train made it to Berlin Central Station.

I took an Uber to Hotel Zoe by Amano, where I was staying that night. But my uber dropped me off around the corner from the hotel, so I had to push my bags there which was a severe challenge because the sidewalks were cobblestone and my bag wouldn’t roll over it easily. I ended up realizing I went the wrong way and was drip sweating by the time I pushed my bags to the front door. I realized that the Uber couldn’t drop me off in front of the hotel because it was a street that only the above-ground trams could go on. I arrived at the hotel around 9:45 am which was a problem because check-in was at 3pm. I was hoping they would let me into the room early, but they said the room wasn’t ready but they would be able to hold my bags in storage.

I washed my face in the lobby bathroom and changed into a clean shirt, then headed into the city. I was tired but had to make the most of the day because I would be leaving the next morning for Pisa. I started by going to get breakfast at a restaurant I had seen online called House of Small Wonder. I had a matcha latte, avocado toast on zucchini bread with poached eggs, and tomato soup.

Then I started by walking to Brandenburg Gate, Berlin’s only surviving city gate built in the 18th century. Then I walked through it and headed to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. It was designed by architect Peter Eisenman and opened in 2005. It is made up of 2711 concrete columns of different heights that are arranged in a labyrinth. It is accessible from all sides and free to enter, which I found really unique.

Then I walked to the Topography of Terror, a museum detailing the history of Germany. It is outdoor and indoor and the outdoor section goes right up against a large stretch of the remaining Berlin Wall. I walked along the outdoor stretch which went through the timeline of World War II and the holocaust, including anecdotes and unique perspectives. I was really tired so I didn’t spend very much time in the inside exhibits, but there was a lot more to explore inside.

Then I headed to Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known border crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. At the height of the Berlin Crisis in 1961, American and Soviet tanks faced each other here.

Then I took the bus and the metro to the other side of the city to stop at a Matcha cafe called Matchasome that I found on TikTok. I haven’t been drinking coffee recently and started drinking matcha abroad so I was really excited to see this cafe. They served hot and iced matcha with all different flavor combinations, so I decided to try the most unusual flavor- banana split matcha. It was interesting, but a little bitter so not my favorite. I also got a waffle. The place itself was really cute and totally committed to the matcha theme.

Then I walked to my hotel to check-in and pick up my luggage. I took a shower and a quick nap, then headed out for the next part of my day. I took the metro to the East Side Gallery, the longest-standing stretch of the Berlin Wall that has been painted by artists and turned into a permanent open-air gallery. It is over 4,000 feet long and features the work of 118 artists from 21 countries. It was first painted when the wall was opened in 1990.

I spent almost an hour walking down the length of the wall on one side and back on the other. There was so much unique art I could have spent even more time analyzing each of them. A lot of them were politically-based which was interesting to see.

Then I took the metro to the parliament building where I booked a ticket to climb a massive dome at the top. The walk from the metro station was beautiful and along the water, and I got to admire the architecture along the way.

I had to go through a lot of security to get into the building, which makes sense since this was their parliament building. They let small groups in at at a time and walked us through a series of roped off areas to an elevator, which brought us to the roof.

At the top there was a beautiful view overlooking the city. Then you enter the dome and climb up the ramp that runs up to the top. There is a separate ramp track running back down so you don’t run into people going the opposite direction. The design was really cool and the top had a big hole opening up to the sky. The dome was designed to show Germany’s commitment to renewable energy because it brings natural light to the chamber and has a massive solar panels on the roof. The building is well-insulated, allowing for less heating in the winter and less air-conditioning in the summer. It is the greenest parliament building in the world!

On the walk home I stopped at a salad bowl place chain called Beets & Roots and grabbed a vegan burrito bowl to eat back at the hotel. I packed my suitcases back up and headed to bed because I had to wake up at 6am the next day to head to the airport to get to Pisa!