Brandenburg Gate

And so the final chapter in our Berlin trip...its about time, right?

The Brandenburg Gate...here is what I know about it...

1.  Its a well known landmark in Berlin that marks entrance into Berlin.
2.  Its in East Berlin...or was...now its just in "Berlin."  :)

And here is what it looks like...

From the front....

From the back....

My favorite shot of us with the gate.  ha ha ha.....

And the big colums...they were giant.  And yes, thats me geekily peeking out from behind it.  We THOUGHT it would be a cute photo, but now I just see it was pretty dumb.  As penance I'm including it in my blog.  :)

Last, but not least...when I did some research about the Brandenburg Gate I realized that it...like so many other wonderful buildings, monuments, statues, squares, etc. are huge symbols of the East/West...The Iron Curtain...Communism...Liberation....hope....peace....and it really is overwhelming to think I had the chance to go and experience THAT...not just see the gate...not just take a picture of a well known monument.  Makes one stop and say..."Woah."

From Wikipedia...

Vehicles and pedestrians could travel freely through the gate, located in East Berlin, until the Berlin Wall was built, 13 August 1961. Then one of altogether eight Berlin Wall crossings was opened on the eastern side of the gate, usually not open for East Berliners and East Germans, who from then on needed a hard-to-obtain exit visa. On 14 August West Berliners gathered on the western side of the gate to demonstrate against the Berlin Wall, among them West Berlin's governing Mayor Willy Brandt, who had spontaneously returned from a federal election campaigning tour in West Germany earlier on the same day.


Under the pretext that Western demonstrations required it, the East closed the checkpoint at the Brandenburg Gate the same day, 'until further notice', a situation that was to last until 22 December 1989.