What’s up? So the best place to live was actually recently voted to be Vienna, which I did not visit. However, before Vienna, it was Zurich, and I spent two and a half days there. I went with friends and we must have been staying in the Italian section because most people spoke Italian, and they had really nice Italian restaurants. We did tour the city though, which was amazing. They even showed us Tina Turner’s former house and this amazing (and expensive) castle of a hotel that overlooks the city with its own golf course. Lake Zurich was also pretty beautiful (and cold), but there were families of swans swimming along that just made it look so elegant and peaceful. It was wonderful, but the city is expensive. Like Germany, stores also close on Sundays, which is very inconvenient. The most interesting thing I noted was how discreet the people are. I guess that is why Switzerland’s banking system is so successful.
The last week of our visit, we went to Berlin. Berlin had amazing shopping and an incredible history. You could see the bunker where Hitler spent his last days, the Holocaust memorial, and the Berlin Wall. We visited Checkpoint Charlie (the gate b/t Eastern and Western Berlin) and its museum. You can find books with the names of people arrested by the Soviets (everyone with German heritage looked for their family’s name) and read the stories of incredibly heroic escapes from East Germany. Some of the stories are so heartwrenching that I almost cried. Parts of the Berlin Wall are still standing, and you can observe the difference between West and East Berlin with the lack of construction and maintenance spent on buildings in East Berlin.
We also took a train a little while out of Berlin to visit the city of Potsdam. In this city, Churchill, Truman, and Stalin divided Germany and Europe. There are different sections of the city with architecture from different countries (Dutch, French, etc.) which stem from periods of immigration (often due to religious persecution). There are also grand, colorful, and beautiful castles left from monarchs of the past. You can even see the place where Churchill, Truman, and Stalin met (it has beautiful gardens- including a red Soviet star where Churchill had to walk every day- Stalin arranged that) and the former KGB prison. The entire visit was unforgettable.
Location: Berlin and Potsdam
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