Christmas market season in Germany - Day trip to Berlin

Frohe Weihnachten:

I just love this picture of a Christmas tree and the Brandenburg Gate. The Brandenburg gate, which was built as a sign of piece buy Frederick Willian II of Prussia in 1788, is one of Europe's most famous landmarks.

The Reichstag with no people out front.

Usually it has a lot of people on the yard and the stairways however due to the terrorist threats it was blocked off. We were really disappointed as we were going to tour it and walk up the dome, we scheduled it first stop of our day to make sure. Dang it was closed, we have been to Berlin like 6+ times and i have yet to make it to the top

:-( Soviet War Memorial (tiergarten), built by the Soviet's after WWII to commemorate it's 80,000 soldiers who died during the Battle of Berlin in April and May of 1945 (the battle in which Berlin and Germany was liberated from the Nazi's) :

Soviet tanks, part of the monument:

David and Noah in front of the Brandenburg Gate:


We also visited the DDR Museum, which is a great hands on exhibition of all things DDR. We all just loved it. Here is Noah test driving a Tribi, which is the iconic car of the DDR:

Of course there was always a lot of spying on the people; Noah is trying out some of the vintage spy equiptment of the day:

St. Peters Kirche with the Alexansderplatz TV tower:
A Weihnachtsmarkt in Berlin:

The Reichstag at Night:
Another image of the Brandenburg Gate at Christmas time: