In June I was invited by Veritas to attend an event in Berlin, the Netbackup Forum 2018.
Berlin? For five days? On my own? Hold on!!! Where is my backpack? Where is my gear?
The event was great and it was between 9am until 5pm. That gave me enough time to pack my gear... on my back and off we go exploring Berlin by night.
It was either plenty of places to see, sit back relax and drink lots of beer or setup the tripod and take some cracking (as cracking as they can get) long exposure shots.
Well it was the last one.
Berlin is a great city to visit. Lots to see and do and with the diversity of the population travel photography can get very exciting. At the same time the mixture between historic sites and the new united Berlin makes Berlin a unique travel destination.
So every day after 5 pm I took some time to rest from the long day and then packed my gear in my backpack ready to take some night shots. I did around 12 km each night entirely on foot but it was worth it.
The weather was great for walking. The place feels really safe even after midnight (at least the places I have visited) Among the places I visited and took my time to take some long exposure shots were:
- Rotes Rathaus
- Gendarmenmarkt
- Berliner Dom
- The Sony Center
- Potsdamer Platz
- Alexanderplatz
These are just a few of the landmarks in Berlin. It’s a mixture between old and new parts of the city and I guess they provide a sensible coverage of the look and feel of the city.
Rotes Rathaus and the Neptune Fountain
The Red Town Hall (Rotes Rathaus), located in the Mitte district near Alexanderplatz, is one of Berlin's most famous landmarks. The Red Town Hall derives its name from the façade design which is made up of red bricks. Built between 1861 and 1869
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Heavily damaged in World War II, the Red Town Hall was reconstructed in the postwar years. As a result of the division of Berlin the East Berlin magistrate held its sessions in the Red Town Hall and the West Berlin senate in Schöneberg town hall. In 1991 the Red Town Hall became again seat of government of the now reunified Berlin.
At the center of the esplanade in front of the Rotes Rathaus sits a large fountain known as the Neptunbrunnen (Neptune Fountain). The neo-Baroque fountain, decorated with bronze statues, was created between 1886 and 1891 by Reinhold Begas.
At the center of the fountain is a statue of Neptune, who overlooks a large basin where four female figures symbolize Prussia's most important rivers: the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder and the Vistula.
Gendarmenmarkt
It is said to be the most beautiful square in Berlin, maybe even in Europe: the Gendarmenmarkt. It is located in Berlin’s historic centre very close to the hotel where I stayed.
It has long been at the top of any tourist’s sightseeing list; more than a million visitors come to the Gendarmenmarkt each year. It is the site of three impressive buildings: The German and the French Cathedral and Schinkel's Konzerthaus.
The square was created by Johann Arnold Nering at the end of the seventeenth century as the Linden-Markt and reconstructed by Georg Christian Unger in 1773. The Gendarmenmarkt is named after the cuirassier regiment Gens d'Armes, which had stables at the square until 1773.
Berliner Dom
Probably the most amazing landmark of Berlin. The magnificent dome of the Cathedral Church (Berliner Dom) is one of the main landmarks in Berlin’s cityscape – and marks the spot of the impressive basilica housing the city’s most important Protestant church.
This outstanding high-renaissance baroque monument has linked the Hohenzollerns to German Protestantism for centuries and undergone renewed phases of architectural renovation since the Middle Ages.
Damaged during the Second World War it remained closed during the GDR years and reopened after restoration in 1993.
The Sony Center
Took my breath away from the minute I walked in. The place is out of this world. It looks like it has been constructed by aliens.
Potsdamer Platz was a famed Berlin cultural centre before the Second World War. It was severely bombed during the war because it was near Hitler's bunker. The area became a no-man's land during the cold war. After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, it was re-developed with the aim of recovering its pre-war cultural role.
All traces of the hot and cold wars were to be expunged. The Sony Platz section of the Potsdamer Platz re-development was designed as a mixed-use project with space for office, retail, entertainment, residential, and hospitality uses. The central space is a 4,000 square metre tented garden.
The Sony Centre is at the same time public and private, bounded and unbound, sheltered but not enclosed. Its a must see place in Berlin.
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz has been redeveloped as the new center of Berlin after the fall of the Wall. A bustling traffic intersection in the 1920s, it became desolate after WW II and part of the border strip.
Berlin's Potsdamer Platz is the most striking example of the urban renewal that turned Berlin into the "New Berlin" in the 1990s although it is not, strictly-speaking, a square. The area today consists of the three developments known as Daimler City (1998), the Sony Centre (2000) and the Beisheim Centre (2004), which literally transformed the dormant wasteland where the Berlin Wall stood between east and west Berlin until 1989.
Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz has always been one of the liveliest places in Berlin, with shops, cinemas, restaurants, and many attractions within walking distance.
Alexanderplatz in Mitte is one of the best-known public squares in Berlin – and it’s certainly the biggest. Named after Tsar Alexander I, who visited the Prussian capital in 1805, most people simply call it Alex.
The central square in the heart of Berlin was brought to life in the early 19th century. The former Trade Square Ochsenplatz was renamed by the Russian Tsar Alexander the first (1777-1825). Over the years, the square had several different purposes:
First, for quite a long time, the square was known as a cattle-market where people came together to do business.
Later, during the Second World War, Alexanderplatz was used for its underground bunkers and unfortunately this also meant that it was one of the main targets for the enemies of Adolf Hitler. Nowadays it is the main traffic point and one of the most famous touristic attractions in Berlin.
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