Katie's Birthday in Berlin: Baltic Sea Cruise Part One

Bryan Johnson
Oct 1, 2025
9 min read

It's finally time for the trip we've been planning since February 2024! For those that aren't counting, we've been prepping for this Baltic Cruise for 19 months, and now it's time to get this party started!

Katie and I each had the day off from work on Thursday, September 4th, so we spent the morning snuggling with the pups before making the three-hour drive to Malaga for our 7:30 pm flight to Berlin.

Berlin Brandenburg Airport: Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt

We landed in Berlin at 10:45 pm and had to wait forever to get our checked luggage. By the time we made it out of the airport, all public transit was closed for the evening, so we booked a rideshare to our hotel!

easyHotel Berlin Hackescher Markt

We arrived at our hotel shortly after midnight and were greeted with what was possibly the smallest hotel room we've had since moving to Europe. Not the greatest set-up when we have our 2+ weeks of baggage to store, but oh well, we made it work!

September 5: Berlin Wall History Day

With our late-night arrival, we were fortunate enough to sleep in the following morning! At 10:30, we enjoyed a fresh tomato, pesto, & mozzarella toastie and a tomato, feta, & spinach omelette at Cappuccino Grand Café - Mitte. Although a little early in the year, the weather in Berlin was incredible, so I HAD to get my first pumpkin spice latte of the season! As I sipped by autumn-flavored beverage, Katie snapped a pic of me reading away on her Kindle! I was nearing the end of Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, and I just couldn't finish the book quickly enough!

Denns BioMarkt

After brunch, we made our way to northern Berlin for our tour. At the train station, Katie and I figured we should buy a bottle of water and a snack for later in the day, which turned into Katie choosing a carton of cranberries as our afternoon treat! Let's just say those cranberries didn't last the day- the entire carton was eaten between today's tours.

Berliner Unterwelten (Tour M)

At 12:30 pm we met our tour group at an abandoned subway station entrance, where we would learn about the Berlin underground during the division of Berlin from 1948 to 1990. As we made our way into deserted tunnels underneath the city, our guides began to share some history on the Berlin Wall and the communist regime in Eastern Berlin.

Immediately following World War II, the city was broken up into four factions, with the west being controlled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, while the east was controlled by the Soviet Union. In 1948, when the geopolitical climate between the West and the Soviets took a turn for the worse, the city was permanently divided. Numerous citizens throughout the Eastern Bloc would make their way to Berlin and cross over into Western Germany, seeking an escape from the communist regime.

In 1961, after years of people being able to cross this border freely, the Soviet-controlled state built the Berlin Wall, which stood for nearly 30 years. From '61-'75, this wall was just old buildings, barbed wire and chain link fencing. In 1975, the Soviet Union erected the large concrete wall that we know today, with a large clearing on the Soviet-side known as the "death strip."

The old metro station we were visiting on today's tour was completely sealed off when the wall was built. During the city's divide, many metro lines connected the East and West sides of Berlin. This metro line continued to function, as it originated in the West, traveled under East Berlin, and then continued back into West Berlin- so the line was still used, but the train just didn't stop at the East Berlin stations any longer.

We learned that the subway was one of the primary means of escaping the Eastern Bloc. Now, the Soviets were smart; as soon as they closed the border, they began to man the subway platforms with soldiers to ensure that people wouldn't escape through the subway tunnels. What they didn't expect was for young soldiers to jump onto moving trains to escape East Germany. Nearly 150 people were able to escape the Communist regime via the subway.

Another method of early escapes was through the sewer system. I cannot imagine how horrible life must have been for people to willingly swim through hundreds of yards of filth and then dive into escriment-filled water to get under metal bars to escape into freedom. While it was a nasty way to escape, we were shocked to learn this escape route was formed by engineering college students and was the most successful escape route in all of Berlin. Nearly 800 East German citizens escaped by wading through human waste to make it to West Berlin.

The final means of escape, and arguably the most famous, is that of man-made tunnels. Nearly 75 tunnels were dug between 1961 to 1990, but not all were successful. Nearly 300 people escaped via these tunnels. After numerous successful escapes, the East German government developed numerous anti-tunnelling measures to include deep concrete barriers and sensitive microphones to detect the sound of digging. (Katie's shameless plug: Jennifer A. Nielsen's book A Night Divided, is a fantastic historical fiction story about tunnel digging during this time!)

Berlin Underground Tunnel Tour Museum

After leaving the abandoned metro station, we jumped on the real subway and headed south to the Tunnel Tour Museum, where we got to see recreations of some of the escape tunnels. I was shocked to learn that the museum hired some of the actual Berlin tunnel-diggers to build these demos. It's crazy that this part of history is still recent enough for those who lived it to help build the museum to tell their stories.

As we went further into the museum, we had the chance to glimpse one of the real tunnels dug during the city's divide. Bryan and I felt the eerie similarity to the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam; both of these tunnels were barely big enough for one person to shimmy their way through the opening.

The final photo above is a picture from 2009, where four survivors of the tunnel-digs were honored in partnership with the museum. Hearing their stories during our tour was eye-opening and harrowing.

Berlin Wall Memorial: Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer

One of the most famous escape tunnels was Tunnel 57, named for the number of people who reached the West through it. It began at a cellar at Bernauer Strasse 97 and continued beneath the border strip to the courtyard at Strelitzer Strasse 55.

On two nights in October 1964, fugitives crawled through the tunnel to the West. During the second night, members of the secret police learned of the escape tunnel. When their suspicions proved correct, they returned with several border soldiers to stop the operation and arrest the fugitives and their helpers.

There was an exchange of fire with the armed escape agents in the courtyard during which Soviet- soldier Sergeant Egon Schultz was accidentally killed by a ricochet bullet fired from one of his fellow soldiers. While the tunnel diggers and those attempting escape all made it safely to freedom, the secret police made it seem as though the deadly shot had been fired intentionally by one of the escape agents. The truth was not discovered until after 1989.

Katie and I learned of this story, amongst numerous others, while walking along the Berlin Wall Memorial after our underground tour. Reading and listening to true stories from this time of conflict was sombering.

Mikkeller Berlin

After an eventful morning learning about the Berlin Wall, it was time to check out Katie and I's favorite multinational watering hole: Mikkeller. After having visited each of the Mikkeller locations in Asia, as well as Paris and Amsterdam, Katie and I finally grabbed a Mikkeller passport! Now as we visit each Mikkeller location, we can have our Mikkeller passport "stamped" to document our visits!

Fortunately, this trip will be full of many more Mikkeller visits in Tallinn, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. Katie enjoyed flipping through the Mikkeller book, where we located pictures of our Japan locations and their first Asia location in Thailand that we visited a few years back! After enjoying a few drinks and loading up on some Mikkeller merch, it was time to grab some dinner!

Iimori Ramen

After reminiscing over the good times throughout Asia, Katie and I were craving ramen, so we found a highly rated ramen restaurant near our hotel! After enjoying a couple of bowls of Ramen, a Sapporo beer, and a chu-high, it was time to head to our hotel for the evening.

September 6: Berlin Walking Tour

Today is an incredibly important day because it's Katie's 31st birthday! This is Katie's fourteenth birthday she's celebrated with me, and each one gets better than the last!

Breggs

We started our morning with some egg sandwiches, coffee, and a berry smoothie from Breggs!

Alexanderplatz

At 10:30 am, we met up with our tour guide, Mary, for our four-hour walking tour of Berlin that blended historical events with present-day geopolitics.

Berlin TV Tower: Berliner Fernsehturm

Just next to the Alexanderplatz is the Berlin TV Tower; constructed in 1969 and standing at 1200 feet high, this tower is the largest structure in Germany and was built to project Communist power to the West.

Bebelplatz

One of our first stops on the tour was Bebelplatz, a square located outside the Humboldt University Library and the site of the largest and most infamous book burning during the Nazi regime. On May 10, 1933, the Nazis burned nearly 20,000 books they deemed "un-German," degenerate, or ideologically opposed to their beliefs. In the middle of the square is a small glass window that shows a basement below, filled with empty bookshelves, commemorating all the lost works that day. This square touched a little too close to home with all of the book banning happening still today in the US...Katie took this stop a little harder than most.

Checkpoint Charlie

Our next stop was Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous border crossing between East and West Berlin. In October of 1961, tensions between the Soviets and Western Allies had reached an all-time high in the area, with 10 Soviet tanks and 10 American tanks facing each other, just 100 yards apart.

Coffee Fellows

Just next to Checkpoint Charlie was Coffee Fellows, where Katie and I got an afternoon pick-me-up and a raspberry muffin.

Aviation Ministry of Berlin: Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus

Our first stop after our coffee break was the Aviation Ministry, the only surviving Nazi government building in the city. Allied bombers used the building as a central reference point on bombing runs, leading to its survival through the war. You can also see some of the remaining parts of the Berlin Wall right next to this governmental building.

Informationstafel "Führerbunker"

The craziest stop of our tour was at an unassuming gravel parking lot. We learned that under this gravel parking lot is the bunker where Adolf Hitler ended his life near the end of WWII. The only signage indicating the area is a small informational plaque in the corner of the parking lot. We learned on our tour that when the Soviets conquered the city and found Hitler's bunker, they quietly threw his body in an unmarked grave. Stalin wanted Soviet citizens to believe that Hitler had escaped; Hitler and his fascist ideals were the greatest threat to his Communist "utopia," so keeping the fear of fascism alive helped him keep power in the Soviet Union.

Our tour guide also shared a story from a few years ago. While she was on a tour, three white men came to this very parking lot, set up a black and red flag, and began 'praying' in the spot of "Hitler's final moments." In Germany, it is illegal to have any Nazi paraphernalia or even pretend to be a Nazi, so the cops were quickly called, but unfortunately, these men weren't apprehended. It's absolutely disgusting that people can idolize such an evil man, and that nazi ideology is still alive and well still today.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe:

Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas

Near the end of the tour, we visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. With over 2700 concrete slabs strongly resembling the size and shape of coffins, the memorial feels like a large graveyard commemorating the nearly six million Jewish Holocaust victims.

Brandenburg Gate: Brandenburger Tor

One of the most iconic images in Berlin, and our final stop of the tour, is the Brandenburg Gate. Built in 1791, this Neo-Classical gate has survived numerous wars and now represents Germany's tumultuous past, but also symbolizes European peace. Of course, we had to snap a picture and send it to Caleb and Sabrina showing that we visited "their gate!"

Berlin Pavillon

You can't visit Germany and not visit a beer garden, so we made our way to Berlin Pavillon for some cold beer in the shade when the walkign tour ended.

The Pub

For dinner, Katie had reserved a table for us at The Pub. We enjoyed a barbecue bacon cheeseburger, chili cheese nachos, and some self-service beer! This restaurant was pretty cool; with locations in Prague and Bucharest, The Pub keeps score of how many beers have been drafted at each of their locations, making it feel like you're directly competing with their other restaurants to drink more; it's definitely a great way to sell more beer! It also encouraged me to practice my own beer-pouring skills right there at the table!

After dinner, we made our way back to our hotel to pack up! Tomorrow we train north to the coast to board our cruise, but before our day ended, we received a few photos from Jessi, our dog sitter. Hugo and Reynolds even sent a Happy Birthday message to Katie!