Cologne

Cologne.

It was our last day in Berlin, actually half day. We were up early to see the Berlin Wall one last time. There are two places to see the extant wall. one is a good distance out for a tourist. At the fall of the wall many artists from around the world painted their thoughts on this section. It may run 500ft. Today's news story is that developers want to tear the wall down to make way for hotels and such.
The other Wall segment is in Potsdammer Platz. This section had been chained off and connected to a museum. too many "wood peckers", the name Berliners gave to tourists who broke off pieces of the wall for souvenirs  so now you can't touch it. But connected to this part is the original foundations for the East German side watch towers and such. I heard that 138 people died trying to cross the border from East to West. However, the same report suggested more than 500 people made it through.
We walked around Checkpoint Charlie on this trip as well. It is unimpressive save the picture of tanks lining Friedrieche Strausse during the height of tensions. We had to continually remind ourselves that this city was a theater of war. Over half the city was destroyed, rubble, some places a lot more. 
After our history lesson we returned to the hotel and grab our  luggage for the trip to the Cologne HauptBahnHof. 
The train trip from Berlin to cologne was uneventful save seeing a Monorail in Wuppetal, Germany. It was the suspended type with a Erector set style support system. Cool!
We had grabbed a map to our hotel from Google. The map gave us directions but had the caution, (Beta) on it. So we followed the directions. We walked down the first street looking for the "slight left". Under a blue lit tunnel, we entered into a local business area. Street not more than a car and a half wide. small shops on both sides of the street. Didn't seem like the place we were headed for.  Fortunately there was a map of the city right there! Blessed saint of travelers whoever that is. We checked our location a found we had passed our hotel. Returned under the blue lit bridge, turned right as directed, and walked past several hotels, none of them ours. Turned at the corner and found a small restaurant and asked the question. It was right around the corner if we continued on! We could have gone the other way and walked right to it instead we walked around the block. Be careful when Google says "Beta".