Despite the weather, I was determined to see the Spandau Citadel. Mainly because of the name (Spandau Ballet - an 80's band I liked), I admit, and having stopped at Spandau station many times while there was still a wall through Berlin (and Germany). I was talking to my uncle about it this morning and he said he'd drive us out there to save time and getting too wet.
So we headed out mid-morning to Spandau. Normally it would have been a beautiful trip, past the river and lakes etc, but the weather ruined it all. Ah well. Next time!
Anyway, the citadel was interesting, and we walked around inside to see some of the exhibits:
I went up on the Julius Tower to have a look at the view. I took some photos as well:
We got caught in a thunderstorm with really heavy downpour at one stage so we checked out the art and the ceramic studio as well. I bought my aunt this cute little cat family made by Dorothea Nerlich:
She does a lot of big garden sculptures, usually on commission, and she had some models on display:
Once the storm passed, we got back out into the citdadel and continued exploring. The sun even shone for a while!:
We had another look through a little historic museum on Spandau:
And then I took some more photos of stuff I'd photographed earlier, but this time with sunshine!:
We headed back towards home. We were going to stop on the Spinner Bridge for a typical Berlin snack of currywurst, but we took a wrong turn somewhere and missed it. So we headed to Potsdam instead and stopped at Brandenburg Street (as well as the Potsdam version of the Brandenburg Gate):
We walked down the street a little and found currywurst with potato salad (yum!!) and had a nice lunch for 3.50 Euro a head.:
We continued down the street:
And since it was so beautiful out at this moment in time, we headed down to the Holland Quarter that I'd been wanting to see, so that I could get that with sunshine too:
Then I couldn't resist the Nauener Gate and a couple of the pretty buildings around it:
It started to rain again just as we were heading to the car so we hurried back. My aunt was going out to see a Baroque Riding Display she'd been given for her birthday back in February. She really wasn't looking forward to it, the weather being so unpredictable and stormy and wet, but it turned out to have been really nice. Apparently it was something I'd have photographed the hell out of. Dunno what she could possibly mean.... ;-)
