Berlin: Day 3 - Monkey Business and a TV Tower

The rain stopped and while the day started out overcast, the sun eventually came out. It was the only day of our entire trip where we actually saw the sun. Most people would probably take in the many historical attractions Berlin has to offer, but not us. We ended up on Bus 100 to the Berlin Tiergarten-Zoo.

I like zoos. Animal behavior fascinates me and on this trip I caught some interesting videos of baby bird bathing, and a hungry ram "ramming" its horns into a fence trying to escape.

There was a petting area with some goats and for some reason, someone thought of putting some geese in there to make it interesting. Geese are not the most friendly creatures. Thing 2 was trying to feed a goat and a goose who was upset that s/he was not being fed nipped at her and freaked her out. She was very cautious petting all the animals after that. The most entertaining was a fenced in ram. It too was rather upset that the goat on the other side of the fence kept getting fed by the kids and it started to "ram" right into the fence with it's horns.

My only pet peeve about this zoo is that there was no personal guide map. We spent about 4 hours there and didn't see it all. But out of all the zoos we have been to, this one was certainly worth it. They have a great array of animals and today they were all active. The kids really enjoyed it.

Walking around the zoo was quite exhausting. We took Bus 100 back towards Alexanderplatz and decided to make the line for the Fernsehnturm otherwise known as the Berlin TV Tower. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the tickets are timed and while they say it is only a 30 minute wait, they lied. We got there around 3 which I thought would be a great time to see panoramic Berlin during the daylight hours. However, by the time, our ticket number came up, it was almost 5pm and the sun had set. If you like taking in city views and pictures of the city, I would not do the TV tower in the later afternoon. It is actually better to get there when it opens at 8 so you can get a good view and if you are lucky, you may be able to have coffee in the rotating cafe. It was jam packed at 5pm.

The city view really wasn't that spectacular in comparison to Paris for example. The TV Tower is the highest structure in Berlin, so nothing really stands out from that high. I could barely see the Brandenburg Gate - yet another reason to go during daylight hours. By the time we finished descending, it was about 6pm and time for dinner. We were close to our apartment so we picked up some food and took it back "home" to eat dinner and called it an early night.