Read all about it, news! news!

Hello, perhaps you thought we'd disappeared for a while but we've been here and that's been the problem!
The last couple of weeks, the weather has not been so good on the weekends and we've not been motivated to do much and even less inclined to take pictures.
We have started to go into Berlin on a Saturday to.......buy an English newspaper or two.
So, after a bit of a lie-in this morning, we got the 10.30 train into Berlin. We ('royal we') decided not to head to get the paper first but instead do some touristy stuff first.
The first stop on our travels was the Gendarmenmarkt, a large square with a church on both the north and south sides and a Cultural / Concert Hall in between. According to our tourist book we could go up the tower of one of the churches but, like so many other sites, there was renovation going on and the tower was closed. It was relaxing though, just enjoying the sunshine and wandering around.
Here are the pictures of the one of churches and concert concert hall.




The north side church

The concert hall

I also spotted a familiar looking tourist browing her guidebook.

Leaving the square behind, we walked up Friedrickstrasse, an up and coming shopping street. We went into Lafayette, an upmarket French department store. The store was above our C&A price expectations so we didn't stay long though we were impressed with the large glass panels arranged in a circle running through the middle of the store from top to bottom.

We left by a different exit that led into a small mall food court, a picture of which appears here!




Having decided where to go next, with our tickets for unlimited travel, we jumped onto a bus heading in the right direction. Not knowing where the bus was actually going was not much of al risk. We only planned to go a couple of bus stops anyway. The bus stops were further apart than we anticipated so we did end up further than we planned from our target. That gave us the bonus of finding and visiting St. Mary's Church, not surprisingly undergoing renovation. It has a nice organ even if you can see the protective plastic sheeting on the balcony edge!



The church also houses quite an art collection and also holds English language services on Sunday evenings as far as we could understand it.



From outside, it was quite a contrast to see the old and new towers 'side-by-side'. The church dates from the late 13th century though the tower is 18th century after a fire destroyed an older tower. The modern tower is at Alexanderplatz and is a TV broadcasting tower.


We made a stop at the National Gallery, though didn't enter in and found an unusual place to photograph Berlin Cathedral from.


A glimpse of the Cathedral

The National Gallery

Fitting in a bite to eat and drink, we headed for the train station to buy our newspapers and found a benefit to buying them in mid afternoon rather than the morning. By the time we got to the store, Saturday's delivery of the Saturday's papers had arrived, rather than reading Friday's or even older papers.

So I think the papers deserves a picture also!