Robert Hampton

Imagine you’ve just arrived in London, after getting off a train from the provisional capital, Manchester. You get on a Northern Line train (Bank branch) at Euston. After King’s Cross you hear an announcement that you are about to leave the Western Sector. The train proceeds, but it doesn’t stop at Angel – it crawls through the platform at walking pace, enabling you to peer out at the dimly lit station. It is dusty, derelict and dimly lit. You can just about make out some guards standing at the platform exit. They look bored, but the guns they are carrying are still intimidating. The pattern is repeated at Old Street, and Moorgate.

Finally, you reach a station that is open – at Bank you alight to change onto the Central line. You take a wrong turn and find yourself heading for the exit, only to find your way barred by a border guard. You don’t have the right papers, of course, so you turn back and return to the platform. This time you were lucky; you could have been arrested for trying to cross the border.

This is the daily grind that Berlin’s U-Bahn passengers faced during the Cold War. The division of the city between 1961 and 1989 sliced through the public transport network, leaving it very much a Tube of two halves.

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My second full day in Berlin was Saturday. I spent the morning riding the Berlin U-Bahn. I ended up back in the city centre at around 1.30pm. My sole nourishment so far that morning had been a Snickers bar from a platform vending machine, so some proper sustenance was needed. I got back on the U-Bahn and took a short ride to Alexanderplatz. Here I found Galeria Kaufhof, the massive department store. The restaurant on the top floor had been recommended to me by my friend Dave.

The restaurant is a self-service affair. I picked up a tray and explored the buffet selections on offer. Again, I was thankful that I had made the effort to learn a bit of German before coming here, as I was able to decipher the differently labelled foods on offer: Gemüse, Obst, Salate, Fisch, Pasta (OK, the last two are fairly obvious).

The choice was slightly bewildering, and there were lots of people waiting impatiently for their turn at each counter, so I didn’t have time to stop and consider my options carefully. Eventually, I scooped some pasta, some meat and some hash-browny type thing onto my plate and made my escape.

I took my plate to the checkout, where the cashier invited me to place it on a set of scales. Food here is priced according to weight – €1.85 per 100g. Annoyingly, I went just over 500g, so the price was rounded up to 600 grams.

I found an empty table and sat down, glad of the chance to rest my weary feet for a few minutes. Where did my stamina go? I’m sure that, a few years ago, I would have been able to roam the streets for hours without so much as a single blister. Now, it was barely 2pm and my body was complaining. I must be getting old. From now on, I am only going to take part in activities that can be done sitting or lying down.

It wasn’t just me that needed a recharge – excessive use of Instagram during the morning had run my phone battery down to zero. Continuing the rest of the day without a phone wasn’t an option – I needed access to maps to help me find my way around, and also it was the only camera I had with me. I would have to go back to the hotel to charge it up, even though this would probably eat an hour or more out of my day.

I was about to just get up and go, when I spotted that other customers were taking their used trays away with them. I followed one of them and discovered that there was a conveyor belt to take away used plates. I put my used tray on it, and it was swiftly whisked away through a small door. Technology – you’ve got to love it.

I went back to the hotel. While my phone recharged, I watched some excellent German television – Top Gear on RTL Nitro. Jeremy Clarkson dubbed into German? Hmm, maybe not.

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