Farewell Berlin: People with places to go

Like everywhere else it would seem Berlin is not that special place it once was for me when like London characterful double-deckers reached the suburbs and those enjoyable long routes hadn't been chopped up to finish at unassuming U-Bahn Stations in the middle of nowhere. Indeed in the fascinating days before The Wall came down I used to dread that last day when I had to board the blue MAN airport bus on Service Nine back to Tegal Airport. If one scrambled aboard at The Zoo they were afforded last views of the Kurfirstendam as it plied it's way through the traffic but in reality they never really enjoyed it much as passengers were usually crammed in like sardines. Still this select group of about ten buses in that light blue livery not only were an integral part of my holiday they were real favourites as they looked so attrractive compared to the egg-custard colour of the rest of the fleet and not forgetting some of those often ghastly all-over advertisment buses.