The Berlin Wall in Rome?

On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. The Berlin Wall was an 87 mile long concrete wall that separated the city of West Berlin from East Berlin and from the country of East Germany. This wall was built beginning in 1961 to keep people from going from East Berlin into West Berlin. It was 12 feet tall, 3 feet wide and had guards watching 24 hours a day. This is a very complicated story - too much for me to write about here. Feel free to ask someone about it or do some research on your own.

So, November 9, 2009 was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There were celebrations all over the world, including here in Rome. The Romans put up a temporary exhibit on the Spanish Steps which included information and a model of the Berlin Wall. I took some pictures so that you could see what it looked like.

We visited the Spanish Steps and the Berlin Wall exhibit with John's brother, Brian, and his wife, Ogi. Here is a picture of all of us on the Spanish Steps. The Berlin Wall exhibit is not in this picture. Behind us you can see some of the steps, and there is an overlook in the piazza at the top. This piazza is right in front of the church, Trinita del Monti. Here is a photo that I took in September that shows the whole set of stairs, from the Piazza de Spagna at the bottom, to the towers of the church at the top. The staircase is apparently the longest and widest in Europe with 138 stairs. (Golly! Our Glorioso stairs that we climb every day have only 126 stairs!)