I liked Berlin more today. That’s partly because there was a cool breeze when I left the hotel, partly because it didn’t feel hot and sticky today even when the hot sun came out and partly because I didn’t follow the You Must See These Things rules.

First a croissant and some juice from the Rewe City at the station. It’s just about the only supermarket open on a Sunday so it was chaotic. Then I got a new 24-hour ticket but didn’t validate it – not when I’ve still got 40 minutes left on the last one! I went to Museumsinsel and sat on a bench under the trees overlooking the cathedral to eat my breakfast. The croissant tasted bad. Is it different butter? Lard? I don’t want to eat it. At last I pulled it out of the bag and looked at it. Filled with cheese – and ham!

The cathedral was closed to visitors until the afternoon, Sunday being a cathedral’s busy working day, so I had a look around. Two red brick spires caught my eye so off I went to find them, via a huge patch of construction work that doubled the distance. It’s a big red brick church, kind of square and angular but something about it appealed to me. The door was open and when I peeked inside, it turned out to be a free sculpture exhibition. I’m not interested in the sculptures but I was interested in the church. And it was great! For such a dark red angular brick church on the outside, it was all lightness and Gothic inside – cream pillars, huge expanses of stained glass, brick vaulted ceilings and every time you thought you’d seen every detail, there was another detail! Is it my favourite thing in Berlin or does Badeschiff still have that? I don’t know.

I strolled the long way round to the opera house where I discovered I was on Unter den Linden, the boulevard that ends at Brandenburg Gate, only I was at the opposite end. Then I think I got the u-bahn to Alexanderplatz. I’m not sure what I thought I wanted there – maybe to look up at the TV tower, maybe to pass Marienkirche, which is supposed to be Gothic but certainly doesn’t look it from the outside. Instead I walked down to the Rotes Rathouse which I also liked (I like red brick apparently) and then accidentally took the long way down to the river. Time for a boat trip.

There are hundreds of boats and companies but they’re basically all the same. I picked one because it was boarding there and then and you could buy tickets as you boarded. It had a retractable roof which covered the front and back of the boat but left the middle empty. There was a big black cloud behind us so I wasn’t surprised when it started threatening to rain but I was impressed by the waiter who pulled the cover over mere seconds before the entire black cloud fell onto Berlin. Five minutes later, the mega rainstorm was over, the sun came out and the roof was retracted again.

We floated five minutes up the river to see old Berlin, turned round and floated the other way to a little past the huge Hbf to turn round and come back again. I had vague hopes of getting into a bit of river that seemed a bit more untamed, like the bit down by Badeschiff where I’d seen plenty of boats yesterday but this was all quite calm river, other than the procession of tour boats. I noticed they all have their length written down the side and the biggest by far was Moby Dick, an actual shark-shaped boat.

I came back via Brandenburg Gate (quieter than yesterday but still surrounded by stuff) and the Memorial to Murdered Jews (interesting in itself but didn’t feel like a memorial; I wondered if there was a significance to the way it’s built that I and Wikipedia were both missing) and then came home because my camera and feet needed recharging.

While back, I checked to see if there were any Berlin essentials I’d missed and came across Liquidrom, a spa that thinks it’s a techno club. That seemed very Berliny so I reserved my space and I’ve written this sitting on its steps waiting for my time.

It was a spa, more or less. There are two pools and four saunas, I think – I didn’t go in the saunas. The main pool is underground, under a concrete dome, lit in shades of blue and green, with projectors splashing coloured light into the water and reflecting it onto the dome. It’s supposed to be a silent sanctuary except the music under the water but there are speakers above the water too and anyway, you can hardly hear anything over the water sloshing over the edge of the pool and into the gutter that runs around it, and the echoes of the splashing. There are hundreds of black and white pool noodles and you lie back in the water and listen to the music. It’s not techno. I don’t know what it is. It’s about as tuneless and pointless as proper spa music but with more saxophones and more bass.

The second pool is a small shallow pool outside in an enclosed garden. This is Germany. The sauna is textile-free and you can choose to be textile-free in the outside pool too, and in the various loungers and sunbeds around the pool and around the bar. Swimwear is required in the main pool, though. Entry to the saunas is €2.50, paid using your electronic wristband and then, yes, textiles off. So I opted not to sauna. Initially, seeing a tiny pool and a dark pool and a lot of nakedness, I thought the two hour slot was going to be more than enough but actually, it turns out I can lie in hot water for two hours very easily. I say “two hour slot”. You pay when you depart and the wristband knows if you’ve overstayed your slot and charges you accordingly, €2.50 for every extra thirty minutes, no fuss.

I stayed within my time, not least because I knew it would take at least half an hour to get home and I have an entire room to pack up ready to be on a train much earlier than intended tomorrow.