The German language has many a wonderful word to playfully describe common things, such as Treppenwitz - the perfect comeback you only think of once the conversation is over. Yet they have no word to specifically describe the need to do very little the day after running a warm marathon. The most accurate word though, for us at least, would be Faulenztag - a lazing day.

We started our day with a buffet breakfast downstairs in the hotel, the one day we thought this might be worthwhile. The post-marathon hunger could be satiated on a myriad of pastries and other such things, and would save our legs.

We paid €17 each for a buffet breakfast, and ate very well, perhaps almost too well. Rather than spend time photographing our shiny new medals yesterday, we’d decided to leave it today, and as the medal features the Siegessäule it seemed the most appropriate place to do so. On our way there, Carmen tried to get a copy of the Tagesspiegel newspaper as it featured the printed results of the marathon. Of course the newsstand closest to the hotel full of runners had sold out already. We looked in a couple of shops in the Europa centre on the ways and then another in the Zoologischer station. No luck.

Going out the other side of the station we found what might have been one of the dodgier parts of Berlin, but soon found our way into Tiergarten, and to the Victory column. Carmen realised we could go up it, so suggested we did. The entry was €4.50 each, and includes access to a museum in the pedestal. The whole column used to be in front of the Reichstag, but was moved in 1939 as part of Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer’s redesign of Berlin as Welthauptstadt Germania. They also increased the height of it by adding a fourth drum and widening the base.

Carmen went up as far as the first viewing platform, and I continued to the top, just below the golden statue of Victoria. It was very cramped up there; not helped by people having big backpacks on. The last few steps up are quite narrow too, and were ones you could see through, so I’m not sure Carmen would have liked them if she’d wanted to put her legs through that climb.

I met her on the way back down, and she pointed out the damage to the columns and wall - leftover scars from the Second World War. Since we felt we could walk some more, and were going to walk to the Brandenburg Gate to get more photos, I suggested we go via the concert hall in Tiergarten as I knew Carmen hadn’t seen it so far. It did mean it was getting quite warm by the time we reached Unter den Linden, so we both felt going in search of ice cream was a good idea. Carmen wanted to photograph a street sign she’d seen during the race, so our ice cream stop was plotted on the route there.

Just before we got there, we tried the Mall of Berlin for a potential newsagent, but couldn’t find one. We did notice a food court though, and thought that could be quite useful later on if we were still in the area. The nearby Rewe, thankfully, had a copy of the newspaper so the search was over. I also bought a USB-C Flash Drive for a little less than it would have cost me in the UK so that diversion worked out quite well.

We’d probably spent too much time on our feet by this point, and decided to sit down on a bench in Gendarmenmarkt, just outside the New Church. It felt like we’d sat there for hours, with numerous runners spending an age taking many different photographs with their medals outside the Koncerthaus. I thought if we went back to the hotel now, we’d have to go back out to find somewhere to eat shortly after, but since we were still near the Mall of Berlin, maybe it was worth eating early and snacking later if we needed to. It’s worth noting that even in shopping centres in Berlin, you need to pay €1 to use the toilets there - they do however accept contactless payments.

Carmen was fairly quick in finding what she wanted, but I found that the first two options I thought of had mayo in them that couldn’t be removed, and then found Pizza Hut had ‘run out’ of small pizzas and could only do medium and large. I was unsure what to do then until Carmen mentioned that the place she’d bought from had chicken, so I went there too and had crispy chicken with noodles, and a mango sauce. Maybe visually it looked like someone had vomited onto a plate, but it tasted nice anyway.

With the current train issues, it did of course take a while to get back, but we took the U-Bahn anyway, and stopped by the supermarket for dessert. Carmen had tiramisu, and I got a Schäfer’s Kirsch-Knut. It’s a soft dough swirl, with vanilla cream, tart red cherries, Streusel (crumble), and a sugar icing glaze.

It was good to put our feet up after - not quite the lazy day we thought it’d be.