Darren is pretty busy with work, so I don't know when he will have time to get to the next post about Denmark, so I will just have to move on and we'll add that post later. Yes, I am still writing about when the Bakers were here back in August. After we went to Denmark, we stopped in Berlin for two days on the way back to Switzerland since the cheapest tickets connected through Berlin anyways. It's becoming hard to remember all the details, but we all had a great time in Berlin, so I don't want to miss out on sharing it.
Brittany had to get back to the US, so she left from Denmark to go home while the rest of us flew to Berlin early in the morning. We dropped our things off at our hotel and walked over to Museum Island, which is the name given to the northern half of an island in the Spree River that runs through Berlin because it has a lot of museums. Also on this island near the museums is the Berlin Cathedral, which was built many centuries ago, but was heavily damaged in World War II. We toured the inside for a bit as our first stop in Berlin.
The Berlin Cathedral
The beautiful altar inside the cathedral
A view from the upper pews
A view of Berlin from the cathedral dome
Our next stop was to the Pergamon Museum, which houses the archaeological finds brought back from German excavations of the Near and Middle East during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The museum is named after one of the largest pieces excavated from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon: the Pergamon Altar. One of the best things about the Berlin museums is that they all include an audio guide free with your admission ticket. I felt like the experience at the museums were enriched with so much more knowledge and insight into what we were looking at because of the audio guides. So we spent some time at the Pergamon Museum learning more about Greek, Roman, and Middle Eastern culture.
Part of the grand Pergamon Altar
The huge Market Gate from the Roman town of Miletus
The beautiful Ishtar Gate built by Nebuchadnezzar II, my favorite piece at the museum
After lunch, we went to the Neues Museum (New Museum). The names of the museums in Berlin are quite confusing and do not have anything to do with what is housed inside, except for the Pergamon Museum. The New Museum actually holds Germany's ancient Egyptian collection. Berlin is also such an interesting city to visit because it has been dramatically shaped by more recent history. Most of these collections in these museums were split up between East and West Gemany, but were finally reunited in the 1990s. The museum buildings themselves also serve as a reminder of Germany's past with shrapnel scars left on the walls from WWII, which you can see below. It's interesting how these ancient pieces came to these museums in the early 20th century to be preserved, but then were damaged by modern history events.
An original wall inside the restored museum that still has shrapnel scars from WWII
This was once an Egyptian temple, but only the outer wall paintings remain after WWII damage
An ancient Egyptian artifact
We spent a few hours seeing the Egyptian collection before leaving Museum Island to walk down the famous street in Berlin called Unter den Linden. At the end of Unter den Linden is the Brandenburg Gate, one of Berlin's most famous sites. The structure was built at the end of the 18th century at an entrance into the city. In 1806, Napoleon occupied Berlin and stole the sculpture on top of Brandenburg Gate and took it back to Paris. However, after Napoleon's demise, the sculpture was returned and a close replica was put in its place.
A picture from Unter den Linden of Berlin's famous television tower
The US Embassy next to Brandenburg Gate, it moved to this location in East Berlin after the Cold War
Darren in front of Brandenburg Gate with the Quadriga sculpture atop the gate
A picture of the arch in Paris with the replica sculpture with minor changes
Part of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
The next day, Darren and I went to an art museum called the Gemäldegalerie while Darren's family went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. We stopped by a few Cold War sites on the way to the art museum, though.
All that is left of Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing between the American and Soviet sectors
A large section of the Berlin wall close to Checkpoint Charlie
A painting of Kronborg Castle, a castle we visited in Denmark
The Colosseum in Rome
The Glass of Wine by Jan Vermeer, 1662, one of my favorite painters
Woman With a Pearl Necklace, Jan Vermeer, 1664
Madonna Terranuova by Raphael, 1505
I just loved the Gemäldegalerie. Not only were some of my favorite artists there, but they had a great audio guide, and you could take pictures! The Berlin museums are very impressive. Afterwards, we met up with Darren's family again and fit in a few more sites before dinner time.
The German Parliament, or Reichstag
A new Berlin Wall Memorial site outside of downtown that just opened up
Buildings along the new memorial showed what the buildings looked like during the Cold War
We also went to a small museum that featured life in East Germany, Darren in a Trabant
Darren's family went to dinner while Darren and I ran over to quickly see the Jewish Museum. We had heard that it was worth going to, so we wanted to fit it in before we left. A lot of people enjoy the museum for its modern architecture. After going through it though, we felt the Israel Museum in Jerusalem was much better, but if one had never been to that before, this would be a good option.
An example of the modern architecture at the newly built Jewish Museum
After a full day of sightseeing, we grabbed our things from the hotel and went to the airport to fly back to Zurich. Berlin was fantastic, I'm so glad we got to go!
Wow, Pan. You saw a lot. I've never heard of most of those museums. The Pergamon Museum looks like it would be my favorite if I had a chance to go. You certainly packed a bunch of sightseeing in such a short time.
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