Woke up to an unwelcome surprise, our train to Berlin had been cancelled with only 2 hours notice. Scrambled to find an alternative which ended up leaving much later and had a transit stop. Arrived late evening at our hotel near Potsdamer Platz.
Fired up our Berlin Welcome Card (free transportation and museum entries) the next morning and headed to our walking tour meeting point. Started at the Rotes Rathaus (Red Town Hall) and wound our way through central Berlin for over 3 hours. Most of Berlin was levelled in WWII, consequently most buildings were reconstructed and sometimes rebuilt to look old. However, the vast majority were very stark, ugly, concrete masses, typical buildings of the ’50’s and 60’s. Berlin is not a pretty city, and is certainly not very walkable. We did have a very energetic Australian tour guide who offered us a lot of background knowledge of the city. We hit all the highlights which gave us a nice overview of what we wanted to come back to see. Started at the TV tower, then Museum Island and the Berlin Cathedral, Unter Den Linden and Humboldt University, the Gendarmenmarkt and Book Burning Site, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall, Adolf Hitler’s Bunker Site (now appropriately filled in and a nondescript parking lot), the Jewish Holocaust Memorial ( 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid ), and ended at the Brandenburg Gate.
That afternoon, we had a reservation to go into the Reichstag Building (Germany’s Federal Assembly) and up its central dome. Completed in 1999, you climb 2 steel ramps in the form of a double helix to reach the top for spectacular views over the city. Had quite a few museum reservations booked over our days in Berlin and our first stop was the Altes Museum on Museum Island. Opened in 1830, it is Berlin’s oldest museum and houses the ‘Collection of Classical Antiquities’ (mostly stolen from Greece). Highlight was the central rotunda area filled with statuary in floor to ceiling niches.
Next morning was time for the Nues Museum. A very poorly ventilated, irritating place with inadequate signage and a frustrating layout. It houses their Egyptian and Papyrus Collection, items from Prehistory and Early History, as well as selected objects from the Collection of Classical Antiquities. Highlight was the bust of Nefertiti, which really was incredibly beautiful. That afternoon, headed for the free, indoor/outdoor Berlin Wall Museum. Recommended by our walking tour guide, it was unlike the mural-splashed East Side Gallery (which we visited later that day) and not filled with kitschy souvenir shops like the Checkpoint Charlie area. It was first and foremost a museum with very moving tributes to victims of the Berlin Wall and an excellent historical overview of the Wall itself. One of our favourite stops in Berlin.
Turns out our hotel area was pretty much ground zero for Nazi headquarters from 1933 to 1945. Gestapo and SS buildings were just around the corner. Original buildings are gone but the bombed-out area has been turned into a free museum about the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Called the Topography of Terror, it was an interesting visit though it contained rather an overwhelming amount of information and was very crowded, so it was difficult to see some of the displays.
That afternoon, it was time for our last major museum, the Pergamon Museum. This was the museum housing the really gigantic stolen bits of antiquity. It was under renovation, so sadly its namesake, the Pergamon Altar, was not on display. It was still quite impressive with the enormous (partially reconstructed) structures of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon, and the Market Gate of Miletus (from Turkey). It was our last day of vacation so decided to go out for a traditional German meal in the Kurfurstendamm area. Ku’Damm is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin, its very own Champs-Elysees. The street takes its name from the former Kurfürsten (prince-electors) of Brandenburg and is filled with upscale shops, hotels and restaurants on carefully manicured boulevards (in marked contrast to much of the rest of Berlin!). Had fabulous meals of roast duck and pork knuckle washed down with excellent German beer. A fitting end to our European travels.
See high resolution photos of our Berlin visit on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720310067716
