Josh went for a run this morning while I slept in a little longer. He likes to run in each city that we visit and explore things without dragging me along and he misses working out all the time, so it is a great stress relief for him. After he got back, we got ready and headed upstairs to eat breakfast. After that, we packed up the book bag and headed out for the day. We started at the Altes Museum, which josh learned about in his history class and it was right beside the berlin cathedral that we visited yesterday. We were just planning to look inside and leave but josh insisted that we buy museum passes to visit the interior dome which would also give us access to the other museums on the island. The Altes Museum was built between 1823 and 1830 and is one of the most important works of neoclassical architecture in the world. The museum houses the Collection of Classical Antiquities from the Greeks, Romans and Etruscans. It is located on Museum Island which includes 4 other museums, that we get to visit with the museum pass, oh joy! Unfortunately I'm not a big museum person, I hate to say it but history artifacts are not my favorite thing so while josh looks around at everything, I look at things too and then find a bench to wait for him to finish. He loves museums and finds everything interesting or at least likes taking pictures of things that he says will be "useful" in the future. The coolest part of this museum was the large rotunda that showcased an array of ancient sculptures and was clearly inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
Next museum we visited was Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), inaugurated in 1876, this museum showcases collections of Neoclassical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork from the 19th century. Then we visited the Neues Museum, which was constructed between 1843 and 1855. This building, along with all the other museums, suffered severe damage in WWII leaving it closed to the public for close to 70 years. Exhibits include ancient Egyptian artifacts, prehistoric and early historic collections, collections of etchings and engravings, plaster casts and it houses the iconic bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti (that you could not take a picture of). I think the museum interiors were much more interesting than the exhibits, with this museum each room had different details and you could tell that they were carefully preserved, but this museum had the worst way-finding, we never knew where to go! Next museum, (and thankfully last, josh could tell that I was getting a tired) was the Pergamon Museum. It was designed and completed between 1910 and 1930 and houses, and best known for, original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus, all consisting of parts transported from Turkey. After we were finished walking around, I was ready to leave Museum Island, I had enough museums to last me for a while, and I wanted to see Berlin, I mean that's what we came here for!
We headed in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate and unfortunately to our findings, there was a protest in front of the gate and a large concert structure on the back side with tour buses and other things that made it impossible to take a decent picture of the gate, kinda depressing. So we walked through the gate to find that there was a street festival with lots of food vendors and several different performers on the stage. We walked away from the festival and headed towards The Victory Column but before reaching it, we sat at a bench and ate a small snack that we took from breakfast this morning to get our energy level back up. Finally we arrived at the monument, which is located in the middle of a busy street, you have to run across the street, avoid the cars and hope you don't get hit...just kidding, there is a underground tunnel that leads you to the center! The Victory Column was designed by Heinrich Strack after 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, by the time it was inaugurated on September 2nd 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue a new purpose (thanks Wikipedia for the history help). Different from the original plans, these later victories in the so-called unification wars inspired the addition of the bronze sculpture of Victoria. Sometimes I wonder why I pay to torture myself but we decided that it would be cool to go to the top so we climbed all 285 spiral stairs and finally got to the top. After walking a lot already for the day, those stairs were painfully hard to climb but the views were great. You could mostly see the park which surrounded the area with a few buildings in the background. Although it was quite claustrophobic because there was so many people up there, we enjoyed the view for a while before heading back down the dreaded stairs.
Before it got dark, we wanted to check out the Holocaust Memorial located near the Brandenburg Gate. This time walked back through the festival, saw a Soviet War Memorial, that was closed because of the festival, which was stupid. While walking, josh wanted to try a German beer so he found a vendor and was able to get a beer and also get a souvenir glass. Then we headed to the memorial which was right around the corner. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consists of a 4.7 acre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The slabs have a consistent width and length but the heights vary. It was a very overwhelming experience, especially when walking through the memorial and all you see are rows and rows of concrete slabs, some as tall as 15 feet. It was also neat to watch the public and how they react to the memorial, some were seating on the slabs, children were jumping around on them and then some people just walked the rows and embraced the loss of life that was portrayed through the slabs that closely related to a cemetery, so sad.
Trying to fit in as much as possible, we headed towards the Checkpoint Charlie even though it was getting dark and along the way, we came across the Topography of Terror site and museum. Although we couldn't see much and it was beginning to drizzle, we could tell that this was an important site and made plans to visit tomorrow. We arrived at Checkpoint Charlie or Checkpoint C which was the name given by the western allies to the best known Berlin Wall cross point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. Although the original checkpoint booth was removed in 1990, a copy of the guard house has been built in its place and is one of Berlin's top tourist attractions with actors that pose for pictures (for a fee) as allied military policemen.
It was time to head in the direction of the hostel and find something to eat for dinner. Finally after much walking, we found a restaurant and ate dinner. The one thing I hate about Europe is that the beer is cheaper than soda and about 3 times the size, its ridiculous!! After dinner, we walked back to the hostel and passed out!! We did a lot of walking today and a lot of sightseeing! Hopefully tomorrow we can explore more about the Berlin Wall and the history behind it before heading back home.
