A palace and a bit of a wander, check out my explorations of Berlin!
I went into Berlin knowing that I really wasn’t going to enjoy walking around all that much. That was an understatement. Construction everywhere, traffic, ugly post WWII buildings and two days of horrible weather (honestly, if the weather was just better, it would have been a much nicer visit). Sigh.
It wasn’t all bad. Normally city like Berlin doesn’t really draw me to it. I find them boring. New York City smells just as bad, but at least New York has pizza and Art Deco. WWII really did some major damage, so there’s not much of the old stuff left. But what Berlin does have is museums and that is why I went. Plus, it was an easy place to meet up with a friend I hadn’t seen since 2020.
Charlottenburg Palace (Schloss Charlottenburg) is a located on the western side of Berlin. It’s very easy to reach from central Berlin. Charlottenburg is a stunning Baroque palace built in the 18th century. It did receive some damage during WWII and had to be partly reconstructed. It’s a fairly subdued palace. This is no Versailles, but it is fairly nice. It’s divided into two sections, the Old Palace and the New Palace. The price is pretty reasonable for a combo ticket to both.
Jana Irving It’s virtually impossible to get all of Charlottenburg Palace into one photo.
Jana Irving A fancy wooden hall in the Old Palace.
Jana Irving There was a lot of random porcelain all over the place.
Jana Irving There was even a room dedicated to displaying porcelain.
Jana Irving Giant fancy chapel.
Jana Irving Now for the New Palace, a long wing of the palace.
Jana Irving It was part period rooms and part art gallery.
Jana Irving A little bit of Rococo.
Jana Irving I loved this room.
Jana Irving That’s a lot of the same pattern.
Jana Irving A grand ballroom.
Jana Irving Followed by another grand ballroom.
After exploring Charlottenburg Palace, my friend and I decided to do some exploring in central Berlin. It was a surprisingly nice day, and we walked a lot.
Jana Irving The site of the former Führerbunker. Hitler’s last stand look place in a bunker where this parking lot now is.
Jana Irving Nearby is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Jana Irving The Reichstag Building, the seat of Germany’s Federal Parliament (Bundestag).
Jana Irving Backside of the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor).
Jana Irving Now the front side.
Jana Irving Französischer Dom, a 17th century French church. The famous Gendarmenmarkt on the other side of the church was all torn up. Some sort of renovation.
Jana Irving The Berlin State Library and a statue of King Frederick II of Prussia.
Jana Irving The Humboldt Forum, a reconstructed palace featuring an Asian art museum.
Jana Irving The 19th century Berlin Cathedral. I never ended up going inside because of weird ticketing.
Jana Irving Rotes Rathaus, Berlin’s city hall.
Jana Irving Nikolaiviertel, a neighborhood of restored medieval buildings.
Jana Irving St. Nicholas’ Church Museum, a reconstructed church turned into an event center.
Jana Irving I’m amazed this cute little neighborhood survived the onslaught of modernist buildings.
Jana Irving It’s a very small little area, but it was a bit of a relief from the rest of Berlin.
Jana Irving Berlin’s famous tower, the Berliner Fernsehturm, overlooks the Gothic St. Marienkirche (St. Mary’s Church).
The following two days consisted of a soggy visit to Potsdam and a bunch of museums. I’ll get to Potsdam in the next post, but here is some finds from those museums.
After Potsdam, I visited the Pergamon Museum. I’ve always wanted to visit since I’ve actually been to Pergamon, Turkey. One of the temples ended up in Berlin. That section was closed but I spent the rest of the day inside the museum, while hiding from the torrential rain.
Jana Irving The Ishtar Gate! It comes from Babylonia in modern Iraq. It was first constructed around 575 BCE. This was a smaller frontal section of a double gate. There was an even bigger one behind it.
Jana Irving It was a real treat seeing this gate from Miletus finally. Due to spring flooding at the archaeological site, I wasn’t able to explore much of the original Miletus in Turkey.
Jana Irving The next morning, I started at the Neues Museum, which is full of Egyptian artifacts. Including this gem, the bust of Nefertiti. The museum also has some other pre-historic collections.
Jana Irving The last museum of the day was the Bode Museum, which has Byzantine and Medieval art. It was, however, a pain to get to. Somehow there was a break in the rain, but not the wind, when I was leaving.
Jana Irving It was a fairly nice museum.
Jana Irving A shiny Byzantine mosaic from a church.
Berlin was okay. I can’t say I absolutely hated it. I really did enjoy the museums, just not the weather or walking around. A bunch of the historic buildings that still stand were under renovation or had really annoying ways to buy tickets. I was much more content in the next town.
Check out my next update where I explore a very soggy Potsdam!
or
Start at the beginning of this adventure in Zurich!
