I arrived a day early so I visited some of the museums I knew wouldn't interest here. The Pergemon museum was first on my list, for it's impressive Near East collection. Unfortunately, it was undergoing renovations and one of the main attractions was not on display. The Ishtar gate was completely worth the admissions price though. And I learned something fairly disappointing: once you've been to the actual sites, the museum displays just aren't as impressive any more. The Islamic tiles paled in comparison to Uzbekistan. But still, since I'm not going to Iraq any time soon, seeing this was worth it:
I also went to the Neue Museum, which had an ancient European and Egyptian collection. Seeing the famed Nefertiti head was pretty awesome, to compliment my travels. Seeing the murals of Egyptian temples I'd just visited was fun too.
Fighting a rather bad head cold, I stopped for a mulled wine at a Christmas market on the way home and then huddled down in the warm hotel for the night. It was in a great location, old East Berlin but close to the Brandenberg Gate, just below Under dei Linden Street.
Mom arrived the next day, and we went to our first market, a large one near the hotel. We had schnitzel for lunch there, and wandered between the stalls selling ornaments, food, delicate crafts, and handknits. It was a little more commercial than I'd expected but fun to look. I tried another mulled wine, mom had hot cocoa.
The next day was pouring rain and cold. We took a hop-on, hop-off bus that allowed us to see the sites but stay dry. We toured the Registan, the park, the zoo, and got off to visit the market at Potsdamner Square. We had soup for lunch there in a little chalet. Berlin is a big city, and has a lot of layers of history that seemed to all blend together on the tour.
The following day we left the city for adventures. We took the train to Wittenberg to see the Reformation sites. It's the 500th anniversary this year, which meant a lot of special events has taken place in November. We toured the Martin Luther house, which included his popular school and dining table, as well as original documents from the Reformation. There were several paintings by Lucas Cranach too. We then had an amazing beerhall lunch- pork with gravy and potatoes, yum! Perfect on a cold day. After lunch we saw the two big churches of the Reformation- Luther's congregation and the famous University Cathedral where the 95 Theses were posted. It was very cool to walk the streets of the great minds of the past and see where this huge movement began.
In our final days we visited more markets. We went to the Swedish market, and a big one by the zoo. They were pretty repetitive after a few, which was disappointing. I had expected to get more shopping done there, but only bought a few things.
We did another walking tour of the Brandenberg Gate, former wall, and Memorial to the Murdered Jews which was very sobering. On the last day, we walked down to Checkpoint Charlie. I really liked the outdoor museum atmosphere there, with very informative panels about the history of the Berlin Wall. I wish I'd come here sooner, I think that it would have helped understand some of the other sites in the city.
Overall Berlin was great, but cold. We were mostly doing outdoor activities and were limited to only a few hours before being chilled through. We drank a lot of coffee and hot cocoa to overcome it. I would love to go back when it was warmer to see more of the city.
And that's a wrap! Home for Christmas here I come, then back to warmer climates.
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