A Visit to Berlin

This is my first trip to Berlin, a city of many delights. My husband Rick and I bought a three day pass that allowed us to see up to 30 different museums for one price. It was €29 per person, a good value considering all the museums we can see. We went to the Jewish museum and the Spy museum the first day. The second day, we took in the Alte National Gallery (mostly paintings and sculptures) and the Pergamon Museum of classical and Islamic antiquities. Here are some photos I took at the Pergamon.

Pretty amazing place, huh? Here are my photos of some of the art displayed in the Alte National Gallery. It includes a few impressionist pieces.

Unknown artist

By Pierre-Auguste RenoirBy Claude Monet

By Gustave Caillebotte

Here is the outside of the Alte National Gallery, impressive in its own right.

Here are some of the city sights we saw on the way to Museum Island, where the Pergamon, the Alte National Gallery and several other city museums are located.

As noted earlier, on the first day we went to the Jewish museum. This structure was designed to make you feel disorientated, like the Jews felt under Nazi occupation. Most of the exhibits are underground and very stark. Here is one of the exhibits we saw. You can walk on the faces but I didn’t really feel good about doing that.

I am assuming all the different faces are meant to represent those people who suffered and, in many cases, died during the Holocaust. At this museum and one we visited in Cologne last year that explained the Nazi atrocities, I was impressed with the many school groups of young Germans we saw who had come to learn about their history. They are being taught what happened so it hopefully won’t ever happen again.

In most exhibits we saw there of family photos and personal effects, these family members were killed in the holocaust. For example, one exhibit showed a menorah that had been entrusted to a neighbor during the late 1930s. But no immediate family members ever came back to reclaim the sacred item. Instead, it was ultimately donated to the Jewish museum. Here are two exhibit photos taken by my husband.

On the third day of our museum pass we had planned to see the technology museum and the communication museum nearby. But neither Rick nor I had slept well the night before. Like many big cities, Berlin can be noisy, with sirens blaring on a regular basis. So we decided to just rest on the third day. Even so, we got our money’s worth with the pass.

If you come to Berlin, I recommend the three-day museum pass. However, if you also want to see the Reichstag government building, as many tourists do, you have to pre book your visit online, usually 5 or 6 days in advance. We had not known this ahead of time so when we returned to our apartment from the Reichstag and nearby Brandenburg Gate, I tried to book our visit online, as instructed. However, the earliest available date was one day after our Germany vacation ended. Alas, rather than get upset, we just decided we will have to come back to Berlin again another time.