Museum Hopper

The second museum I visited on Museum Island was the Neues Museum.  It is just next door to the Pergamon museum.  It was really convenient to just hop next door and this was part of the museum ticket.  The ticket came with recordings in English (asked if I wanted English or Scottish). The museum could easily take all day to visit, but they do highlight the key treasures in their collection on the map.  This is very handy!  The recordings were a bit long, but did seem to highlight key elements. I went to see the Golden Hat and Nefertiti Bust .  How gorgeous!  They would not let you take photos of them.  The Nefertiti Bust was truly phenomenal -- tey still are not quite sure of the purpose of it.  They think it could have been used as a prototype sculpture.   They did have a replica of the Duomo door, which we have seen the real one! Very cool museum -- I wish I had a bit more stamina to see the museum more fully! Times visited...

My last stop in Berlin was Altes Museum  before heading to the airport.  It seemed to complete the trio. What a beautiful museum.  The outside was gorgeous and so iconic.  I did a pretty quick spin through this museum.  They had a number of Roman and Greek art, statues, and frescoes.  I really liked the second floor rotunda.  The artwork was themed around topics e.g. entertainment, the afterlife.   Of the three museums I visited, I think this one was the least interesting to visit.  That being said, I might have, OD-ed on ancient civilizations that day. Times visited: 1 Time in museum: <1 hr Overall: B+

On the first day in Berlin, I rented a bicycle to see the city.  It was also part of the recommended list I received from Simon.   It is a bit outside the city, but well worth the trip.  It is over a path of the wall on the north side of the city.  It has a number of stops with recordings and descriptions of various aspects of life near the wall.  I had not realized how it developed over time as opposed to an insta-great thing in history.  It evolved just like anything else.  I cannot believe how they thought they could just split families like they did.   They have built a look-out to see a simulation of what the wall looked like before it was taken down. Times visited: 1 Time at memorial: 1.5 hrs Overall: A-

On the first day in Berlin, I rented a bicycle to see the city.  It was also part of the recommended list I received from Simon.   It is a bit outside the city, but well worth the trip.  It is over a path of the wall on the north side of the city.  It has a number of stops with recordings and descriptions of various aspects of life near the wall.  I had not realized how it developed over time as opposed to an insta-great thing in history.  It evolved just like anything else.  I cannot believe how they thought they could just split families like they did.   They have built a look-out to see a simulation of what the wall looked like before it was taken down. Times visited: 1 Time at memorial: 1.5 hrs Overall: A-

On the first day in Berlin, I rented a bicycle to see the city.  It was also part of the recommended list I received from Simon.   It is a bit outside the city, but well worth the trip.  It is over a path of the wall on the north side of the city.  It has a number of stops with recordings and descriptions of various aspects of life near the wall.  I had not realized how it developed over time as opposed to an insta-great thing in history.  It evolved just like anything else.  I cannot believe how they thought they could just split families like they did.   They have built a look-out to see a simulation of what the wall looked like before it was taken down. Times visited: 1 Time at memorial: 1.5 hrs Overall: A-

I was in Germany for training almost a month ago.  I added a few extra days on coming in the weekend before.  I decided to check out Berlin!  One of my former bosses was from Berlin and highly recommended coming to the Pergamon.  I understand why!  What a cool museum! It is on Museum Island , which is a concentration of a number of the museums within Berlin.  They had a group ticket, which was a great deal allowing you to get into most of the museums for a great price (particularly since I used my student ID)! This museum has full size (or really large) monuments from ancient civilizations.  The scale was pretty fantastic.  I spent an hour in the museum, which seemed fairly on track with most other visitors. I took some pictures of some of my favorites: I mean -- check out how big the columns are -- that was actually a market.  Curious to see how much of it was real versus imitation. My biggest complaint is that the...