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Monday, June 1, 2015

Day 4, all day in Berlin

We took the train to Museum Island.  Arriving early, we, unexpectedly, saw the Berliner Dom.  It is hard to describe  how huge and dominating these buildings are.  I went inside.  There was a church service starting in 20 minutes and a choir and orchestra was there warming up.  I walked all around and looked at the ornate crypts of dead kings and queens.  A lot of people were arriving for church.  Unfortunately, we had to be on our way and couldn't stay.



We visited the Pergamun Museum, with ancient gates, statues, and cisterns, reassembled from rubble.  I had been under the impression that they had been plundered from the Middle East, but from what I learned, a lot of work went into finding the pieces and reconstructing them and then getting permission to take them to Germany. 

We went to the Neues Museum, which I assumed would be more Modern Art, since Neues means "new."  "New" refers to the building, which was only recently restored and reopened.  There are ancient collections from Egypt, including the "Bust of Nefertiti."

Next was the Gamaelda Galerie, which means "Paintings Gallery."  This place was full of late medieval and early Renaissance paintings.  We saw the Lucas Cranach paintings that I was so excited to see.  There were also paintings by Durer and Raphael.  It was a lot of Jesus and Mary.  It was amazing to see one of the first paintings that had a background instead of just a black void.  There was another picture of some peasants that really struck me.

Right across the street is the library where one of my favorite films "Wings of Desire" was filmed.

We went to the Museum of Film and Television.  I was pretty tired by this point.

Stopped by the flea market.  Nick got some records.  I had fun looking around.

One cool thing about Berlin, there is an intersection in which all the pedestrians cross at the same time.  All cars stop and everyone crosses either to adjacent corners or even diagonally. It seems so efficient! 

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