11 June: Berlin Museums Day

Our goal was to visit the Museuminsel - five museums on an island in Berlin’s river Spree. Two were closed, there were two we wanted particularly to get to:

* the Alte Nationalegalerie (“Old National Gallery”), which is hosting a Kaspar David Friedrich exhibition (remember him from an earlier blog from Hamburg), and

* the Neues Museum, focusing on Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, plus a large Egyptian collection. In particular, I wanted to see the bust of Nefertiti.

Once we got off the subway, we had a bit of a walk, past the reconstructed Prussian Palace - damaged in WWII and later demolished by the East German Government - and a raft of other important looking buildings.

One such was the Berliner Dom, interesting from the outside, so we thought we’d have a look, stood in a queue, cost 20 euro.

Inside, the church was overwhelming, but not in a good way. The was the Prussian King’s church, and it still has the royal box, emblazoned with the Hohenzollern eagle. Not much about Christianity, or compassion for the poor - Jesus got a window, but there seemed no room for Mary. This church is about the power of the ruling dynasty, a bit like St Peter’s in Rome.

At 12 o’clock there was a 20 minute “meditation”, with a magnificent organ playing awful music with supposedly funny bits (“shave & a haircut” Des called it), and a weird sermon about laughing by a female pastor.

Des thought she would do a video, but as she lifted her camera a Frau Troll rushed over: “You can’t do that, it’s against the law, the fine is 50,000 to 70,000 euros. You haff to pay!” she snarled. We left.

Next, the Alte Nationalgalerie, not far away. We walked in a chilling wind, and on arrival saw that there was a queue of about 50 people ahead of us.

What made it worse was that Herr Troll had a policy of one out, let one in, and people who had booked a time slot on line (yes, I should have!) waltzed past us. We stood in the freezing cold & spits of rain for 40 minutes before we finally made it inside.

As we got close to the entrance, we slowly filed past a massive white marble statue: Prometheus chained to his rock with the eagle from the myth. Des was annoyed by the two shapely groupies not in the original. I liked them!

We needed lunch, so went down to the basement: coffee, no food. 😫

Up umpteen flights of marble stairs, the Friedrich exhibition was excellent and wide-ranging. We took a lot of photos.

After an hour or so, and still looking for lunch, we moved across the road to the Neues Museum ( opened 1855). Hooray, a lovely cafe with food - and weak tea my sister Sylvia would have loved. Still, hot and refreshing.

Back several thousand years. The “New” Museum has amazing artefacts from prehistory, working forward through the ages, and celebrating the people’s intellect and skill.

There were several particular highlights, among the many we saw:

* a golden hat nearly 75 cm high made from half a kilo of river gold; absolutely extraordinary, late Bronze Age, circa 1,000 to 800 BC;

* a reconstructed face of a young Neanderthal girl from 50,000 years ago;

* three 3,000 year old storage jars from Troy;

* two modern-looking painted pots, over 5,000 years old; and

* the legendary Nefertiti, arguably the most beautiful woman of all time (until 1948). Believed to have been created in 1345 BC. Photos not allowed, so a stock photo attached.

We could have spent a lot more time in this museum, but by nearly 5pm we were both “museumed out”. Taxi to hotel.

A very worthwhile day, despite the weather and the trolls.Read more