Berlin

I’m a bit slow about blogging some of our trips. About a month ago we took a weekend trip to Berlin. It is only about an hour and half train ride from Hildesheim. Tom took a Friday off and we had a nice little get away. When we arrived, we stored our bags at the train station and walked to the Reichstag, the parliament building. Then we walked to the Brandenburg Gate, the huge colonnade that is the icon of Berlin. It was built in 1788 and modeled after the entrance to the Acropolis. When the Berlin Wall went up, it was located in East Berlin.

We took a few pictures then walked down the street through the Tiergarten. We stopped at the Siegessaule, or Triumphal Column. It is a huge column commemorating the victory the Prusso-Danish war of 1864. It originally was in front of the Reichstag building but was moved to the center of the platz by the Nazi’s in 1938. After the war, the French covered some of the frieze’s on the column with granite slabs because they didn’t like how they were portrayed. They didn’t take the granite off for about 30 years.

After walking through the garden, we walked to the Bendler Block. It was the headquarters of the German Army during WWII. If you have seen the movie Valkyrie, you may recall what happened there. It was where the group of officers that planned the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944. When the attempt failed, Claus von Staffenberg and all his conspirators were quickly arrested and shot in the Bendlerblock courtyard that night. Now there is a wreath and memorial to the men in the courtyard where they died.

From the Bendlerblock, we walked to the Potsdamer Platz. We passed the gold Phiharmonic hall and went to the Gemaldegalerie, a huge art museum. We saw famous paintings by Botticelli, Vermeer, Watteau, Rembrandt, etc. After the museum, we walked back to the train station to get our bags and head to the hotel.

Saturday was our museum day. We had bought a Museum pass that got us into all of the museums in Berlin. Luckily, most were located together on Museum Island. Since we had a pass, we could just go in and see the things we wanted to see rather than feeling guilty about not staying to see everything. It was perfect. Before we went into our first museum, we stopped by the Berliner Dom. It is a gorgeous baroque church. We didn’t want to pay to go inside, so we just took some pictures. They had a huge lawn out in front and Ainsley loved running around on it. Later this would be a sanctuary for her after every museum.

The first museum we went into was the Altes Museum (Old Museum). It held Egyptian and Roman antiquities. The main exhibit we wanted to see was the Hildesheimer treasure. It is the largest collection of Roman silver found outside the Roman Empire. In 1868, it was found by Prussian soldiers in a hill right here in Hildesheim. No one knows how the silver got there or why. Hildesheim was not part of the Roman empire. It has been dated to the first century AD. It is believed to be a table service of a Roman commander.

Hidesheim Treausure

After seeing the treasure, we let Ainsley run around the grass for a few minutes. Then we headed next door to the Alte Naitonalgalerie an art museum. We had some lunch at Subway a block away then we went into the Neus Museum which held more Egyptian art. The treasure there is the sculpted head of Nefertiti. It is the famous bust that was used for all her portraits.

Next we headed to the Pergamonnmuseum. This museum is famous for its reconstruction of fragments of ancient towns. We saw the Pergamon Alter which is a huge temple rebuilt in the museum. Next we saw the Market Gate from Miletus (120 AD) from a town in Asia Minor. Then we saw the Ishtar Gate from Babylon. This was really cool. It is a huge blue gate from the 6^th century.

Ishtar Gate

Pergamon temple

After the Pergamon, we were really “Musuem’d out” The hard thing was, they clearly don’t get a lot of kids at these museums. They must have a policy that if kids come in, they follow them like hawks. We felt like criminals in every museum because they tailed us the entire time. We kept Ainsley on a pretty tight leash, we made her hold onto the stroller handle the whole time. We didn’t let her run around or make noise. She was really well behaved and yet, the guards acted like she was going to break all the famous items. By the last museum, we were really annoyed. The final straw was when I let Ainsley climb up the stairs of the Pergamon temple to meet Tom at the top. I had the stroller at the bottom and so I couldn’t climb the stairs with her. She held onto the railing the whole time and quietly walked up. A guard at the top yelled at her and me because I wasn’t accompanying her. He then made a point to come down all the stairs and yell at me again. Of course it was in German, but I could tell he thought I was just letting her play on the steps. Which we weren’t. We were mad and so left immediately after. Last weekend when we went to London, we went to at least three museums….never once did we get followed around by guards. It was night/day difference.

After the museums, we walked through the Alexanderplatz to the Fernsehturm, the television tower. The locals call it the “toothpick.” It is the tallest structure in the city at 1,197 feet tall. They have an observation deck at the top. It was dusk when we got there and we thought it would be a nice view of the city. But by the time we got through the line and went up the elevators it was dark. We didn’t have much a view.

On Sunday morning, we went to Checkpoint Charlie. When the Berlin wall was up, this is the notorious border crossing between the American and Soviet sectors of the city. Tom’s mom visited Berlin while the wall was up and she told us stories about going through the border crossing. It sounded intense. It is crazy to think that this beautiful city was once divided in half. She said there was a huge difference between East and West Berlin. From Checkpoint Charlie, they have a big wall of pictures and information that you can read about what it was like during the division of the city. We read it as headed down the street to where there is still a small portion of the wall standing. It was about 15 feet tall. Throughout the rest of the city they have a brick inlay in the street to show you where the wall used to run.



After seeing the wall, we walked back through the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate. Prior to our trip to Berlin, Tom was reading a book called “The Garden of Beasts.” It was a book about the US Ambassador to Germany who lived in Berlin in the 1930s during the rise of the Nazis. He said it was really interesting and gave him a better understanding about the war and life in Germany at the time. There was a café that was mentioned and so we stopped at Potsdamer Platz to see where it was located. We took a few minutes to let Ainsley play at a statue then headed back to the Brandenburg Gate. The first time we were there, we didn’t realize the US embassy was right next door and we wanted to see it. From the Tor, we walked down Unter de Linten street. We stopped and got a small souvenir for Ainsley. She picked out a keychain of a busty girl in a dirndil. It was pretty funny….that’s why you don’t let three year olds pick out their own souvenir. (Sadly it has broken twice already and had to be superglued back together.) She named her Louisa after the blond girl in Sound of Music. Afterwards, Ainsley and I stopped at the playground in front of our hotel and played for a few minutes while Tom checked out of the hotel. Ainsley had fun burying Louisa in the sand. Then we headed back to the train station, grabbed a Doner sandwich for lunch, and caught the train back to Hildesheim. It was a great trip. We loved Berlin and hope to go back one more time before we leave in July.

Doner, our favorite German fast food meal. It is kebab meat on a roll with cabbage, lettuce, tomato, yogurt sauce, and curry sauce. So tasty!