Day 6: Museum Frenzy!

I'm going to keep it relatively short today, as most of the day was spent on Museumsinsel, and area of 5 museums.

I started walking towards the area, passing by the university on the way. Babelplatz was closed down for construction, so I couldn't get any pictures. I stopped at the courtyard for a few pictures of the Berlin Cathedral and snapped a few photos of Altes Museum before I went in. The Altes Museum consisted of 2 floors of artifacts. The main floor covered Mycenaean and Greek artifacts, including a coin history section and a treasury. The second floor covered Roman and Etruscan artifacts. It took me about 2 hours to cover, albeit a bit rushed. While the exhibit was not as mindblowing as some of the other museums, it's definitely worth a visit.

I skipped lunch again, putting my big breakfast to good use, and pushed on to the Altes Nationalgalerie. The art gallery was 3 floors in height, and was filled with art from different eras and countries. There was plenty of art by German artists, such as Adolf Menzel, whose art focused on Frederick the Great, one of the German emperors. There was also a piece showing Bach's son playing the harpsichord. There were also a few pieces of Monet on one of the floors and they're beautiful! Somehow, the gallery only took me just over 1.5 hours, which is a pretty good pace. I sort of rushed a bit though.

The main steps of the Pergamon Museum was a higlight of the day. I had to buy a postcard for this, as there were so many people sitting that it was impossible to get a decent picture. There was also a statue of Athena that was pretty nice. Included were also exhibits on Babylon and Islam. The museum was 2 floors, but was not get big in area, as an entire win was closed off for a special exhibition.

The Bode Museum was mostly statues. There was some art hanging around, but the focus was three-dimensional objects. Sculptures were grouped by area and era. The pieces came from all over Europe, including France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, etc. It was then divided into eras such as Baroque, Classical, Renaissance, Rococó, etc. There was still a bit of Biblical art mixed in there, but it was not as prominent. There was also a coin collection and a treasury of cathedral items that were recovered. There was a 1 million dollar Canadian coin there! The museum was 2 floors plus a small basement in size and required about 1.5 hours to complete.

I saved the Neues Museum for last because it was open until 10pm, but I was done by 8:30pm. There were 4 floors in total, although the top one was closed for renovations. There was a bit on a German archaeologist called Schliemann, who tried to prove the Homer epics to be based on reality, particularly the Trojan Horse story. A majority of the museum focused on Egyptian artifacts, and the most famous piece was the bust of Queen Nefartiti. I couldn't get a picture of it, as that section was restricted to no pictures. I also forgot to buy a postcard. Darnit! Just look on Google Images! There was also a papyrus collection and German and Roman artifacts for viewing. It took me about 2 hours to go through the 3 floors that were open.

For dinner, I ate at a restaurant called Garnison Brau. I had their fried chicken breast, Venetian style, which came with a potato-cucumbet salad, which was excellent. Also included was a salad and their homemade cranberry sauce. I ordered their Spatburgunder, aka Pinot Noir. It was decent, but now that I'm having Berliner Pilsner beer back at the hostel, I think my recommendation for Berlin is to stick with beer.

Tomorrow, I'll be visiting the Charlottenburg Palace in the morning, so look out for good pics! It's also laundry night tomorrow, so I gotta get back early. Yuck.