We drove by this on the way in. It's called the Siegessaule or Victory Column
This hotel room was pretty normal but it had a really strange picture hanging on the wall.
A really ugly pig. Not quite my type of art, lol.
As we were walking to the bus stop that would take us to the Bundestag/Reichstag, we passed this excavation area. It was pretty cold and rainy and we hadn't eaten yet so we didn't take the time to read the signs, except for the titles.
These are remains of Prussian Pyramids (the black things in the back), a Dominican Monastery, and a Palace Courtyard.
We caught the bus and rode it to the Bundestag/Reichstag. The Bundestag is the lower house of the legislature in Germany. The name of the upper house is Bundesrat. The Reichstag is a building that the Bundestag uses as its meeting place since 1999. The Reichstag used to be the name of the government of the German Empire. The building was first opened in 1894 and was the meeting place of the Reichstag until 1933 when it was damaged in a fire. After WWII, East Germany's headquarters was at a different Palace in East Berlin and West Germany's capital was in Bonn. The Reichstag building wasn't completely restored until after the reunification of Germany in 1990. It was finished in 1999 and became the meeting place of the Bundestag. When we got there, we asked someone who worked there about getting tickets to take a tour but she said that you had to register for a tour 2-3 days in advance, which we didn't know about, so we couldn't go inside.
The front of the Reichstag.
After that, we decided to walk east to see several other sites. The first thing we came to was Brandenburger Gate. During Prussian rule, there were several gates you had to go through to enter Berlin. The Brandenburger Gate is the only gate still remaining. King Frederick William II of Prussia had it built in 1788. It was damaged in WWII and restored from 2000 to 2002.
Brandenburger Tor or Brandenburger Gate.
A statue in one of the side areas of the gate.
A square on one side of the gate. There was some sort of mini-demonstration going on. I don't know what happened to the picture, but Darth Vader was also walking around here.
We decided to head to the remains of the Berlin Wall. As we were crossing a street we noticed a cobblestone line in the pavement. It traces the former course of the wall.
A plaque denoting where the wall was. I don't know why it uploaded in portrait mode, it's in landscape mode in my pictures folder.
A corner of the wall. Daniel had to stand i the middle of the street to get these.
On the way to the Berlin Wall, we passed the Holocaust Memorial. It's a field of concrete rectangular prisms of different sizes arranged in rows. The museum part of the memorial is actually underground. This particular memorial is to the murdered Jews of Europe. I don't imagine there were too many Jews that weren't from Europe. Inside they had lots of photos, a section with writings from actual victims or survivors, a section on families, and an area about concentration camps. We didn't really take pictures inside. It was mainly things to read.
The field of concrete slabs. I think they're called staele.
A long aisle between two tall rows.
There wasn't anything written on them. I don't really get the symbolism of it, but it was neat.
After we walked through the Memorial we continued to the remains of the Berlin Wall. We approached from the west side and then walked to the east side. On the east side there are remains of buildings that used to be by this section of the wall. There's also a museum called Topography of Terror that describes what happened from the 1930's onward. It also has several diagrams showing all the buildings that were used by the Nazi party.
The wall from west side. It looks like all the parts with graffiti have been chipped off as keepsakes.
The wall from the east side.
Remains of part of a hotel that used to be located here. This area would have been the basement I think.
The inside of the museum Topography of Terror was pretty interesting.
Hitler and his people.
Heinrich Himmler is at the top of this web of people. He was the Chief of the German Police. He oversaw the Gestapo (Secret State Police) as well as all the concentration camps. He coordinated the mass murders.
It was past 3 and starting to get dark so we decided to head to the Fernsehturm, or TV Tower. You can go up to an observation level and look down on the city. As we were walking to a bus stop we saw Checkpoint Charlie.
I'm not sure if any of that building is actually part of the original but it's still neat.
The TV Tower from the outside. The Panoramic Observation Floor is 203 meters high.
We did take several pictures from up in the tower but the quality wasn't that great since we were separated by glass. They didn't have an outdoor area to walk on. Here are some of the photos.
An ice rink!
After we finished looking around at the top of the TV tower we had dinner and then went back to the hotel for the night. It had been cold and rainy all day so we were ready to warm up.
We were able to sleep in a little bit on Sunday since nothing opened until 10. Our first stop was the German Historical Museum. This museum tracks the history of Germanic peoples and the country of Germany from 100 B.C. to 1994.
Ancient doctor's tools. I don't know that I would want those used on me.
Bones preserved in a burial.
This is really blurry but I just love these really embellished hand painted books.
Two more books. These may have been made with the printing press and then the embellishments added in by hand.
A really old globe. It's missing the Americas.
I would not want to be hit with this sword. It's made from a Sawfish bill.
This is a mask that doctors would wear when they were treating people during plague times. They could put a sponge soaked in something inside that beak thing and it would supposedly filter the air.
Old money. I think this was from the late 1800s.
Uniforms from WWI.
German money after WWI. The little coin in the lower left corner was equivalent to 1 trillion Marks after the monetary reform. The government had to print all new paper money. The highest denomination went from 1,000 Marks to 1,000,000,000 Marks. Yikes!
Nazi police uniform.
Nazi Propaganda.
Bust of Hitler and a newspaper in the background. I wonder how accurate that 38.3 million really was.
This one also uploaded in portrait when it should be in landscape. These are hair samples Germans used to determine someone's heritage. The tool was used to measure their head or something like that. Really crazy stuff.
A model of the Auschwitz concentration camps gas chamber. In the background is the crematorium.
Churchill, Truman, and Stalin after the war was over.
A sculpture that captures the horrors of the concentration camps.
When we finished the German Historical Museum we headed across a little square to the Berliner Dom or the Berlin Cathedral. This was the most beautiful building we saw in Berlin.The church was built from 1894 to 1905. It was damaged in 1944 and not really repaired until the 1970's, with all repairs and restoration finally being completed in 2002.
The outside of the Cathedral.
The inside of the Cathedral. They still had their Christmas Tree up.
The decorations on the dome. It's hard to tell but there are 8 mosaics depicting the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount.
The organ. The pictures in here came out kind of blurry. :( We couldn't use flash.
There are eight statues around the top of the cathedral. Four are the European reforms of religion and four are territorial lords.
Ceremonial sarcophagi. I think these two have the Electoral Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and his second wife Dorothea.
The pulpit
The Altar. On the far left is an Eagle Lectern. This a replica but the original was made in 1701 and is in the Cathedral Museum.
There was another set of sarcophagi on the side of the Cathedral. This one had the angel of death at the base.
Off of the side of the main church is the Baptism and Matrimonial Chapel. It was much smaller and more intimate.
After looking around inside the Cathedral we were able to climb what felt like a million steps to get to the Dome Walkway. You could walk all the way around the dome and see the entire Berlin Skyline.
The Berlin skyline. You can see the TV Tower and a clock tower on the right. I never did figure out what that building was.
More of the skyline with the river.
One of the smaller domes of the Cathedral.
The stairs. These were actually the ones we took going back down and they were pretty well lit. The staircase going up was so dark and it was pretty twisty with steep steps.
After finishing the dome, we came down to the Crypt. There are 94 burials from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century.
There were lots of smaller coffins as well, but this was the only one that had its own room. I think this was a princess that was never named. I guess she died so soon after birth they never had a chance to give her one.
When we done at the Cathedral it was past lunch time so we headed back to the hotel, got the car and started driving out of the city in the direction of Celle. We knew there was a shopping district on the way out so we decided to look for that. There was also a sight we wanted to see called the Charlottenburg Palace, but it didn't open for tourism until April. After finding a place for lunch, we continued on our way out of the city. We came across a giraffe made out of legos and signs for a Lego Land so we decided to find a place to park and look around a little bit. Turns out we were in the Potsdamer Platz which is more modern square in Berlin. It was completely destroyed during WWII and wasn't fixed up until after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it's had a lot more recent developments. The main thing we saw was the Sony Center.
Some of the buildings in the Sony Center. Turns out we didn't take as many pictures as we thought, lol. We were just kind of walking around and exploring some of the shops below ground.
We finally found the giraffe we had seen from the street. There was a small Lego store just behind this. We couldn't tell if there was an actual Lego Land here or if it was just like a play center for kids. If there was a Lego Land, it must have been underground.
It was around 3:30 or so already so we decided to head back home. Next time we visit Germany, we'll have to make sure to remember to register to see the Reichstag in advance. I'm sure there was plenty more to do in Berlin that we didn't have time for. It has been interesting going to so many places and only having like a day and half to actually explore. It's made for some crazy whirlwind trips. I'm not sure we'll know how to go on a longer vacation after this! If we have more than 2 days we'll have to make sure we space everything out instead running around like crazy people trying to see everything so quickly.
For our last weekend in Germany we're going to be sticking kind of close to Celle. There are a couple of sights to see in Celle and we'll probably check out Hamburg (about an hour and half away) or Hannover to see what we can do there.
This time next week we'll be on our way back to Houston!
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