Europe Tour - Day 5 - Berlin

[smuncky]

This was the first full day spent in Berlin so we intended to see a lot.

We took the S-Bahn down to Treptow Park. It's a beautifully built and maintained memorial but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The main gateway to the park.

Inside the monument.

Looking up in that same space.

There are many of these carved stone sarcophagi. Enscribed are quotes by Stalin in German on one side and Russian on the other. They also depict scenes from the start of the war and until the end.

Heading out back to Alexanderplatz.

The famous fountains are there. Unfortuently, there was some sort of Finnish festival setting up shops and such which prevented me from taking some good photos.

Some new construction on Alexplatz with a streetcar coming in through the square.

The famous world clock.

Toronto isn't on there

Going into the Alexa shopping center.

Artwork on the outside wall.

Your typical shopping mall. However, the food court was quite classy.

Very well hidden parking garage.

Detail on that parking garage.

Nikolaiviertel area.

Berliner Dom in the distance.

Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse.

Inside Sea Life Berlin. Small but interesting aquarium.

Hall of mirrors.

This is the AquaDom. It's a 25 meter tall cylindrical acrylic glass aquarium with built-in transparent elevator. On the other side is the Radisson Hotel. Very cool experience.

We went back to the old Cloister area and ate there. Lots of good restaurants there with very reasonable prices.

This is now in the Kreuzberg area. Very residential and very different from Toronto.

The older part of the Jewish Museum.

And the newer, more famous part. There are some interesting spaces in the museum and the exhibits are arranged interestingly. However, I couldn't fight the feeling that if I was magically transplated into the ROM, I wouldn't even know it because there are way to many similarities in the design.

Walking towards Museum Island.

The Pergamon Museum.

Pergamon Altar

Market Gate of Miletus

Ishtar Gate

Now we're walking along the Spree towards the Reichstag

Inside the new dome designed by Foster.

View of Berlin Hauptbahnhof from the roof terrace. The whole city can be viewed from this terrace.

After being exhausted from walking the whole day, we went to see the Brandenburg Gates as our last site of the day.

Next up is the Bauhaus, Potsdam and Sanssouci, Potsdamer Platz, Europa Center and Kurfurstendamm, and Berlin Hauptbahnhof in more detail.

 

[Mustapha]

Can't thank you enough smuncky. Great tour and photos. As a student of the Battle for Berlin these pics have a special resonance with me.

 

[allabootmatt]

Thanks for some great shots. Did you get a chance to visit the new-ish Holocaust memorial behind the Brandenburg Gate? The similarities between it and the garden at Libeskind's Jewish Museum are sufficient to make it quite obvious why he and Peter Eisenmann are, er, no longer on speaking terms.

 

[smuncky]

Thanks for some great shots. Did you get a chance to visit the new-ish Holocaust memorial behind the Brandenburg Gate? The similarities between it and the garden at Libeskind's Jewish Museum are sufficient to make it quite obvious why he and Peter Eisenmann are, er, no longer on speaking terms.

unfortuently, i did not. we were quite close to the memorial when we saw the gates at night, but since it was something like 11:30pm, we wanted to get to our hotel already. the next day we were short on time because of our train departure.