Alright, latest confession. When Marthese said she’d booked us accommodation near Museum Island, in my head I had pictured a more “Australian” island, like Cockatoo Island or even Tasmania, separated by a large body of water and being fairly large. Berlin’s Museum Island is not so inaccessible, sitting nicely in the middle of the Spree River with small bridges connecting it to land, and the surface area is almost entirely covered by smick 19th century buildings. It’s not what I expected, but very sweet nonetheless.

A Museum Island ticket allows you entry to all the museums on a single day, and since this is our last full day in Berlin we decided to make the most of it. We popped into the Bode Museum, a spacious and pleasant collection of sculptures from all over Europe plus some great Byzantine pieces from early Constantinople.

Next up was the Neues Museum, featuring one of the most impressive Ancient Egyptian plunders I’ve ever seen displayed outside of Egypt! Most impressive was the bust of Nefertiti (no photos allowed sadly) but the museum is definitely worth a visit for any Egypt enthusiasts in the area.

Lunch break at one our favourite places (Gambrinus trifft Bacchus) was followed by the busy but remarkable Pergamon Museum. The great Islamic collection upstairs is a treat, but there are three significant jaw-drops to be had on the ground floor. The first, as you enter, is the enormous Ishtar Gate standing there as if ripped from Ancient Babylon days ago. On the other side is the equally humongous 2nd century Roman Market Gate of Miletus. It was rescued from ruin in Turkey and reconstructed in a room in this museum. If that wasn’t enough, stroll into the next room and suddenly you’re in Ancient Greece. The huge Pergamon Altar dates back to the 2nd Century BC, also from modern Turkey, and is a breathtaking glimpse at Ancient Construction, rebuilt in the middle of Berlin. The whole thing is surreal. There is also a huge palace façade nicked from 8th century Jordan upstairs. These Germans know how to steal some big monuments and house em! (To their credit, these were all remarkable findings that were likely to be incinerated by locals salvaging limestone and useful minerals from the ancient ruins had there not been German or British intervention.)

Ishtar Gate – need wider lens

Is this real?

Market Gate of Miletus

Pergamon Altar. Yup.

It was a treat in particular to take in stories of Ancient Babylon and the cultures of Asia Minor, with truckloads of great art and artefacts to admire and an excellent audio guide to fill us in. Combined with the Islamic Art upstairs, this was a refreshing museum to discover in Europe.

Asia Minor artefacts had me struggling to recall my year 9 Ancient History lessons. Rooms of this stuff – so good!

Massive miracles of ancient construction preceded this, but Marthese only got excited for a photo in front of Middle Eastern rugs. (In truth, she just really likes the colour red.)

Last stop was the Alte Nationalgalerie where we breezed through some German artworks from the 17th & 18th centuries, before realising this was our fourth museum of the day and we should get dinner.

“Now THIS is art!”

A few drinks, at dinner, and in our gorgeous private garden, was the perfect way to finish off our honeymoon. Our flight tomorrow is late so we might explore a little more Berlin before the dreadful transit, but this will likely be my last blog about it all. We’re both pretty sad this is nearly over. It’s been amazing.

Dinner. Berliner Wiesse is the drink – local speciality. Comes in green or red. Fairly sure it’s a girl’s drink.

A beer in our own private garden. We’ll miss you, Berlin.

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Alcohol. Harmless and relaxing when consumed on a breezy Berlin evening. But the consequences are soreness and de-motivation the following sunny Berlin morn.

So we just kinda walked. Found ourselves at the memorial for those who were killed by Eastern guards while trying to cross the Berlin Wall. A guardtower stands behind the wall here, showing us what it was like back then. Right beside is a Church of Reconciliation, built on the former location of a Church that was demolished by the East Berlin authorities who saw it as too potent a symbol – a Church separated from its parishioners by only a few hundred metres and a huge wall.

Coffee and juice. And some food. Ah, that’s better. Tez chose to relax back home, and do a little shopping. I walked to Potsdamer Platz, which is not really too essential a destination, but the Sony Centre was an impressive building with fancy glass elevators that provide you with a giddy vertigo as you ascend and descend.

In here is the German Film & TV Museum, which was fantastic and makes me embarrassed that I spoke so highly of the Film Museum in Munich! Well laid out over 3 stories with lots of film clips to watch and an excellent audio guide, the museum featured entire rooms dedicated to Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl. I was very familiar with the former two, but Dietrich was mostly new to me and I hadn’t appreciated just how impressive Riefenstahl’s propoganda films could be – they only showed the 1936 Olympic Games doco she made, perhaps the other work were seen as too controversial for the museum – but it was hugely impressive as a work of cinema! The post-WWII stuff was less interesting, but still a worthwhile undertaking.

Tired. Weather is meant to be bad tomorrow, so we’ll stay in museums. Tonight we’re gonna stay in and watch Sherlock. And I won’t lie, we’ve spent much time watching good & bad TV shows this trip. Because we love it. Honeymooners out.

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 8.

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Our Intrepid Urban Adventures tour of Kreuzberg was yet another excuse for Berlin to convince us to stay. Seriously, Berlin, surely you’re full enough you don’t need two more Aussies taking up space and complaining about the coffee!

It was basically a private tour, Marthese and I being the only guests of lovely guide Juana, a Romanian woman who lives in Kreuzberg. The tour started at the East Side Gallery  – a portion of the Berlin Wall that has been turned into huge canvases for artists.

We ventured across the impressive and totally out of place Oberbaumbruke, a late 19th Century bridge built in the Romantic style.

But as soon as you’re on the other side of the bridge, there are no illusions of Romanticism to be found. Kreuzberg is a bustling community with a vibrant street art scene, loads of funky bars and restaurants and a real sense of multiculturalism. We enjoyed Currywurst (well, I did, again), Turkish roasted nuts and spices, a Turkish meal of dips and meat (which all tasted great but totally different to what we expected) and the tour ended at a typical German bar, with beer. Along the way we soaked up the sights of the neighbourhood, and even popped into a comic shop.

At the base of these buildings is a large Shanty Town made up of mostly homeless people

Currywurst!!

After bidding farewell to Juana, who was super friendly and gave us lots of tips about Berlin, we returned to our area of Hackescher Markt to try some of the hidden local bars. In a graffiti adorned alleyway we discovered an open air cinema and a bar, so we stopped in for some cocktails before heading to the Fire Bar nearby, where we sat and drank on the quiet Berlin street. We’re staying.

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 7.

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Just as I nerded out and listened to the Gabriel Knight 2 soundtrack while on a bus through Bavaria to Neuschwanstein, on the train to Berlin I got pumped by listening to David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy (Low/Heroes/Lodger). And I plan to listen to the 2 Iggy albums they did here too.

So it feels like fate that there is a Bowie exhibition showing at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum right now in Berlin. We booked our tickets and visited this morning, and it was pretty far-out man. Lots of original Bowie costumes (and I mean LOTS), handwritten lyrics, videos, movie props and original artworks (by Bowie himself!) filled the excellent multimedia displays. The location-specific audio guides kept the energy up with regular Bowie tunes. While the exhibition was quite idolatrous and glossed over career weak-points and any mention of his personal life, it was still an awesome way to experience and appreciate the musician/actor/artist’s long and busy career. I’m a happy Bowie fan right now.

This afternoon we’re heading out for a food tour in Kreuzberg thanks to a gift voucher from Shakthi – we can’t wait!

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(Note for Mum and family: Yesterday’s blog was in the wrong spot – it’s further below if you missed it)

Checkpoint Charlie, the major gateway between East & West Berlin during the Cold War, is a site Marthese remembered from her first visit here years ago. We managed to snap a photo at the checkpoint reconstruction before dress-up American troops arrived to pose with tourists. This whole end of town felt trashy and touristy but that still didn’t prepare us for the next bit.

You are entering the McDonald’s Sector

Checkpoint Charlie. Don’t mess with The Tez.

The Checkpoint Charlie Museum is complete and utter shit. Mostly printed out articles plastered on the walls and left slowly peel in the overly lit space since the early 90s, the museum is the most poorly maintained and pathetically curated museum I’ve ever visited. There are moments of interest – some interesting artworks, some stories of East Berlin escape attempts and artefacts that help illustrate them – but these moments are a rarity in this minefield of shit. As you wander aimlessly, squinting to read a faded story on a wall, you realise that the museum has suddenly turned into an anti-communist propaganda machine, celebrating the subsequent accomplishments of NATO and the allies and damning the Soviets and Russians in exhibitions that seem entirely irrelevant to the site. Marthese put it well when she described it as a museum in which no pride has been taken. I would like to describe it as an overpriced piece of shit. Avoid it.

Imagine a dozen rooms covered with these peeling sepia printouts. Thats what you pay 12.50 euros for at the spectacular Checkpoint Charlie Museum.

Sometimes there is an item on display and, if you’re lucky, a high quality plaque like this beside.

Feeling burnt, we walked a few blocks to the free Topography of Terror Museum – which redeemed the entire day. A beautifully presented exhibition of photos and documents, it tells the chilling story of how the National Socialists established their absolute grip on Germany and how the SS enforced the ideals of Hitler and Himmler with astonishing effectiveness. Another sobering space, with the Germans clearly acknowledging their history and their people’s part in one of the darkest times in modern memory. We may visit this museum again tomorrow to take in a bit more.

Outside Topography of Terror – a whole section of the Berlin Wall remains!

Inside the Topography of Terror exhibit

Following The Topopgraphy of Terror’s retelling of the subjugation and murder of European Jews, it felt appropriate to make our next stop the Jewish Museum Berlin. Upon entering you are faced with a zig-zagging maze and some impressive architectural design, creating a representational expression of the European Jewish experience. Embedded in the walls are personal items from murdered WWII Jews and short, effective written pieces beside each. Some impressive artworks before the main exhibition had Marthese and I feeling relieved that this wasn’t another Checkpoint Charlie Museum, but one of the better museums we’d visited. The rest of the Museum told the thousand year story of Jews in Europe, predominantly those in Germany, and it was told with well written text, artefacts, artworks, multimedia and hands-on exhibitions. An extremely well presented museum that made us appreciate how difficult the European experience has been for Jews throughout the ages, but also celebrated their many achievements. The exhibition ends soon after the Second World War, only slightly touching on the modern experience of German Jews and leaving alone the minefield of modern Israel.

The harrowing Fallen Leaves installation

Example of experiential exhibit – early Jewish trader fabrics and spices you can touch and smell.

Overall a good day, despite an annoying hiccup at the start.

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 6.

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Small note of excitement from last night – we had a drink at the Ramones Museum – a small cafe that features live music and more Ramones memorabilia than you can shake black jeans at. Just beside us were photos and notes from Eddie Vedder, David Byrne and other rockers that beer has made me forget – all previous visitors of the museum. Thankyou Marthese for indulging me in a little rock’n’roll geekdom.

The day started at the DDR (German Democratic Republic) Museum, a highly interactive museum that conveys quite clearly what it was like to live in East Germany when it was under Soviet control. Plenty of artefacts, recreations of rooms and exhibition drawers you can pull out and discover tell the story of mostly comfortable lives, framed by firm state control, a lack of resources (16 year waiting list to get a car) and the constant threat of Stasi surveillance. While very informative and fun, the museum also oozed nostalgia for a bygone era, which made me feel slightly uncomfortable and made me want to speak to Germans who lived in a divided Germany and find out how they remember it, and how they view it today.

Marthese engages in a little state surveilance

It’s someone from the Department of Transportation! They say we only have to wait another 6 years for our car!

My intense interrogation of the cardboard man yielded no results. We put him back in his cell.

We then dined by the River Spree at the DDR Restaurant with a menu straight out of the East. Hearty meals, but I’m sure we ate much more than most DDR citizens would have.

Egg Roulade with a view

My dish was called “The Rabbit Imposter”. I don’t know why. Meat loaf (mit Spreewald Gherkins), carrots and mash.

A sudden horde of bikes ride from the East!

A beautiful sunny day, Marthese and I made our way to Mauer Park on Wiebke’s suggestion. Very glad we did! On Sundays, Mauer Park puts on a huge market and thousands of people travel through, listening to the multitude of live musicians and cooking up their own BBQs on the grass. We had a drink and listened to a few street musicians before heading over to an amphitheatre to see the largest Karaoke gathering ever. An Irish host invited local and international volunteers from the crowd to sing, and we were serenaded by over-exuberant extroverts from all over the world. Some of them could even sing! I was sceptical at first, but laughing and singing along to karaoke in such a huge crowd was a lot of fun. Anyone who plans to visit – the karaoke started around 3:30pm, and the bands all kept playing as we snuck away around 5pm. Definitely the place to be in Berlin on a Sunday afternoon.

Mauer Park

Berlin Karaoke

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 5.

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The German History Muesum in Berlin boasts art and artefacts that tell the chronological story of the country from around 100CE – 1994. As exhaustive and impressive as it all was – it made very little sense.

Incredible artefacts from across the ages are almost well arranged, but the layout of the sprawling museum didn’t help us find direction and the poorly written text descriptions confused more than informed. A real shame, as with tighter curation and better writing, this would without a doubt be one of the most impressive narratives on show in Europe. I totally appreciate the challenge and respect the job they’ve done so far, and I doubt I could have done better job with the amount of content the building contained and the complexities of European history – but still, it was often a chore.

Early pinball machine, that also folded into a billiard table and a game with little canons

Napolean’s hat and sword retrieved from Waterloo

After working our way up to 1918 and piecing together what we could (and of course admiring some wonderful artworks and artefacts) we ate for the second time at the excellent Museum Cafe. As we started the final leg of the museum, we stumbled on a film theatre showing images of the entire museum’s collection with voiceover (and English subtitles). The film gave a much clearer overview of German history than the galleries had, and in within the 15 minute duration a number of facts and chronologies we’d been confused about were resolved. Wish we’d started with the film! (It’s located near the start of the 1918-1994 exhibition).

The next part of the museum, running from the rise of the Nazi party through to the separation and eventual reunification of East and West, was much easier to follow, partly because we were already better educated on the subject matter. The Nazi exhibition in particular was honest and moving – everything was presented as factually as you’d expect with a minimum of sentiment, but with a genuine acknowledgement of the atrocities of the regime. It was a sobering exhibit to take in.

Hitler’s globe, complete with a bullet hole through northern Europe

The East/West divide was well presented, and we eventually made it to one of the last items in the museum – a 1990 video showing thousands of Germans gathered at night at the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate reunification by candlelight. While much of the early part of the museum relied on artefacts and artworks, seeing actual photos and video captured in the last Century made everything seem more real, less abstract and inevitably more moving. The video was a beautiful and hopeful conclusion to the main exhibition.

East

West

Marthese says Goodbye, Lenin

Without realising it, we’d stayed almost the entire day in the museum! We checked out a few temporary exhibitions as well, one on WWI, the other on propaganda photography of East Germany (both excellent exhibitions) before calling it quits. Definitely an impressive museum, but we were let down by the promise of a coherent history. Perhaps if we’d used the audio guides, but they seemed more item specific.

Tonight we dine and see live music – hopefully! The sun is still shining bright and the streets of Berlin want us back.

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 4.

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A few nights back we reunited with the Ostermanns, the family Marthese lived with when she studied in Germany at age 15. They’re on holiday here in Berlin, so we got to celebrate Matthias’ birthday dinner with them, and today tagged along on a trip to The Spreewald – a tourist destination popular amongst Germans rather than internationals.

The Spreewald is a forest town around 100km out of Berlin towards the Polish border, and is basically a small rural village built around 200 channels of water. Much like Venice, a boat is necessary to navigate. But unlike Venice’s grand sprawl, the riverside of the Spreewald is sparsely populated with quaint homes, farmhouses and restaurants to cater to the steady stream of tourists.

We spent the day on a small boat being rowed by a cheery German man with a thick Spreewaldian accent giving us occasional and hilarious commentary (I had no idea what he was saying but I laughed when all the Germans laughed). When we weren’t chatting with the Ostermanns, we were drifting tranquilly down the stream as birds and ducks called all around us and the sun broke through the tall trees. Once again, Germany manages to feel like a fairytale.

Our captain: “Have a good day, have a good trip, and if I don’t see you before then, have a good Christmas.”

Wonderful hosts – the Ostermanns

Wiebke & Marthese

Fans of Goodbye Lenin might recognise Spreewald Gherkins, and after trying them I can totally understand why they were the gherkin staple of East Berlin – delicious!

Our lunch stop and best schnitzel I’ve had yet. Schnitzel mit Spargel (asparagus, which is everywhere in Germany at the moment!)

Today was such a treat and the Ostermanns were over-generous hosts who we owe a million favours when they finally make it to Australia. We bid them farewell, except for Wiebke, who joined Marthese for a short shopping spree (no wald) while I snuck off to inhale another currywurst.

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 3.

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One of my pet guilty pleasures is the dreadful rock ballad “Wind of Change” by German heavy metal band The Scorpions. But the title’s sentiment rang particularly true today as we walked through Berlin, a city of dramatically changing landscapes, politics and identities. Our studio apartment is in former East Berlin, and we followed the contrasting architecture (bland utilitarian Eastern apartment Blocks opposite newly constructed shopping complexes) and the friendly Ampelmen on our walk to the Reichstag.

We love you, Ampelman!

Marthese & The Reichstag

For the last time this trip, we fired up Rick Steves’ Europe app and listened as he lectured on the Reichstag’s long history, a memorial to executed dissenting politicians from the Nazi era, and the division of post-war Berlin culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall. We followed the trail of the now removed wall to the Brandenburg Gate, which Marthese says is much smaller than she remembered it 12 years ago. This 18th century triumphal construction has seen the rise of Prussia, the unification of Germany, 2 world wars, division from the west during the cold war, and the eventual blossoming of a renewed Berlin as the nation’s capital again.

Brandenburg Gate

At every step of the walk, we saw Berlin’s constantly evolving identity, and its bold attempts to create a new one. A huge memorial to holocaust victims sits solemnly in the middle of town, while Hitler’s bunker is filled with concrete and marked only with a simple sign in front of a residential block. The whole city feels like it is in a constant state of construction, with new buildings rising and old buildings being restored, all with equal fervour. The side streets show an arts scene of a whole new generation marking out their own Berlin identities.

Holocaust memorial

Site of Hitler’s bunker

We walked some of the major city streets, and popped into the Berlin City Museum for a brief look at the city from the 18th century to the fall of the wall. One of the most memorable parts of the walk was near here, in Bebelplatz, home to Humboldt University where Marx, Engels, Einstein, Bismarck, Hegel, the Brothers Grimm and many more all attended. This square was where the infamous book burnings of 1933 took place, and there is a touching artworks of empty shelves visible through a perspex floor in the centre of the square.

Beneath main strip Unter den Linden, in a train station with tiling unchanged since the 30’s thanks to its disuse during Cold War.

Marthese makes a fine East Berlin wife.

“Mein Gott! My wife will kill me!”

Bebelplatz

Memorial to victims of war

Museum Island took us back in time again, with Wilhelm I’s impressive Berlin Cathedral towering over the Altes Museum, where Hitler gave speeches and rallied troops and citizens in the large square. Heading further into Eastern Berlin territory, we followed the huge TV Tower, the closest thing the communists had to a religious steeple, and appropriately we bumped into Marx and Engels on the way.

Berlin Cathedral

Marx & Engels approve of Marthese’s jacket colour choice

3 bearded men responsible for popular hipster document “The Beard Manifesto”

Time changes everything – clock and TV Tower from Alexanderplatz

The chilly Berlin air drove us home, but the forecast is good for the coming days, so we’ll be out to explore more on tomorrow.

Click here for more photos from Berlin Day 2.

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Guest blog today by my lovely WIFE – Marthese! Enjoy.

Today, on our first full day in Berlin, and faced with cold, wet weather, we did a load of laundry, and bought a pair of shoes. Also of note, I drank 5 cups of chamomile tea.

Even so, I’m having a pretty good day. Berlin is an absolutely marvellous city.

I first came to Berlin as a 15 year old, and had always wanted to come back. I remembered the Ampelmen (special pedestrian crossing lights with cute outlines of men in hats), and the pubs (as I said, I was only 15, but the drinking laws were pretty lax), and the harrowing histories from different points in Germany’s past: ancient queens, the Third Reich and Checkpoint Charlie.

Coming here 12 years later, I love this city even more. Even though we’ve been restricted to pretty mundane activities during the 24 hours since we arrived, every street we walked down to find a laundromat or an ATM has had a great little cafe, art gallery or park.

I think I was worried that Germany was a selfish honeymoon destination – I adore the people, the culture and the language, even though my German is pretty rusty.

Neuschwanstein and Munich breweries laid rest to that concern, and have been further alleviated both by Elias’ discovery of the currywurst (I doubt a day will go by here without him buying some) and the fact that our lovely, quiet apartment is about 5 minutes walk from an ENTIRE ISLAND OF MUSEUMS!!

I can’t wait for the weather to improve so we can go check out some of the more touristy sights. Until then, we’re both really looking forward to spending time with the lovely Ostermann family – my hosts when I first came to this country. We’re meeting them for dinner tonight – I can’t wait!

Hanging out in a Berlin laundromat, being all married and gangsta!