Berlin, Germany

Berlin is a mixture of historical and modern buildings and great museums.

Nearly matching German and French churches sit across from each other in a square, with the theater in the middle:

German church

Theater

French church

The bear is the mascot of Berlin, so there are bears all over the city: statues, stuffed bears, souvenirs, etc.

Julie and a giant stuffed bear

Phil and the bear

A bear wandering around the Brandenburg Gate

Julie and Phil in front of the Brandenburg Gate

The Reichstag, house of the German parliament

Remains of the Berlin Wall

The other side of the Berlin Wall

A line throughout the city marks where the Berlin Wall used to stand

Phil and Julie divided by the Berlin Wall

The old Berlin city hall and the TV tower

Palace Charlottenburg

The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was bombed during World War II. Berlin decided not to rebuild it, but many of the mosaics on the ceiling and floor have been restored and a new church has been built where one of the church towers once existed.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Mosaic on the ceiling

Mosaic on the floor

The new church is very modern and hexagonal shaped with thousands of small blue windows.

Julie sitting at an outdoor restaurant
We had a German specialty, white asparagus, potatoes, and hollandaise sauce, for lunch.

We went to the Pergamon Museum on Museum Island. Admission to the museum included a headset with great explanations of the exhibits. The first room was a reconstruction of the Greek Pergamon Altar. It contained parts of the relief depicting Greek gods battling giants and monsters. It was very impressive.

The Pergamon Altar

Reliefs on the Pergamon Altar

Phil next to a gigantic statue of Athena

Ishtar Gate from Babylon, Iraq

As we were leaving the museum, it started to pour outside. Luckily, we were right next to the Berlin Cathedral, so we went inside. We walked to the top of the dome and went through the church museum. It gave the history of the design of the building and had several large models of the church and proposed designs. The models even had the paintings and mosaics. We also went down into the crypt, where the kings, queens, and other royalty were buried.

The Berlin Dom (Cathedral)

The dome of the cathedral

Inside the Berlin Cathedral

The organ