Monday, June 27, 2011

June 27, 2011: Berlin - University, Dom, Neues

Another day of museum-going for me.

I visited the Cathedral (Dom), a beautiful building, with a rooftop tour route that gave me a great view over the city. They also had an interesting exhibition about the various designs for the cathedral over the ages, with detailed models.

After the Dom I visited another of Berlin's famous museums, the Neues Museum. Evidence of the damage from World War II has been preserved throughout, with bullet holes and patches missing from frescoed walls and ceilings, which gives a fascinating contrast of recent history compared to the ancient items on display.

In the evening we went for dinner with one of Mark's colleagues from the university in Berlin. It was a casual little place, where we sat on an outdoor patio on a more residential street - it felt more like being at a restaurant back home in Toronto than anything we'd experienced in France, and it made me a little homesick. After dinner we took a stroll past one of the nearby preserved palaces, which was lovely at night.

The Dom

A view of nearby green roofs from the top of the Dom

Clever Berliners made a giant heart

A detailed scale model of the Dom, complete with mirror to reflect a view of the domed ceiling

Statues atop the Dom

Damaged walls and pillars inside the Neues

A display of German prosthetic glass eyes from the 1800s

Pair of Ancient Egyptian sculptural hands

One of the museum's most famous artifacts - a calendrical Bronze Age gold hat that enables counting of years, months, days and a a 223-month cycle of lunar eclipses


 Charlottenberg Palace

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