Berlin, Journée 3

I woke up early(ish) and headed to Museum Island, to the Pergamon Museum! My tour guide had highly recommended it, so I decided to check it out. The Pergamon was a very different stop in Berlin for me because I mostly went to World War II and Cold War sites/museums. However, the Pergamon covers antiquity, Islamic Art, and the Middle East.

After buying your ticket, the first thing you see when you walk in is the front part of the huge Peragamon Altar, which was excavated in Turkey and then transported all the way to Berlin and reassembled inside the museum. It's really cool to walk up the stairs and see all the statues of gods and mythical creatures up close. It's crazy to think they moved the whole thing from Turkey!¹

The rest of the first part of the museum contains other reconstructed ruins from the Pergamon Altar. Even though I don't know much² about the history around it, I still enjoyed the exhibit.

Next, I saw the Ishtar Gate, which was built all the way back in 575 BC and used to guard the city of Babylon. Oh and it used to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World!³ This exhibit was a lot more colorful than the altar, and I loved the blues and golds. It was really cool to walk down the hall and look at all the mosaics on the walls of the gate.

Lastly, I went to the Islamic Art section, which was also amazing. The tiles and ceramic work are so intricate, it's incredible.

(Actually not sure which part this thing was in, but it's pretty.)

After reluctantly leaving the sweet, sweet air conditioning of the Pergamon, I took the train to the East Side Gallery, which is where a long stretch of the remaining Berlin Wall has been turned into a gallery of graffiti art. Artists from all around the world came to paint a section after the Berlin Wall fell, to symbolize change and a new freedom for the city. 

It was very hot and pretty crowded - I had to awkwardly stand and pretend to fiddle with my camera while I waited for people to pass by so I could take a picture of some of the art. Nonetheless, it was really cool to walk down the wall and see all the different graffiti paintings. They vary a lot, from crazy and colorful and fun, to overtly political, to dark and ominous, to bright and optimistic.

I also saw this cool bridge near the end of the East Side Gallery. There was a rock band playing inside.

Next, I visited the third part of the wall that is still standing. This part was cool because it's in an open grassy area instead of being right on a busy street. There are remnants of the wall and steel poles that show were the outer and inner walls and the death strip were. There's also a memorial to all the people who died trying to escape to the other side of the wall. Across the street, there's a small museum with a viewing platform, so you can take the stairs up and look down at what the walls and a guard tower would have looked like back during the Cold War.

Memorial to people who died trying to cross the wall

I think these represented the signal fence between the inner and outer walls.

Observation Tower

View of the death strip from the tower

Later, when I was walking back to the train station to go home for the night, I stopped to rest near the Brandenburg Gates, and all of a sudden, thousands of roller bladers went by! There were police escorts and music playing, like a big party. I saw a couple roller blading nights like that in France too, so apparently Europeans love roller blades! I couldn't believe how many people were participating, I was sitting there for like ten minutes watching them go by, so I took a video:

À bientôt!

1. Apparently, this is a little controversial nowadays.
2. Okay, anything.

3. I guess it got kicked out though. Burn.