Berlin Mar 07

checkpoint charlie, berlin

i was in berlin for a weekend meeting in march. i had no notion of what to expect but everyone i talked to said i was going to love it - and i did.

owing to the short time available (less than a day) i did the standard touristy thing. an open top bus tour followed by precision targetting of key sites. so the plan was: marvellous public transport to museum island, walk back, via unter den linden, to checkpoint charlie and the wall.

first stop was the pergamonmuseum. and it is a definite on a must-visit list. the museum is named after the Altar of Pergamon housed in its main hall. this is a knee-weakeningly impressive monument. (unfortunately i didn't have my camera with me just my mobile phone so had to take two shots to fit it in)

pergamon altar, 160BC, pergamon, greece (now bergama, turkey)

the hall also contains friezes from the temple - the preservation is excellent and the detail superb. they represent the battle between giants and the gods. the anatomical detail on the figures is so clear you can see the muscular tension and almost smell the battle.

frieze, giant defeated by athena. pergamon temple.

giant defeated by athena, detail. pergamon temple.

i love issues concerned with scale. the sight of large pieces of architecture inside buildings i find exciting. so the pergamonmuseum was a treat. in addition to the massive altar it also houses the ishtar gate and prosessional way (babylon, 6th century BC) and the temple of athena. my little mobile phone couldn't deal with the immensity of the babylonian gate; i managed to get a small pic of the temple.

temple of athena. 2nd century BC

after the nuseum i wandered back via unter den linden (under the limes). this sia beautiful avenue which runs from the museum island to the brandenburg gate. lined with incredibly beautiful buildings, it includes the opera house several government buildings and embassies.

my journey took me through bebelplatz a square with the opera house on one side and st hedwigs on another. i took a piture of st hedwig's catholic cathederal (sadly, not due to piousness on my part just cos hedwig is harry potter's owl). this square is where, in 1933, ~ 20000 jewish books were burned at the behest of goebbels. it was a stark reminder of the evil that was (and is) in the world. in such a beautiful place it was hard to imagine such ugliness; but there it was.

st hedwig's cathedral. view from bebelplatz

i pressed onwards to friedrichstrasse passing gendarmenmarkt. this is a huge paved area housingthree mainbuildings; a cathederal at either end and a concert hall in the middle. it's a 17th century square named for the regiment gens d'armes who had their stables here.

the french cathederal, gendarmenmarkt

at checkpoint charlie they have a replica of the old guard post (complete with replica sandbags; sorry i didn't get a photo of those). there is a museum at ccc but it was a bit too artsy fartsy for me to undertand (they had an odd style) but the do have some amazing artifacts. items people used used to get out of east berlin. (one lady was smuggled in a marshall speaker in her musician boyfriend's car.) sections of the razor wire and some motion activated machine guns (then even had the bullet-hole-ridden-blood-soaked overalls of some poor unfortunate who didn't make it

checkpointcharlie, friedrichstrasse, berlin

a short distance from checkpoint charlie is a section of preserved wall. it is really grim. pictures show what it looked like at the height of the cold war. lovely west berlin and stark east berlin. dogs patrolled the wall to discourage defectors; that is in addtion to the wires, trenches and machine guns.

remains of the berlin wall.

after that it was a train back to the hotel. i was staying near the zoo and one of the main shopping streets, kurfurtendamm. in breitscheidplatz at the top of that street is the "hollow tooth" church. once a lovely 19th century church it was damanged during the war (along with vast swathes of berlin); they have left the ruins standing as a memorial. it houses a little museum and is def. worth a visit. next door is the "new" church. it has amazing blue glass windows - by day the inside glows blue; by night the interior lights make the whole building glitter

main altar "new" kaiser wilhelm gedachtnis-kirche