A day at the museum - Berlin 9/22

Today the weather seemed conducive to going to see a museum. The day started out a bit cloudy, but with no rain.

We decided to travel to a community to the south of Berlin called Dahlem. It is a cute town, that seems like a combination of residential and University town. We rode a bus from our hotel to Dahlem, about a 20 minute ride. It was a real nice tour of the area. It is real nice to ride ona mass transit system that seems to give real thought to getting people from one place to another. You really can go just about anywhere without a car, often faster than you could drive.

Dahlem U-Bahn Station

We went to the Ethnologisches Museum, which Frommers calls "the greatest ethnological collection on earth, totaling some 500,000 artifacts from all continents". It was truely a very impressive museum, not only from the standpoint of the artifacts they own, but also from the way they are diplayed.

Mayan Artifacts 

Artifacts from the South Pacific

Artifacts from Africa (Linda wouldn't get close to this guy)

We had a great time, and typical of the one problem with a museum in Berlin, there is more than you can see in a day (even if you are willing to spend most of the day trying). We finally reached saturation at about 4:00pm, and headed back to the hotel.

After our internet break we hope to have enough energy to go out and ride the U-Bahn to some of the busier areas and look at the lights of the city.

On another note, the Pope is still following us around. Just as he followed us from Rome to Prague a couple of years ago, today he showed up in Berlin. The good thing is the crowds at the attractions are down as a lot of folks are out Pope viewing.

More pictures from today on Picasa.

We hope you are all doing well,

Stephen & Linda