Friday & Saturday - Berlin

9/24 Saturday Berlin

Since we didn't do a blog last night, we will do a double tonight. Today we rode the bus over to Charlottenburg to see the Schloss (Palace)Charlottenburg. We had a great time walking through the Palace and listening to the history of the various monarchs who lived there and built it. It seemed like every new monarch felt obligated to build a new wing.

Charlottenburg

Lunch Break at Schloss (Palace) Charlottenburg 

Schloss (Palace) Charlottenburg

After the palace, we went to the Bröhan Museum which was just across the street. It was a great ccollection of art Art Nouveau and Art Deco objects.

Bröhan Museum

Bröhan Museum

Between the palace and the Bröhan we used up most of the day. We rested for a few minutes at the hotel and then went out to check out the department store across the street. It was intereting to see what people are shoping for in different parts of the world. In some departments like household goods, they seem like they are really into color. It was interesting to see that a lot of the things we made in Germany and not China. In fact, we did not find even one item that was made in China. It looks like their manufacturing jobs seemed to survive.

Karstadt Dept. Store - Linda and the other models.

Karstadt Dept. Store - Color

Karstadt Dept. Store - More color

Karstadt Dept. Store - Lots of floors

We hope you are doing well!

More pictures from Saturday on Picasa.

Stephen and Linda

9/23 Friday Berlin

We woke up to good weather again this morning. We decided to start the day off by riding down to the area where the Turkish Market is held in an area of Berlin called Kreuzberg. It is an area that was not as heavily destroyed during the war, so it still has some of the look and feel of what some call the old Berlin. We like this area and since it was sunny it seemed like a great place to look around while we are waiting for things to open up. It was also a good way to find out which day the Market was going to be held. It is always better to ask locally about things like Farmer's Markets. As it turns out it was Market Day. We got down to where Kottbusserdamm crosses the canal just as the merchants were starting to set up their booths. We walked down the street, found a great little coffee house, and within a 1/2 hour were walking up and down the Turkish Market which was in full swing.

Near the Turkish Market

The Turkish Market

The Turkish Market

Berlin near the Turkish Market

Our next stop was the Musical Instruments Museum near the Kulture Forum and Potsdammer Platz. It is a very nice museum that has not only a lot of old and beautifully preserved examples of most familiar musical instruments, but also a lot of variations that have been invented over the years. For many of the instruments they had exampled of how they sounded on the audio guide. For some of the more exotic instruments, I doubt they could find anyone who knew how to play them.

Harpsichord

Portable Music

Our final stop for the day was the Kunst Gewerbe Museum (or Kunstgewerbemuseum) also in the Kulture Forum and a short walk from the Musical Instruments museum. The museum contains many of the design objects that you would find in everyday life, furniture, pottery, jewelry, and ornaments. It was fascinating to see how the form of these kinds of objects changed with the design styles over the centuries. We were fascinated by several of the different periods, although some of the coolest things were the modern design.

Can't find this at the local stores

Our favorite dresser

We don't anyone that can drink this much beer!

After coming back to the hotel we did the same thing that we did last night, which was to ride the pubic transportation and look at the city lights. Last night we visited Alexander Platz. Tonoght we went back to Potsdammer Platz from there we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and then down the street Unter den Linden.

It was a great day! We hope you are all doing well.

This is a link to more pictures from Friday on Picasa.

Stephen and Linda.