Friday, December 14
This was our last day in Berlin and we had a lot of time to make up for. Deborah was finally feeling better. We looked through our list of things to do in town and identified a few that we could squeeze into one day. We were on a mission.
Our first stop was the Altes National Gallery or Old Museum. Ironically it contains works from the 19th century. Like the Neues Museum, it is also located on Museum Island. Built between 1823 and 180 by architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel it was constructed to house the collection of the Prussian royal family. Entry to the museum cost €10.00 / $11.50 per person and that includes an audio guide. Credit cards are accepted.
Museums in Berlin do not allow coats, backpacks or large bags inside. Sometimes you can leave your stuff at a coat check facility. They’re free to use. They also have lockers that require you to enter a one or two Euro coin. When you return you put the key in the locker, turn the key and voila – your coin is returned to you. We were shocked and delighted the first time this happened to us. (we prefer to use lockers over coat checks because we can usually get in and out much faster that way).
Upon entering the first room we were taken aback. Right in front of us were several large marble sculptures that we instantly recognized from our trip to Charlottenburg Palace. It quickly became apparent that these were much higher quality than the ones we had seen previously – these were the originals. We liked them even more. We also found two sculptures from a sculptor that we’d first discovered in Rome over a year ago: Canova. We’re always delighted to see his works.
(Pan Comforting Psyche by Begas, 1857)
The museum has a large collection of paintings. Each room holds works from a single artist. In several cases artists have several rooms allocated to themselves. Most of the works on the first floor were from little known 19th century German painters. The audio guides normally highlighted two paintings in each room. Given that we had a lot of things on our plate this day we decided to skip some of the descriptions. The funny thing is that the paintings that the audio guides highlighted were rarely the ones we favored in that room. In spite of the fact that we’d never heard of many of these artists we found quite a few that were to our liking.
(The Isle of the Dead by Böcklin, 1883)
The second floor had more of the types of works that we’d expected to see and quite a few wonderful sculptures as well. We saw a number of landscapes by Constable, sculptures by Rodin, paintings by Renoir, Monet, Manet and even a van Gogh. Fittingly, there was even a room dedicated to Schenkel, who had designed the museum building.
We spent about 2.5 hours there and had a wonderful time. It’s definitely one of the best museums we’ve seen since we started traveling over a year ago.
We had lunch at a Nordsee restaurant that was just a few blocks away. Never heard of Nordsee? We’ve seen them in Budapest and all over Germany. They’re great. They’re a cafeteria style restaurant. They have a variety of fresh fish (baked, fried, with sauces, etc.) great sides and their prices are very reasonable. We had baked salmon that came in a cheese sauce on a bed of spinach, a huge piece of fried cod and a side of pan fried potatoes and onions for €25.00 / $28.75. We usually get the fried shrimp. They’re very good.
Next we were off to Saint Mary’s Church near Alexanderplatz. Every Thursday and Friday they have free organ concerts. We’re always up for a good organ concert and, at the very least, it was a good place to rest our weary legs before our next planned activity.
The church is in the Gothic style. At 1:30 pm, when the concert should have started, we heard an announcement that said that if we wanted to we could view the concert from the organ loft. We jumped at the opportunity.
The organist had a few introductory words and then proceeded to give us some idea of how the organ sounded by improvising some Baroque style music. The sound of the organ was loud, pure and clean. It was delightful. For the next hour or so the organist went into excruciating detail on how the organ was constructed, how it creates sounds and she demonstrated every single stop one at a time. It was actually a great lecture but we thought we would be hearing a concert. Apparently this organ, which dated from 1722 and still had 30% of its original pipes, had undergone a complete restoration a few years ago. It was in perfect mechanical health and spoke instantly at the press of a key. The organist wrapped up the lecture by demonstrating some of the organ’s newer features by playing some Romantic era music. As we left she encouraged us to donate money for the maintenance of the organ and said that, “it would make the organ happy”. We love to see an organ smile. 😉
From Alexanderplatz we took a train and a bus to get back to Charlottenburg. This time we planned to see Museum Berggruen. Cost of entry was €12.00 / $13.80 per person. Credit cards are accepted.
Heinz Berggruen was an avid collector of modern art. During his lifetime he amassed a staggeringly large collection of Picassos and Klees as well as works from other famous artists. In 1990 he lent his collection to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. In December of 2000 he sold the collection to the PCHF for the token price of 253 million marks (it was said to be worth about 1.5 billion marks at that time). He continued to support the museum by providing additional works from his personal collection and even purchased new ones at auction. After his death his family continued to support the museum in that same manner.
(In the Studio at Nice by Matisse, 1929)
Many of the works displayed in the museum were stolen from private collectors during World War II. Virtually every work has a lengthy description of its provenance and how it came to be in the possession of Mr. Berggruen. Even today German museums have been accused of displaying works that should have been repatriated and this museum seems intent on getting in front of any potential issues.
By far Picasso is the most well resented artist with numerous paintings, sketches, etchings and sculptures. The museum also has a huge number of drawings by Klee. If you love these artists’ work then you absolutely can’t miss seeing this museum.
(Man Seated at a Table by Picasso, 1916)
For dinner we jumped at our last chance to have one last bratwurst and one last glühwein at the Christmas Fair at Charlottenburg Palace. Oh well, we hear the food in Greece is pretty good too!😋
Distance walked: 7.2 miles