After a delightful breakfast, John and I headed for city bus #200. This took us to the Brandenburg Gate and down the Unter den Linden. From there, we walked to the goal of the day, the new museum, Neues Museum, with the bust of Nefertiti. This is the third of the most coveted items taken from Egypt. We’ve seen the Rosetta Stone in England and the Dendara zodiac in the Louvre, so this was the third thing that we needed to see. 

 What a magnificent gate, built in 1788-1791… maybe in response to world events at the time. This wasn’t a long walk, but we did go all the way to the end of the street, well into East Berlin. 

This is the Brandenburg Gate on Unter den Lindon street, because of the Lindon trees that smell like honeysuckle. Very nice showing for East Berlin. Our big goal for yesterday afternoon was to go to the Neues Museum (New Museum) and see the coveted Egyptian collection and especially the bust of Nefertiti —one of the three items that Egypt would really like to have back in its collection.

Pictures above: The bust of Nefertiti, a standing figure so typical of Egyptian art, and the Bronze Age hat that amazingly worked as both a calendar used by priests. This is the best and most complete example of the four in the world. Pretty cool.

On our way, we visited the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a sober and artistic structure. We walked through a lot of it. Then to our destination for the day. The Neues Museum boasts a fabulous Egyptian collection. We have already been to the collections in the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre, and now here. Egypt has long wanted the return of the Rosetta Stone, the Dendera Zodiac, and the bust of Nefertiti, the only one we haven’t seen yet. So this was in the theme of pilgrimages, having been to two sites already, we are taking an Egyptian break before delving back into the big story of Berlin, which is WWII followed by the Cold War.

Above, the Berlin Zoo, our dinner party, and the East German radio tower with the cross always shining brightly (also known as “The Pope’s Revenge”)

After a terrific walk around the city and treating ourselves to a taxi ride back to the hotel, we had a short rest before our dinner cruise down the Spree River right through the middle of Berlin. We sat at a table with Jane (a golfer from Iowa) and Wary, her football star husband, and Jan and Brian from Briton, England. We had a lovely time talking about the sites and the dinner and protecting our food from seagulls! The light was changing against some familiar buildings from earlier trips around town, so that everything looked perfect.

We exited the bus into a rose garden that led right down to the river. We went east into East Berlin for an hour and a half, turned around, and came back a slightly different way. Along the riverbank, people were barbecuing, walking dogs, or pushing strollers. In contrast to that peace were signs reading “Don’t drop anchor” because of unexploded bombs. They say that unexploded bombs are still found at construction sites in areas that are still being built up after the opening of the wall in 1989. We went along one side of the Museum Island where the Neues Museum is. We went by the Reichstag (the German Parliament), the Berlin Cathedral, and other fabulous site.

After a long day of walking around and eating a lot, we ended the day very happily.