John's great wish in Berlin was to see the famous Ishtar Gate-- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And here he is, looking the complete tourist. The Ishtar Gate is one of the two great attractions of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin-- the other being the Pergamon Altar. The Pergamon Altar is such a monumental construction, even in its modified form in the museum, that I hesitated to photograph it. Better to read about it and see some pictures here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar.
Political correctness leads one to question why these two beautiful wonders of the past are in Berlin rather than in their places of origin. In the case of the Pergamon, German archeologists discovered it in Turkey
where the altar was being used as a quarry and some of the marble was being burned for lime. They were able to save thousands of fragments of the altar and the famous frieze that surrounded it.
The Ishtar Gate was constructed about 575 BC. It was the eighth gate to the city of Babylon. I could go on and on about this wonderful thing but as above, better to read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_gate. The original double gate led to the Processional Way along which were 120 lions. Only a few of these lions are in Berlin-- the rest are in other museums around the world.
There is something wonderful about this photo-- albeit blurry, the woman's walk seems to echo that of the lion.
The next part of the day was far less successful. We decided to go to the German History Museum-- not my first choice but.... As it turned out it was a perfect inducer of museum fatigue. It was expensive so it seemed that one needed to spend a good amount of time there. It was huge, massive and totally overwhelming so all I wanted to do was get out. It was all about wars and princes and armor and politics with nothing about peasants and farmers and family life. Too bad!
Our next adventure had better results. We decided to try to find the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, one of Berlin's most famous landmarks. Gathering our courage we went by bus. We quickly learned that it had been a mistake to go up to the top as it was unbearably hot and we did not know exactly where to get off but that problem was solved when we reached the end of the line and had no choice. From there we found our way without much blundering about. The Kaiser Wilhelm church was badly damaged by bombs in 1943 and has been neither restored or removed. The surviving west tower is now being stabilized and was so covered with an opaque scaffolding that no picture was possible. The main floor is open, however, and provided a far more moving experience than the DHM. Bits of the original decoration can be seen as well as a ghostly spiral staircase clinging to a wall. The photographs and documents in the memorial hall provided a moving history of the church and its destruction-- caused as a sign in the exhibit bluntly stated "by insane politics".
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