One more day in Berlin, before we take the night train back to Belgium. Fortunately it’s not going to be super hot, there’s even a short drizzle this morning while we’re packing! Ready for check-out, we ask the concierge around nine thirty where we can leave the bike and bags and he replies that we may use the room for the rest of the day, however long we like. That’s easy, we reshuffle some stuff, decide to take the fridge leftovers as a picnic and set out for a stroll. We have one more museum planned this afternoon (with a guided tour, already reserved and paid for). That’s enough culture for one day, after a whole week of it, so we set out to enjoy a walk around the center of town.
I have a pretty good grasp of where we’ve been already, so I set a course along pedestrian zones that should offer some new sights, or even just new angles on sights we’ve already seen this week. We give into temptation when we pass the temporary Pergamon museum with the panorama. There’s advertisements all over the city saying that it will remain open while the Pergamon itself is closed for fourteen (14!) years and we decide to hop in to have a look. Obviously we had not paid good attention, because this is bigger than we realised. The goal is to display the most important pieces of the Pergamon site in Turkey, as well as the recently improved panorama of the site, which gives you a great impression of what this ancient city might have looked like. It’s super interesting to see the statuary, look at the small frieze and read about the history of the excavations in Turkey. It’s not a big space, but nicely organised and we spend an hour there.
Time for lunch! We find a bench by the Spree river, with a view of museum island. We have bread sticks, cherry tomatoes, olives and goat cheese, it’s surprisingly well balanced for a meal made up of leftovers. There’s a procession of panoramic tourist boats passing by, not a queue by any means, but it seems to be a popular attraction. We walk on, first toward the Reichstag, then south towards Gendarmenmarkt. It’s relaxing, with a weekly market at one place, people having breakfast on terraces, a bike caravan protesting for more respect for cyclists, .. It’s a very lively city, even on a Sunday.
One of the things I like so much about it, is that they seem to be relaxed about what to wear in public. Almost everybody wears sneakers and obviously there’s a lot of plain t-shirts and summer shorts, but we also see all back hard rock enthusiasts, punk hair and piercings, yesterday evening we encountered a group of young men obviously going out, one of them wearing a silver speedo and a torso harness of black leather and shiny buckles. Best of all (for me) is that leggings are also perfectly acceptable, for women of any weight, in any length. Since I like to wear short leggings with a men’s shirt or loose cotton t-shirts when the temp goes above 25 deg C, I feel quite at home.
We take a long break at a café near the Gendarmenplatz, have a cookie and talk about plants, history, life in general, just hanging out until our museum appointment at four pm at the Boros collection. It’s a private collection of modern art (after 1990) housed in a World War 2 bunker. The bunker itself has an interesting history (involving Hitler, the Red Army, pineapples and hardcore techno parties) and is the perfect backdrop for the art pieces. Visits are only in guided groups of 12 persons max and since all the English groups were booked full, we resorted to a German tour.
As usual with modern art, some of it is beautiful, some completely baffling, but all of it gets better with context explained by an expert. It’s really hard for me to understand the German, fortunately I’m already a bit familiar with modern art, as well as recent German history. I have to stand close to the guide and watch his mouth (in a completely respectful manner, obviously), but even so I only catch about three quarters of what he’s explaining. I then quickly translate it for mom, while we’re moving to the next room. Definitely worth a visit, but remember to book waaaay up front. No pictures allowed, unfortunately..
When we walk out we’re both exhausted, we’ve walked far today and exercised our intellect in the museum as well, so we decide to call it quits. We pick up a sandwich in the Jannowitzbrücke S-Bahn station, eat it in the apartment and then leave for the station. I and the luggage take a cab – I do enjoy chatting with cab drivers, they often have interesting stories to tell – while mom bikes the 20 minutes across town. We find a well lit but out of the way bench on platform 14 and settle down with a book. It’s a bit after seven, the train is scheduled at eleven but only arrives at half past eleven, the trick is to be zen and go with the flow. My mug of custom mixed M&M’s is almost half empty by this time.
We have a private compartment with comfortable beds and we manage to settle down around midnight. Again I wake up regularly, especially when the train is stopped for some reason.. You’re laying there getting used to the movement and noise and then fall asleep, but it’s the stillness that wakes you. There’s two long stops at each border (Germany-Netherlands and Netherlands-Belgium), are they switching drivers? Locomotives? It’s a mystery. We arrive around a quarter to ten, give a goodbye hug and then go our separate ways. Mom will cycle home and I take a local train. I’m really looking forward to my own shower and bed..
Febe writes 