The rest of our time in Berlin

Following on from the previous post, on Thursday, armed with our Museum Pass, it was time for more culture. 

First we visited Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart (Museum for Contemporary Art), housed in the former Hamburg Station. Unfortunately it was slightly disappointing. The exhibition of Pop Art – Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, etc – that was promised in our guide books was over, replaced by another exhibit, Capital – Debt, Territory, Utopia. It was still interesting, with a wide range of art fitting the themes from Ancient Egyptian sculpture, Renaissance paintings, some pop art, to modern video pieces, but it wasn’t what we’d expected. Still, it did include Warhol’s Mao and a copy of Uncle $crooge #1 (yes, the comic book). And this:

After a stop for a beer and snack we headed off on the U-Bahn to Deutsches Technikmuseum (German Museum of Technology), a huge museum do using on all sorts of technology, from communications to transport and art. We went to see the collection of trains, from the earliest days of trains in Germany right through to the 1980s. Even Kaiser Wilhelm’s private train car, and a transport carraige from World War II. 

Thursday night we made the obligatory visit to the Hard Rock Cafe, for a short break from German food. Unfortunately their shop was low on a lot of stock, do my t-shirt collection has a hole in it. 

Friday was a very different day. As it was gloriously sunny and warm, we took a long walk through Tiergarten, the huge park in the centre of Berlin. Some of it is quite formal, the rest a mix of open space and densely forested. 

Just out of shot here were several nude sunbathers. 

Having pretty much wandered the length of the park twice, it was time to stop at the Biergarten by the Neuer See (new lake) between Tiergarten and Berlin Zoo. We found this spot on our 2013 visit, but the weather was lousy on they trip, so we wanted to visit again on a sunny afternoon. It was delightful, as was the beer and brezel. 

For our last night in Berlin we dined at Alt-Berliner Biersalon, a 100 year old beer hall and restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. Good German food and beer, plus entertainment from a street mime who would follow people in the street and pull gags on them. 

Saturday it was time to leave our enormous glam-or-ous suite in the Walldorf Astoria, to fly on to Malmö in southern Sweden, to visit our friends Stefan and Raffe.