Thursday Night @ Museum Island

Similar to Paris’ free museum Sunday, Berlin offers free admission to many museums on Thursday evenings (but it’s every week, not just once a month), so we headed to Museum Island tonight when Paul was able to get away from work for a bit.  We had initially planned to just go to the Pergamon Museum to see the Ishtar Gate, but since we finished with it pretty quickly, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Altes museum to see the Bust of Queen Nefertiti as well, which was a nice bonus

When we arrived at the Pergamon, we were choked to find out they currently aren’t offering free admission on Thursday evenings because there’s a special exhibit of Greek sculpture taking place.  We decided to pay the 8 euro admission fee since we had made the trip there, and we both felt it was worth the admission price, but it would have been better if it was free! 

The Pergamon houses original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Ishtar Gate of Babylon from the 6th century BC, the Market Gate of Miletus from 120 A.D., and the Great Altar of Pergamon from the 2nd century BC.  All reconstructions contain parts from the original excavations and it was quite impressive to see these massive monuments, even though they’re not the original thing.  Although the Ishtar Gate was the main reason we came to the Pergamon (after seeing it on Rick Steve’s travel show), I was actually more interested in the Altar of Pergamon after listening to the information on the audio guide (which is included in the admission price).  The Altar is huge and as you walk around the room it is in you see many sculptures which tell Greek myth stories, such as the Battle of the Giants, which made the monument a bit more interesting to take a closer look at. 

After following the audio guide through an abbreviated tour of the Pergamon (Paul was getting too restless for me to listen to the full audio guide), we headed over to the Altes museum, where admission was actually free – thank God!  This is one museum I definitely wouldn’t have paid to go into – apart from the bust of Queen Nefertiti there wasn’t much to see and now there’s controversy about whether the bust is the original or not.  If the bust is in fact the original, then it is an impressively well preserved 3,400 year old example of Ancient Egyptian sculpture, but I don’t know what to believe!  Either way, if you planning a visit to the Altes museum, do it on a Thursday night when it’s free so you don’t feel ripped off!  I’ve never gone through an entire museum so fast in my life…