The Pergamon Museum is Berlin's most famous museum. It's named after its most prized possession, the Pergamon Altar, which together with its frieze is a magnificent masterpiece of Hellenistic art of the 2nd century B.C. and certainly one of the wonders of the ancient world. Essentially a museum of architectrue and antiquities, the Pergamon contains the impressive Roman Market Gate of Milet, as well as the dazzling Babylonian Processional Way leading to the Gate of Ishtar, created during Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Greek and Roman sculpture and Islamic art are also on display, including the facade of Mshatta Palace from Jordan as seen here.
Entrance to Potsdam, site of the colossal palace of Frederick the Great.
Berliner Dom, the most striking structure on Museum Island. The cathedral was built in the early 1800s in Italian Renaissance style to serve as the central church for Prussian Protestants and as the court church and primary burial site of the Hohenzollern imperial family. The Sauer organ with more than 7000 pipes and the ornate ceremonial coffins of Frederick I and his wife, Sophie Charlotte can be found inside. The 19th-century cathedral with its enormous green copper dome is one of the great ecclesiastical buildings in Germany. Next to the cathedral standing taller is the Fernsehturm.
Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, the Wall Museum, is nearby this once the most frequently used border crossing into East Berlin. The huge sign below the poster of the Russian soldier reads: "You are leaving the American sector." The history of the events leading up to the Wall's construction can be followed in the museum. The collection also documents the numerous successful as well as failed attempts of East Berliners to escape to the West.
Schloss Charlottenburg - Berlin's most beautiful Baroque building. It was built in 1696 for Sophia Charlotte, the very popular wife of the future king of Prussia, Frederick I. Later it was expanded and served as the summer residence of the Prussian kings, the Hohenzollerns.
AlliertenMuseum, located in the heart of the former U.S. military sector,
chronicles the nearly 50 years (1945 - 1994) of Allied occupation of Berlin. The
cargo plane you see here was used during the Berlin Airlift. With its extensive
records of World War II and the division of Berlin, AlliertenMuseum
and Haus am Checkpoint Charlie are the best places to gain an understanding
of what life was like during the Cold War.
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