To Alexanderplatz And Back Home

From the Galeries Lafayette we turned and walked on through the downtown, past the Ritter store, across Museum Island, to Alexanderplatz, the landmark home of the TV tower, shopping centers, markets, and more, but mostly shopping centers. It was a brilliant early fall Saturday afternoon, and the crowds were out everywhere. Many, many steps, but a fitting last day.

French cathedral (according to Google Lens)

Humboldt Forum, on Museum Island

Workers of the world, unite; but stay within the wall

Wild Matilde's Cafe

St. Nikolai Church, c. 1230

Among the many Little Bear monuments

The Allegory of Science or, the Dude reading the SoCal Bowling
League Rules on "over the line!"

Old City Hall

Rot Rathaus, current city hall

Let the shopping begin!

Also some rescue archaeology (to make way for more shopping
centers)

Street scene (courthouses)

Inside the vast Alexa shopping center, a whole hall devoted to
"young fashion"

Pretzel sandwiches

If there were trees growing out of the asphalt and concrete, you
could call it a bier garten; thousands of people, drinking, shopping
at the craft market, etc.

Another shopping center

Ever more German food; wish we'd stopped here for dinner,
but we had a fridge of food to finish back at the apartment

Passing through Hackescher Martkt and its beautiful station

Galeries Lafayette (!)

Our last exploring/touring day in Berlin was entirely en pied, walking first from our apartment down Chausseestrasse and Friedrichstrasse, across the river, past Unter den Linden, to the Galeries Lafayette department store. In terms of size, it's not KaDeWe, nor is it even close to the grand magasin on Boulevard Haussmann. But hey, it's French, and the food hall was wonderfully French, an island in a sea of kraut and wurst and rye. 

Looking up into the cupola from the ground floor;
sort of reminiscent of the grand cupola at Haussmann,
only not very high and definitely not Art Nouveau

And down to the food hall; sort of reminiscent of the rain vortex
at the Jewel at Changi airport; sort of...in the dry season maybe

But, hey! we're in France!

Sort of

Individual quiche and salad, with little oil bottle

Is Bonne Maman challenging Nutella?

Did not travel well, but, hey!

The moutarde famine continues, even unto Allemagne

But hey!

Pergamon Panorama Museum

Lastly that day we stopped by the Pergemon Panaorama Museum, across the street from the Bode, still on Museum Island. The Panorama thing is a special installation, a colossal panorama of ancient Pergamum on the day in 129CE when Emperor Hadrian visited the city. Developed in 2011 or so, it has been housed in its present building since 2018. Along with the Panorama are a variety of artifacts from the ancient city. It was interesting and impressive, and historically accurate, by our lights, although those accustomed to Disney production values might not be so impressed.

The Panorama fills the cylindrical thing

To best view all 360 degrees, one surmounts the special viewing
tower--we rode the lift

Sacrificial area, appropriately bloody 

And smoky

Sculptor's workshop

Top of the theater--we've been there

Not sure what these folks are up to

VIP box at the theater

Even then, things were covered in scaffolding

In the valley below, the odeon, the circus, and the coliseum, with
awnings extended

Statues painted, as they would have been

Waiting area for future sacrifices

Us, there

Old National Gallery

With specific interests and goals, we made rather short work of the Old National Gallery...

Approaching the Old National Gallery

Josef Danhauser, Liszt at the Piano, 1840; the ladies swooning

Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Twin Portrait of the Brother Grimm,
1855

Caspar David Friedrich, Greifswald Harbor, 1818;
an almost exact contemporary of Turner...wonder
whether they ever met

Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Cathedral by the Water, 1813

The Lenbach Wagner, 1895

Lorenz Gedon, Wagner bust, 1883

Lenbach 's Bismarck, 1884

Max Liebermann, The Flax Spinners in Laren, 1887 

The museum has an entire large hall of French Impressionsists...
Monet's View of Vetheuil sur Seine, 1880 

Manet's In the Conservatory, 1879

Cezanne, Mill on the Couleuvre at Pontoise, 1881 

Renoir, Chesnut Tree in Bloom, 1881

We'd read that the the former Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has an
apartment on Museum Island overlooking the Pergamon; we think
this was it...