May 5, Pergamon Museum

 Today was supposed to be a rainy day, but it was actually rather hot with a lot of blue sky.

  We took a subway and a bus to Museum Island and used the timed tickets that we got yesterday to get in. It is referred to as similar to the British r Museum, but it is far smaller and much less daunting. It was very enjoyable. We had a coffee on the terrace first as we waited for our time to enter.

    Highlights:

The Processional Way of Babylon - 609-539 BCE under the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar. This is a representation of a processional that was originally 200 yards long and 30 yards wide.

Ishtar Gate. At the end of the Processional is Ishtar Gate. This particular gate is from the smaller gate from the smaller outer wall, but still very very impressive. (The Museum owns a larger gate, but it is too big to install.) 

The tiles at the bottom of the gate/processional way are originals that were brought back in thousands of crates as fragments and then pieced together. In itself, that is amazing. 

Facade of Nebuchadnezzar's Throne Room - two flank the Gate. Again, this is just a slice of the original.

Statue of Weather God, Hadad - Assyrian (775 BCE) It is 10 feet high

The Market Gate of Miletus, Rome 100-200 CE Miletus was a Roman city on the coast of what is now Turkey. This is the largest recreation of any ancient artifact in the world and stands a huge 2 stories tall.

Orpheus Mosaic, also from Miletus

The second floor is devoted to Islamic Art. It includes beautiful carpets, pottery, jewelry, decorated niches with beautiful tiles and calligraphy. There is also a wooden cupola from the Alhambra in Spain. There is a beautiful room from Aleppo decorated with Christian, Arabic, Persian and Jewish traditional designs.

From there we walked back to Friedrichstrasse and ate under the Galeries Lafayette. We also picked up some cheese, bread and blueberries at the ReWe Market. Then - home for a nap.

After a rest, we strolled "our" neighborhood. We can see Checkpoint Charlie from our flat. It is sobering to see photos of the wall and the no-man's land between East and West Berlin.