Europe 2016, Day 5: Berlin

 On my way to breakfast on May 22nd I walked past the New Synagogue.

After figuring out the Berlin subway, I made a journey to the far western portion of Berlin to check out a couple of museums.  One was Museum Berggreun, which had this cool spiral staircase.

Museum Berggreun has a substantial collection of Picassos, including this one called "Dora Maar with Green Fingernails", 1936.  Dora Maar was one of Picasso's mistresses.

I returned to the central part of Berlin in the afternoon to tour the Berlin Wall Memorial. During my senior year in high school I wrote a term paper on Berlin during the time when the city was first divided between east and west. Ever since I've had an interest in Berlin history and this memorial was fascinating. Most of the wall was torn down in the 90s when the city was reunified. Here is one of the last remaining intact sections of the wall.

This portion of the memorial, called "Window of Rememberance," is dedicated to the East Berliners who died while trying to escape to the west.

 Berlin Wall selfie

View of the wall from the roof of the memorial's Visitor's Center.  You can see both the inner wall and outer wall along with a guard tower.

These metal plates trace the route of one of several tunnels dug under the wall. 57 people escaped to the West via this tunnel. 

The image on the building in the background is from a famous video clip showing an East German soldier jumping barbed wire to gain access to West Berlin when the wall was being constructed in 1961.  The rusty rebar in the foreground marks the route of the former wall.

Late in the afternoon I stopped at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.  The memorial consists of over 2500 gravestone-like pillars.

Panorama of the memorial

Another panorama of the memorial taken from a rooftop restaurant across the street where I had dinner.

 From inside the memorial

Prior to sunset, I walked through the huge Tiergarten Park (sort of like New York's Central Park) and stopped to take photos of the Tiergarten's centerpiece: Victory Column.  Barak Obama gave a speech here when he was running for President in 2008.   This was a long day with a lot of walking.  My fitbit told me I walked 14 miles on this day!