Breugel. Beethoven. Brandenburg. Bier.

Street musician on a Berlin bridge
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Berlin: the BIG city of Germany.  Big.  Like Rome.  Like London.  Paris.  And yet, not a bit like them.  Glamorous.  Challenging.  Stimulating.  Layered -- ancient upon contemporary, horrifying upon glorious.

The Ishtar Gate of Babylon at the Pergamom.  Don't miss it.

Now and then cohabit the same locations, centuries compressed into single street corners.

Bull on the Ishtar Gates at the Pergamom
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But my favorite museum was the Gemaldegallerie.  A gorgeous modern hall featuring the old masters.  We were there first thing in the morning.  Very few folks there.  Long, ample galleries with the greatest of paintings hung at eye level without the usual glare of poor lighting.  You can really see the work, walk right up to it, get a feel for the details, or step way back to take them in from afar.

On the morning we were there Yamaha was sponsoring a piano marathon in the central court of the museum.  So pianists, one after another, were working through their repertoires on a 9 foot concert grand.  Beethoven and Bach, Chopin and Liszt were spilling, echoing, booming through the galleries as we moved from painting to painting. Our own wrenching, Romantic soundtrack.  And we had the place to ourselves.

Breugel detail at the Gemaldegallerie
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We made a point to visit the Jewish Museum.  Its power, for me, lies not in the exhibits.  Rather, the dramatic architecture itself tells a story, leads one through a series of transitions that impart deep feeling.  The Garden of  Exile alone is worth the price of admission.  [Note that our tour through Eastern Europe also took us through the Jewish Quarter in Prague and the Museum of Terror in Budapest.  These two experiences actually eclipsed the Berlin Museum, as acclaimed as it is. We would recommend either or both.]

Study in composition at the Gemaldegallerie
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The Brandenburg Gate disturbs.  Checkpoint Charlie is marvelously kitsch.  We loved the Checkpoint Charlie Museum because it was so passionate, so homemade, so not high-design.  One felt "the people" behind and through it.

It's the little things that stick with me: "Shalom" painted on a window across from Checkpoint Charlie.  The Romany woman singing on a bridge, a stringy, over-the-hill contralto playing an accordion while her little boy hawked her CD.  The weary face of the woman at the Post who sold me "briefmarken," for my postcards.  The flurry of bicycles and baby carriages -- a city full of people (a la New York) raising families without automobiles or suburban mortgages.

In the Garden of Exiles at the Jewish Museum
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In Berlin, now and then cohabit the same locations, centuries compressed into single street corners.  Like all of Europe's great cities, Berlin is what string theorists would call a "multiverse."  As a tourist you trudge through miles and days of astonishing history and culture, more than you can ever take in.  At the same time -- and this is so gratifying -- the very real, lively, evolving life of today's Berlin swirls around you.