A museum day today in Berlin and there are many and have some pretty amazing exhibits. The cream of crop is the Pergamon which has 3 amazing reconstructions, the Pergamon alter dating back to the 2nd century AD. It is 35 metres wide and 33 metres deep with sculptured friezes showing the battles between the giants and the Greek gods. You walk into the room and it is enormous. The very next room had the market gates of Miletus, a roman city in western Turkey followed by in the very next room the Gates of Ishtar from Babylon from 575 BC. These are spectacular with glazed blue tiles and covered in animal motifs and us 14 metres high and 30 metres wide. It makes you start to wonder about his the Germans acquired these wonders of the ancient world, all in the very early 1900's. But I suppose after the British museum and seeing similar treasures they are no worse than the other old colonial powers.

The other museum we went to had been substantially demolished in bombings but had been renovated and was an amazing building of old and new. It had an Egyptian collection with its crowning glory her bust if Queen Neffertiti which was 3300 years old and was worth the visit alone.

The city is full of memorials and tributes of atonement for Germany's actions during WWII. One comment our guide on our walking tour made was (and he was an American with German and Turkish parents, was that they are needed as much to remind people that this should never happen again, but Germany is the only country who has these memorials of atonement, despite the actions that other nations have taken against other countries and their own civilian population. It is one that I will research but is also a point to think about.

One of my lasting impressions of Berlin will be the enormous number if building projects and cranes in the city. It is shaping up as the capital of Europe and if the building works that are taking place are a measure, it might be heading that way. A very comfortable city that is easy to get around, safe and will be interesting to visit in 5 years to see how different it will be.